Valor's Cost
Page 9
She looked around at us and I felt like she put extra weight on her next words, “During drill exercises, that means we are disconnected from what goes on around us. Contingency Response is contingency operations. Our focus has to be on the outside, rather than what's going on here.”
She let out a tense breath, “What that means, is draw information from what's going on around, especially in terms of available assets, but focus in terms of capabilities and response.” She pointed at a news feed that showed a sand storm in the southern hemisphere. “That sand storm could turn into a multi-week gale. It could leave civilians in need of rescue and short on supplies. Cadet Morgan, I want you doing analysis on number of people in that area of operations as well as our ability to lift in supplies or evacuate trapped or isolated people.”
“Ma'am,” he nodded.
“Cadet Anders,” she went on, “there have been protests in the Accadian Farmlands about water rationing for the past six weeks. They haven't petered out as predicted and there's a risk at this point that between the water shortage there and the rising cost of food, we may see the protests escalate into riots. If that's the case, we need to dust off existing riot response deployment plans and queue up who would need to deploy as well as plan for deployment windows, when we need to get people in the air in order to get there in time to shut down any violence before it escalates too far.”
Anders raised a hand, “Ma'am, isn't riot response more of an Enforcer job than something the Militia would do?”
I found myself staring at him in suspicion. That sounded a lot like something Charterer Beckman would say, even if he'd said it respectfully.
“The Enforcers will respond as well, but their focus is going to be enforcing the law, as is their primary purpose. Ours will be to minimize damage and prevent further escalation. Part of our riot response plans include coordination with the Enforcers,” Cadet Lieutenant Commander Aguilera rattled that off without pause. Clearly she'd expected a question like that. “Just as it is involved in almost all of our plans.”
“Cadet Young,” she went on, talking to the woman from Viper Company. “There's been increased seismic activity to the south of Duncan City. Right now it doesn't look serious, but if there's a serious groundquake, we may have a similar tasking to one that Morgan is looking at. We'll be bringing in supplies and evacuating out those in need of help. It's a populous region, so it's going to be intensive. It is also a quake-prone region, so there's four contingency plans already, you just need to update them based on new information, personnel, and equipment.”
She looked at me and quirked an eyebrow, “Cadet Second Class Armstrong, you're my primary assistant.”
That seemed to require a response, “Yes, ma'am.”
“One of the things that we'll be responsible for, if we need to kick one of these response teams out, is local command and control. Normally I will go forward to the site and act as the local Contingency Response Commander, or CRC. If I'm not available, you'll fill that role.” The cadet officer stared at my face as she said that, as if she were gauging my response.
“Roger, ma'am,” I answered, meeting her green eyes with as much confidence as I could muster. The response team would be doing what the Militia team had done at Black Mesa Outpost, coming into a messed up situation and trying to do what they could to normalize it. In fact, if the attack had happened at a different time of year, most importantly not while we were on end of year leave, then the Academy would have been the responding force.
“As long as you understand that,” she gestured at the displays. “You and I will be going through the plans they produce and tweaking and updating. Most of our work is during the drill weekends, but you and I will have work throughout the week, only a few hours a day, but believe me, with everything else, it adds up.”
I thought about all the hours I had to put into studies already, how I'd dropped out of grav-shell racing in the last year, and how busy things looked to be for classes this year. “I can imagine, ma'am.”
“Right, then,” Cadet Lieutenant Commander Aguilera smiled, “let's get on with it.”
***
We'd been at it for almost an hour when I noticed that we'd lost an information feed.
It was one of the “simulation” feeds, one that had fictional drill information in it rather than real world information. Remembering the warning I'd had the night before, I looked for what had happened with my implant. I found it fairly quickly, someone had changed the access permissions to the feed, setting it to a higher echelon than us. The server didn't show who'd made the change.
“Ma'am,” I turned to look at Aguilera, “we just lost the Sim Feed for Rangetown.” Rangetown was one of five “notional” regions that were actually training areas like the Grinder. They used those names to prevent confusion between drill and real world events.
Aguilera frowned, “That's odd. Did we get notification?”
“No, someone changed the access permissions,” I answered levelly.
I saw her lips press in a flat line and she shot a glance over at Keyes. “I see. I'll take care of it.”
She put on her headset and talked into it for a moment. A few minutes later, the Rangetown feed came back online, just as it began to stream information about an explosion at a chemical factory with large numbers of civilian casualties.
“Response team, start prepping for Rangetown,” she snapped, “Morgan, plan alpha charlie seven is our chemical mass casualty plan, pull it up and start going down the distribution roster...”
She rattled off orders, her face intent and I went to work, pulling up the plan and reviewing it as Morgan started updating it for the event. I'd finished reading through the base order just as Morgan started uploading the updates, filling in details in the software that populated through the operations order.
I reviewed the changes and passed it to Aguilera, who scanned it as well, “Looks good, send it out, exercise-only heading.”
Morgan uploaded the order, just as Cadet Commander Keyes came over. “Cadet Lieutenant Commander Aguilera,” he began, “are you tracking that there's been an incident in Rangetown?” He had an almost gloating tone of voice.
