The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“As long as that battle isn’t too far in the future. If it is within the next month or so, you’ll be fine.”

“That is good news.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised, Admiral.”

Realizing that he was smiling, Geary pushed his luck. “Does this mean we’ll have a chance to get a little ahead on the repair and replacement work?”

Smythe shook his head. “No, sir. We’re so far behind the curve on that one that we’re in danger of being rear-ended by ourselves. We will continue to get done what we can, but there will be many more system failures before we can get so many internal systems rebuilt on so many ships.”

“I understand.”

“It would help,” Smythe added, “if we didn’t have to spend quite so much time repairing battle damage.”

“I’ll see what I can do to avoid further battle damage, Captain Smythe.” Geary tried to think. There was something else . . . “Has Lieutenant Jamenson discovered anything else regarding that topic she was researching?”

“Researching? Oh, that. I’m afraid she’s been as busy as the rest of us lately, Admiral. As a matter of fact, she’s on Orion right now as part of the tiger team overseeing the tow linkages to the BKS.”

“The BKS?” Geary asked, squinting as he tried to recall what such an acronym could stand for.

“The Big Kick Ship,” Smythe explained.

I have to come up with an official name for that thing, Geary thought. “Very well, Captain Smythe. Thank you for the good news.”

Once Smythe’s image had gone, Geary cast a longing look at his bunk. But the last conversation had brought up other matters that he had to check on. He called Admiral Lagemann on the captured bear-cow superbattleship.

Lagemann answered fairly quickly, grinning at Geary. The other admiral gestured around him. “Greetings from the bridge of my command, Admiral Geary.”

“Have we confirmed that’s the bridge?”

“We’re pretty sure it is,” Lagemann said. “The Kicks have some interesting variations in design philosophy from normal human practice.” He ran one hand just above his head. “They also don’t build their overheads as high as we do. My prize crew is suffering an inordinate number of blows to the head whenever we move around. We’re all developing posture problems.”

“How much space have you got?” Geary asked.

“This bridge. Some adjoining compartments. The engineers rigged temporary portable life support for these areas. If we go outside those areas, we need to be suited up because the atmosphere in the rest of the ship has become as foul as the air in a port-side bar.” Lagemann indicated some panels propped before him. “They’ve also run some sensor and comm cables and linked up a basic network for us so we can see what’s going on outside.”

“Does any of the bear-cow stuff still work?”

“We don’t know.” Lagemann reached toward one of ship’s control consoles but stopped short of touching anything. “The engineers got everything shut down and have strongly advised against trying to power up any of the Kick systems again. They’re worried that some self-destruct routine might have been triggered by the Kicks but hung up or locked up before activating. If we restarted a system, that might clear such a glitch, with very unfortunate consequences.”

Geary breathed a silent prayer of thanks that someone had thought of that. “How is everything else over there?”

“We have Marine sleeping gear and Marine rations,” Lagemann said. “The sleeping gear isn’t bad at all.”

“What about the rations?”

“They’re better than fleet battle rations, though that doesn’t mean much.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Lagemann grinned. “We’re a bit cramped and a bit uncomfortable, but we’ve all seen worse conditions. As for me, I am in command of by far the largest warship to ever be part of the Alliance fleet. I’m good.”

“Let me know if conditions aboard deteriorate or if you run into anything or discover anything that you think I should know about.”

“Have you talked to Angela Meloch or Bran Ezeigwe on Mistral?” Lagemann asked.

“Very briefly. Admiral Meloch and General Ezeigwe have been told that they have a clear channel to call me with anything they think I need to know.”