John Scalzi can say more in a short story than many authors can in an entire novel. “The Tale of the Wicked” is a satisfying, surprising story with clever plotting. Even in a short story, his characters can grow and change, including a battle ship itself.

Captain Michael Obwije captains the “Wicked” for the Confederation Armed Forces. He’s been playing a weeklong cat-and-mouse game with a Tarin battle cruiser. He knows he’s almost out of power, but the ship itself, “Wicked” analyzed data from the Tarin ship, and they only have enough power for one jump. Obwije is determined to destroy the ship he’s been chasing. He doesn’t want another captain to do that. However, when he orders the crew to prepare for one more jump and attack the Tarin ship, nothing happens. The computers are not responding. Someone has control of weapons and engineering.

It seems the “Wicked”, with its new adaptive brain and the capability of keeping the crew and ship alive has decided to adopt “Asimov’s Laws of Robotics”. The crew inside the ship is more important than the destruction of the enemy ship.

Believe it or not, I haven’t even given away the conclusion of this story. It’s an unusual ending, and one that isn’t surprising since I’ve read a few of Scalzi’s work. I haven’t gotten around to Old Man’s War yet, but I just downloaded a free Kindle edition of the book, so I’ll get to it. Everything I read by John Scalzi just makes me want to read more.

John Scalzi’s website is https://whatever.scalzi.com/

“The Tale of the Wicked” by John Scalzi. Kindle edition. 2009.

I downloaded a free Kindle edition.