“Yes, sir,” Aguilera replied, rising to her feet, “we just uploaded the updated operations order to the net.” Her voice climbed in volume so that many of the other sections in the Command Center turned to look in our direction.
He stared at her, his eyes going wide. “I hadn't seen it.”
“It's under the exercise folder,” she noted, “I just received confirmation of receipt from your Plans Assistant.” She cocked her head, “I've got a comment for the after action review, as well, sir, in that normally there's an official flash message sent out by Plans when Contingency Response Event is triggered. We didn't get that notification, but my people showed initiative at getting it done anyway.”
Keyes' expression became worried and I could see him looking around, seeing who was paying attention, which at this point included most of the Command Center. “Yes. I'm not sure how my people missed that. I'll review your draft operations order and get it back to you.”
“I've verified it and my assistant has reviewed it. It's final, it needs to go out within the next... two minutes, sir, or else plans will be dinged for breaking protocol... sir,” Aguilera's voice was level. “Unless you believe there are any major changes of which I may be unaware of?”
“No,” Keyes answered. He glanced between her and I, and then turned swiftly and hurried back to his section.
Aguilera sat down and watched as Keyes rushed back to his section. She didn't look over at me, but she spoke in a low voice, “Good catch on that feed going down, Armstrong.”
“Thank you, ma'am,” I replied. I didn't ask who she'd talked to get access to the feed again, or how she'd known Keyes was going to come over here to publicly ding us for our 'failure' to monitor it.
“We'll have a few more like that, probably, plus at least one 'out of the box' type event,” she said
in a louder voice, addressing the others in the section. “So don't relax yet.”
I settled behind my terminal, reading through the vast library of canned plans. I couldn't help but look up, seeing Rear Admiral Fischer standing watching from his balcony over the Command Center. Part of me wondered if this hadn't just been Keyes and Drien or if Fischer had been a part of this... and if this was the end of further interference.
***
Chapter 7: We All Have Our Roles To Play
“You're dead, Armstrong,” Commander “Red” Siebert rasped at me as the squadron-level simulation terminated, my warp fighters vanishing as the simulated enemy blasted them out of existence. This was our third week of Final Flight Prep and I really had begun to miss Commander Pannja.
I closed my eyes and restrained a sigh. I was tired and frustrated, I'd been through this particular sim four times in the past six hours. “Yes, ma'am.”
“Again,” she rasped as she turned away from my simulator.
“Ma'am,” I asked, past the point of keeping my mouth shut, “can you help me, please?” I couldn't help a hard edge of frustration in my voice. I was approaching thirty hours spent in the simulator this week, and so far, only six of those counted as 'qualifying.'
“What was that?” Commander Siebert spun, her face hard.
I saw people look over from their own simulators and a few of the other cadets who were on break froze and looked in our direction.
I sat up straight, sweat beading my forehead. I hadn't meant it to come out in quite an accusatory tone of voice. “Ma'am,” I spoke as calmly and clearly as I could manage, realizing that I had no idea how she was going to respond, only that she scared me on a visceral level, “I realize that I must be missing something in how I'm conducting this simulated run, can you please give me instruction on how to improve?”
The tall, lean woman stared at me, her dark eyes hollow and her gaunt face pinched in a disapproving expression. “Cadet Armstrong, you are making an error that many other cadets in this class are making,” she answered after a moment. “You're trying to have a perfect run, trying to save your entire squadron. You're following the tactics that many of the Reserve Militia follow. There's nothing wrong with those tactics, but they're entry-level as far as challenges. They presuppose that you can fight in conditions that will allow you to preserve your equipment and personnel without the necessity of deliberate sacrifices.”
I stared at her, not quite understanding what she'd meant. I'd put my squadron through a high-evasion attack run against the target ships. It was the method we'd been taught and it was what I knew how to do. The targets, though, were devilishly accurate with their weapons fire and it seemed like it didn't matter how I came in or how little warning I gave them, they simply picked my ships off en mass.
She looked around the simulator room, seeing that she now had the attention of my entire section. Her voice took on a hard edge and she almost looked like she were forcing each word out, snapping them out between her sharp, predatory teeth. “The Krendel School of Tactics introduces the concepts of sacrificial ships and elements, sent to distract the enemy while the main blow is struck.”
The room had gone totally quiet. “But, ma'am,” I noted, “you're suggesting deliberately sending pilots to their deaths.”
“A necessary sacrifice,” she noted, “pioneered by Guard Fleet during the War of Return and used to greatest effect by Admiral Krendel. At the squadron level, you detach an element of your force to conduct a forward attack while your main force hits from another vector. Adjusting your timing will mean that the enemy's full focus falls on the sacrificial element while you continue on to victory.” She said the words in an almost frantic tone of voice, her words stumbling over themselves, her eyes alight with a strange energy.
“But, ma'am,” I protested, “Commander Pannja emphasized utilization of massing our forces together in order to dominate the enemy...”
