by Chris Hechtl
There was a series of camera clicks and even a snicker. "Now, he's not going anywhere any time soon. I'm afraid some people are getting ahead of themselves as usual so, asked and answered, let's move on to today's agenda …"
-~~~///^\~~~-
Admiral Irons forced himself to come out in front of the problem. Liobat took the frontline with the public, but Admiral Irons dealt with the fallout in the Admiralty.
He surveyed the group for a long moment. "I thought we had a handle on it. Obviously, I was wrong. Bek has a long way to go to overcome centuries of prejudices and misinformation." He shook his head. "And this political thing … it's another nightmare all on its own."
He turned to the staff. "I admit, some of you are putting in the effort. You are doing it faster than others. But these political games …," he shook his head in anger.
"Sir, some may see it as unfair to lump all of us together. We didn't do this," Odette stated.
He turned to her. He could tell she was playing devil's advocate just from her vital signs and tone of voice. "It is what it is. If nine out of ten problems stem from officers or officials from one star system, then the label sticks. Deal with it," he said, the last three words coming out like iron.
"If the shoe fits, wear it," Matilda growled softly. The other admirals shot her dirty looks at her but she was defiant.
"In a way, but I'd rather you didn't. I'd rather see you, all of you," the admiral said, surveying the group, "work to get your people on the right side."
"Right way, wrong way, navy way," Odette murmured with a nod.
"We are!" Admiral Pashenkov protested. His ass was on the line, and he was expecting the ax to fall at any time. Admiral Irons had already warned him he was on probation. Shilo and his staff were getting swamped with calls from Bekians, some terrified, some outraged. Some were begging for a second chance.
"Really? Some Bekians still refuse to accept that their history, our history was distorted and rewritten to extend a certain point of view. A point of view that would keep them from exploring certain technologies they could use or to understand and accept other sentient life as valid. I had hoped that some could overcome that in time. I figured in time it would happen, that we could all build a future together." Admiral Irons frowned and looked away.
"Throwing Bek to the wolves won't help that goal, sir," Admiral Soar and Strike stated. "You aren't very tolerant or supportive of Bek. Yet, there are a lot of us here in this room."
Admiral Irons turned to her.
"Which goes to show how tolerant I am. But, actually, there is one less Bekian here; Yorgi is standing down. I haven't accepted his resignation yet but I'm considering it," Admiral Irons stated. He indicated Admiral Subert. "Admiral Subert had already requested taking over ONI. Given his experience I agreed so it would allow Admiral Sienkov to focus on the other branches of our intelligence gathering services as well as his duties on the hill."
"So, is that how it is? Now that you are winning the war because of us you throw us away?" Admiral Heals Quickly demanded with an angry buzz.
Phil opened his mouth, but Admiral Irons was quick to respond.
"Excuse me? You wanna run that history lesson by me again? I know certain people have a problem with it, and this just proves it all over again!" Admiral Irons snarled, fists on the table as he stood up. They started to rise as well but he rapped his knuckles. "Sit." Once they resumed their seats, he surveyed them coldly. "For the record, the only reason I diverted a ship to find out if Bek and Nuevo still existed was because we were winning beforehand. I could therefore take the risk."
"For the record, you had a near civil war once we contacted you. Some of you were in denial of the truth and refused to follow orders then. And you have not been able to hold up your end of construction compared to the other yards. You are now, but that is a recent upward trend. None of those ships have seen combat. None of those crews have seen combat. In fact, the first time a Bekian flag officer saw combat she got her ass and her command handed to her. That's another part of history you are conveniently forgetting."
He stared at the admirals around the table. Odette grimaced at the reminders.
"Fourth, although Bek sends a lot of Indian chiefs, not one of them has combat experience! Yet, they lord over those who do!"
The admiral paused for a long moment.
"We can't help that, Admiral," Admiral Pashenkov stated.
"No, and that's a good thing in a way," Admiral Irons stated. "Do you know how the promotion boards were being run?"
The Neowolf's ears went back. He nodded slightly.
The admiral's eyes narrowed. "I thought so. One point if you are from Bek, one minus point if you weren't. One point if you went to an Academy, two negative points if you didn't. It went on and on from there, stacking the deck against anyone not from Bek. Bek officers were given preferential treatement, promoted out of the zone, sometimes over someone who had been holding a post for years."
"A friend of a friend. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," Phil murmured.
"Exactly," Admiral Irons stated. "Politics when they should be judged on merit and their ability to handle more responsibility."
"So, we start at the bottom?" the TJAG demanded.
"I don't see you starting over," Phil said, glowering at the Delquir and then the rest of the group. "For the record, I had a similar problem with promotions, call it a similar mindset. I freely admit I was prejudiced against anyone who hadn't attended the Academy. I was wrong and history has proven that to me over and over again. They have the fighting spirit. I've learned the error of my ways. It's high time you passed on those lessons to everyone under you."
"What problem did you have with Nara?" Admiral Irons asked turning to Admiral Heals Quickly.
