The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“I helped take a Syndic battleship at Welfrida, that’s how. That was a lot smaller ship than this thing, and it had a bigger control station than this one.”

“Tanya,” Geary said, “take a look at this.” He also forwarded the image to Captain Smythe. “What do you think?”

Desjani sounded doubtful. “A secondary control station, maybe. That’s not big enough even for the power core of a ship the size of Dauntless.”

Smythe agreed but added something else. “It may be that what we find will all look like secondary control stations. I’ve been watching as the Marines fill in the deck plan on that superbattleship, and I am ever more convinced that the bear-cows avoided using one or two major power sources, instead choosing to use multiple lesser power sources. Maybe that was for backup. Redundancy. Or maybe in a ship of that size it made sense to distribute the power sources rather than run lines all over from one or two sources located in one area.”

“Why didn’t they blow it up?” Geary asked the question again.

“Maybe it didn’t occur to them. Maybe they beat the predators on their world by refusing to give up, instead fighting to the last breath and the last Kick to kill their opponents.” Smythe blinked, his expression twisting. “When you showed me the images of that control room, I saw some of the passageways on that ship. What they’re like now, filled with so many dead. Why would they keep fighting? Why die in a hopeless struggle?”

“I guess they thought they’d die anyway and wanted to go down swinging.” Geary had disliked the bear-cows. No, he had hated them for forcing the fights in the Pandora Star System and here, but he had to feel grudging respect for them as well, just as Desjani did. It was easy to see why they had overrun their world, wiping out all competition.

But that was just one more reason why they couldn’t be allowed to follow this fleet back to human space.

The Marines spread through the superbattleship, breaking down into smaller and smaller forces, wiping out smaller and smaller gatherings of remaining Kicks, who still refused to surrender and attacked until they were killed. Occasionally, a tiny group of bear-cows stampeded away from the Marines, but the moment the aliens hit a dead end, they turned and charged their pursuers.

The human invaders found vast barracks, subdivided by airtight hatches but otherwise sprawling for long distances. Everywhere, there were compartments set up for eating, as if the bear-cows grazed nearly constantly. The Marines found what could only be hospitals, the operating equipment undersized so that the complexes seemed oddly and disturbingly like children’s playrooms. Armories empty of weapons. More control rooms.

Finally, a squad came across the bridge of the superbattleship, a compartment where command seats were backed up by what seemed like stadium seating, as if dozens of spectators routinely watched events there.

“That is so weird,” Desjani said. “What is that about?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Geary replied.

General Carabali called in, professionally deadpan as she made her report. “Organized resistance has ceased aboard the superbattleship, Admiral, but I can’t say it’s safe yet. Not until we’ve gone over it much more carefully. My Marines aboard that ship will remain in a combat footing, and any fleet personnel coming aboard will require Marine escorts.”

“Thank you, General,” Geary said. “Damned good job. My congratulations on your success and my condolences on your losses.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

“Are there any bear-cows still alive?”

“The Kicks fought until they were killed, or if we started to physically overcome them they died. We don’t know if there’s a suicide device on them or in their armor, or if it’s some mental thing. They also slaughtered their unconscious wounded if there seemed a chance of their being captured.”

“Ancestors preserve us.”

Carabali made a face. “If you think about it, Admiral, if you were a cow, and you knew the fate awaiting any of your fellow cows who were captured, then the Kick actions make sense. They were protecting their injured from a fate worse than death. My Marines are searching through the enemy dead for any Kicks who were injured so badly they were rendered unconscious but weren’t subsequently killed by their own comrades to ‘save’ them from us.”

Now Carabali hesitated. “Speaking of the enemy dead . . . Admiral, after any battle there is the matter of enemy remains to address. Our policy on that varied during the war, as you know, even though our opponents were fellow humans. But since you assumed command, we have dealt with remains with all due dignity and respect. But now . . . Admiral, there are so many dead crowding that ship. Long stretches of some passageways are impossible to get through, and there’s a tremendous amount of blood floating around so we don’t dare restart ventilation even if we knew the right controls. What should we do with them?”