“Sometimes victory cannot be obtained without deliberate sacrifices,” Commander Siebert rasped. “Even Admiral Armstrong, who is the champion of the School of Niall, utilized Krendel style tactics during the Three Day War when she sacrificed two of her destroyers to destroy the Dalite cruiser in orbit over Century.”
“But that's not what happened,” I shook my head, “The three destroyers went in together. Two of them took more fire and were destroyed, but they weren't some kind of decoy...”
“This isn't a discussion, Cadet,” Commander Siebert hissed, her face darkening and her dark eyes penetrating me. “You wanted to know how to pass this class, you need to embrace the fact that winning will require a commander to sacrifice some of those under their command. I'm speaking from real, combat experience.” Her lips drew back in something that someone might call a smile. I thought it was terrifying. “I've lost people in combat, using these tactics, but I've defeated a numerically superior force.”
She looked around at the quiet room. Lots of my fellow cadets shied away from her gaze. “If you want to pass this class, you will adapt your tactics to my instruction. Sometimes there is a no-win situation where you will face no other option than to send some of your people in to die so that you can save the rest.”
She seemed dissatisfied by the uncomfortable expressions of everyone in the room. “That's enough simulator time for the day. You are all dismissed.”
***
I was still kind of reeling from Commander Siebert's words as I arrived in my engineering class the next morning. This was my engineering theory class with Commander Drien. I had yet to really get a good feel for him. On the one hand, he'd pretty much ignored me in class and he didn't really seem to interact with any of the students. Thus far, he had invariably stepped into the room, taught the subject straight out of the curriculum, and then released us.
We had a test every Friday, with grades posted by the following Monday. The first test had been brutally hard, but I couldn't complain it was unfair. I wanted to, since I felt like I'd barely managed to figure out the questions and give adequate answers. But he had covered the material and his test questions had been based upon the homework assignments.
There were a lot of those, too. Weapons theory was only the beginning. I'd spent two hours every night of the week on the homework questions, and another three hours doing the read-aheads on the weekend. We'd gone into power-integration, electronics, and general electrical and power design, at a level and depth that left me feeling exhausted.
I'd actually taken to showing up to his class early most days just to give myself a few minutes to read over the notes for the day. As I came through the door, I realized that I must have arrived before any of the others in my section. I saw that Commander Drien stood behind the podium, apparently reading over something on his datapad.
I very nearly turned around and walked out. Commander Drien had yet to show any animosity to me, but that didn't mean I wanted to be alone in the classroom with him until someone else showed up.
If I turned around after having come in, it would look like I was either trying to avoid him or distrusted him. I didn't want to give that appearance, especially since both were true. So I stood there, frozen for a moment while I tried to decide what to do, before I finally convinced myself to go to my desk. I'd set my datapad down on the desk, my back to Commander Drien, trying my best to ignore him and hoping he'd do the same.
“Cadet Armstrong,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft and even casual.
My stomach dropped and I restrained a sigh. “Yes, sir?” I asked as I turned, dreading whatever was about to happen. I tried to think if I'd done anything disrespectful that he could gig me for. Technically I hadn't greeted him on entry, but most students skipped that, just because it got ridiculous as all of us trailed through the door, one after the next...
“I don't believe I've had the opportunity to express my condolences regarding what happened to your family,” his words caught me completely off-guard. I repressed a surge of anger, initially thinking this was some kin
d of taunt, but his expression was sincere and his dark, hooded eyes gazed at me with something rather like sympathy.
That was too much for me. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I blinked furiously to keep them from streaming down my cheeks. How bad must I be doing that even my family's rivals felt pity for me? “Thank you, sir,” My voice was a bit hoarse.
“It is the least that I could do,” his voice was gentle, and maybe even the slightest bit bitter, though I wasn't certain. “You may not know this, but I was a cadet candidate and then a fourth year, a Plebe, with your mother.” His expression grew a bit pained, “Before she left the Academy.”
“Oh,” I replied, not really sure how to respond to that. I was still trying to get my emotions under control.
“Did she,” he cleared his throat slightly, “did she ever mention me?”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but I shook my head, “She never really talked about her time here. I hadn't even known that she attended the Academy at all until two years ago.” I remembered the heated argument in the Admiral's office, between my mom and her mother. Actually, I remembered now that my mother had mentioned a Drien, a Jotaro Drien, if I remembered right. But I had no idea if this was him, I'd never even thought to look up his first name.
My words seemed to have had some effect on the officer. His expression went blank and he gave me a crisp nod. “I understand. Thank you, Cadet Armstrong. Once again, my condolences for your loss. And, I'm sure you hear it quite often, but you look a great deal like your mother.”
“Thanks, sir,” I replied. His attention went back to his datapad and I sat down at my desk, my knees feeling weak. I pulled up my notes on my datapad, but my mind was too chaotic to make sense of the engineering theories.
Other students began arriving, filling up the class. But my mind turned over the strange encounter with Sashi's uncle. I couldn't help but feel that I was missing something, something important... and the only people I could ask were either dead or in positions that I couldn't expect the truth from... except the Admiral.