The T'clock's antenna waggled and then stilled. "I didn't have one. I recommended her for promotion."
"Ah. And yet she was denied because she isn't from Bek and has no college education. The fact that Pyrax and other star systems didn't have a proper institution and training standard has been held against her and other officers. The fact that she set up those institutions and taught at them was not credited to her."
"I didn't know that. Apparently, the board didn't take that into account."
"Oh, they did; but they used it against her. And her replacement, who by the way is recently arrived from Bek, is half of her age and had graduated with mediocre grades. He had mediocre reviews and had very little hands-on time with patients. He had no research experience. He had in fact done very little."
He paused for a moment as Protector put up Nara's file on his HUD. He didn't need it but appreciated it. "Nara on the other hand was never credited for running the BuMedical for Pyrax and the entire navy while also running a civilian practice in Pyrax, and, and setting up and running the star system's medical system, standards of training, college, and so on. All at the same time! While also teaching at the same. She went on to set up the system in Agnosta and here in Antigua. She worked with Commodore Richards to set up a standard of medicine for the entire navy as well as the Federation. She was a contender for surgeon general. Instead, politics forced her into falling back into a long-term project, one she had been working on with everything else, Project Resurrection. Where she was has created a success story … even if it was a bit anticlimactic."
Matilda nodded.
Admiral Irons caught the nod. "Matilda did similar activities, all while being self-taught. Nara had the apprentice system working for her, Matilda was thrown into the deep end and did good."
Matilda made a dismissive hand motion. "She ran BuSchools for the entire growing navy, such as it was for the early years while also running Anvil's college, which has become the central trunk of the Pyrax higher education system, plus setting up the San Diego Academy and every other school and training center in Pyrax, while also consulting on the Marine side in Agnosta and later here."
"I could go on. Commodore Montgommery, the late Commodore Mayweat
her, and so on. All good people."
It was Phil's turn to nod. "I made the mistake of not understanding that myself. When I first came on board, I was time shocked, and I ran roughshod over my team. I deeply regretted it and still do," he said.
"We knew it wasn't personal, sir," Matilda murmured.
Phil blew his cheeks out briefly. "I reamed Monty and fired him even though he had been learning on the job like the rest of you. And he didn't defend himself. He also kept some things close to the vest, something I appreciate now," Phil grudgingly admitted.
"Why didn't you promote them before?" Odette asked turning to Admiral Irons.
"I promoted out of the zone as much as I felt comfortable with. I wanted them to grow into the roles they were assuming. And I have a firm belief in people taking on jobs based on merit not on word of mouth. I'll give someone a chance, but they damn well better do it or I'll find someone else. Bringing in an unknown to shake up an established chain of command just because they outrank others or are a friend of a friend doesn't work for me."
Georgi flicked his ears.
"I also refused to promote anyone too fast or to push the captain's board or the flag board. Now we have them." Admiral Irons frowned. He remembered when he'd wanted more flag officers and seasoned captains.
"And yes, I get you brought in people you thought you could trust. The problem is, some didn't live up to that and some of them brought in other people. We need to fix that."
Phil nodded. "The other reason he didn't promote early was because we are all going to be around for a very long time," he said, surveying the room. All eyes fell on him. He snorted at the Neowolf's expression. "We're all getting anti-geriatric treatments. We're going to be here for centuries. Eventually, some of us might be rotated to field posts. We might even voluntarily take demotions to do so. I think it's a good policy," he said, looking at the admiral. "And that's from someone who spent entirely too much time as a career REMF."
Admiral Irons snorted. Matilda snorted.
"So, we need to deal with the fallout and get our houses in order. To do that, we need to identify the rough spots and find ways to patch them. Now …"
-~~~///^\~~~-
After the meeting Phil came over and looked at Admiral Irons. "Think they'll take any of that to heart?"
Admiral Irons shook his head. "I doubt it. Oh, they'll play lip service to it; they might even try on the surface. But the moment I take my hand off the tiller to look into something else, they'll coast right back into old bad habits."
"Then maybe it's a good thing I'm here to shake things up."
"Probably," Admiral Irons stated.
"I will admit I'm not keen about some of them now that I've seen them. You put up with a lot, including me," Phil admitted.
"We all do what we have to if we want to get the job done. I haven't forgotten who the real enemy is."
"Neither have I. I think we need to remind them of that."
-~~~///^\~~~-
Commodore Nara Thornby had her hands full as she walked another class of surgeons through basic implant procedures. She went on to lecture about the implants and how the first she had installed had been different. "We had a lot of talks after that. Admiral Irons had been reluctant to authorize modern implants. Nanotech was scary!" She shook her head. "I am still not certain if that was the only reason why, but once he got over that reluctance, he went whole hog. That's why the implants are pretty advanced."
She took up a chart and scanned it and then turned with a frown to the patient. She looked at the chart again and then to the young man. The young man seemed frustrated.
"I was going to use our friend here as an example of problems we're still encountering and what we're doing to overcome them. Are these MRI scans, right?" she asked, turning to the doctor who was in charge of the case.
"Yes."
She put the image of the patient's brain up on the screen. "Here is his language centers. The original diagnosis was brain cancer. You'll note that the growth is in or near the speech and language centers of the brain. He's lost his ability to understand us," she stated to her group of students.
"We are seeing unusual growth activity there. I was about to perform a biopsy," the doctor on duty stated.
"And what does he do again?"
"He's an Implant IT Comm Tech. The original diagnosis was that he spent too much time with his implants and was suffering from tissue rejection or secondary radioactive effects."
"Original diagnosis. You don't believe that is true anymore?" Doctor Thornby asked.
"I'm not sure. It is limited to his royal jelly. That doesn't make sense," the surgeon said slowly. "I'm also not an expert, which was why I called you in, Commodore. I didn't know he had this much." The Bekian surgeon indicated the patient.
"Everyone does," Nara stated. Her class and the surgeon stared at her. She held her hands up to chest level as if to fend them off. "I know; I didn't know it either for a long time. Not until I read a history book," she admitted. She didn't admit that the history came from her time with cadre implants.
"The long and short of it is, a long time ago our ancestors implanted themselves and their descendants," she indicated them and herself in the group, "with a series of gifts. The usual you know, treating for known maladies. But one that was never brought to much attention was this," she said indicating the speech center. "Our ancestors created organic computers that grow in our brains," she said, tapping her right index finger to her head.
A few of her students stared at her, eyes wide in shock. She nodded soberly. "That's right. That's how we can understand other species and how they can understand us. It's pretty complex and ingenious. We all have a dumb A.I. already in our heads; we just didn't know it!"
She snorted at the surgeon's dumbstruck expression. "You mean to tell me, all this hoopla over A.I. is for nothing?"
"Funny how your entire worldview shifts like that, huh?" Nara asked with a whimsical smile. "Look it up when you get the chance. It's called the Universal Speech Implant. It's one of dozen or so things our ancestors tucked into us to make sure we got along with each other so we could build a better tomorrow together."
There was a smattering of applause at that speech.
"But," she turned to their patient. "That begs the question what happened to this poor fellow. It is extremely rare for the royal jelly to go haywire. I think I'll assist you, Doctor," she said, reaching out to squeeze the young man's hand. He returned the squeeze after a moment.
"Thank you, I was hoping you would."
Chapter 24
Garth
Amadeus was not the only one disgusted by the A.I. issue raging through the news and the navy. Bek had stuck their foot in their mouth big time. Resentment from some of the Bekians in Second Fleet had cropped up before his people had started to respond to it. It had then simmered down after that.
He had to admit though, he was glad that they had gotten it sorted out ahead of that mess. Second Fleet was free of the splash over.
He checked the schedule and lifted an eyebrow. Another convoy was due in the week. Apparently, Admiral Irons had stocked ships in Protodon and had released them the moment he'd sent the courier to Dead Drop with news of the victory. They were getting a massive python lump of men and material. Not man warships though, those were being held back for the moment. He was proud of Commodore I'r'll and her people; they'd just completed the first fortress and were well on their way to completing the second and third on schedule. The repair yard was being overhauled too. Some of the warships that had been salvaged had already been sent back to Antigua for rebuilding.
They also had the first loads of hyper mines deployed and the first warships had been added to his growing fleet. He knew the Admiralty wanted him to swap out some of his older ships and send them home, but with the repair yard in the star system, he had no intention of loosening his grip anytime soon.
Not when he knew the enemy was formulating a response to get him the hell out of
their backyard. He was going to need every ship soon enough.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Hurranna thought things were crazy before. Now it just was nuts. Many of the pilots had been tapped to fly tugs and shuttles whenever the convoys were in the star system.
She took her turn since she had experience flying trash haulers. And like many of the veteran pilots said, never turn down a chance to hold a stick.
She'd heard the news about Kittyhawk, and she'd been happy that her old ship had been more or less found. She'd dug into it and had been assured that a rescue mission was in the works. That was good news, and she'd passed the information on to the other Kittyhawk veterans in the fleet.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Convoys were arriving more often, and gear was beginning to stack up. Commodore I'r'll's people were just barely able to throw together orbital warehouses to stay ahead of them. Cargo was being stored everywhere. Major components were stacking up in bundles arrayed in long rows in space parking lots. They were wrapped in shipping plastic to protect them from the elements.
More components and equipment were outside two of the lunar colonies in neat rows. Shipments were also being dropped to the planet to help with things there. Once they were down, they were out of her people's hands until they needed to draw on them for some civil works project.
The first fortress at the H001 jump point had been completed on time. It was the command fortress; work was progressing on the carrier fort. After that there would be three more fortresses to complete the diamond around the jump point area. They would control the swarms of mines, weapon platforms, and missile pods that would be seeded around them and around that arc of the solar system.