"Bellerophon is 100% ready," Wolverson announced, "within current design limits. Every authorized drill and sim has been passed with flying colors." There was a slight stress on 'authorized'. Kalinin made a note to himself. What had not been authorized? He hadn't picked up on that earlier, and now was late to find out. It would be a very cold day in Hell, though, before his opinions on readiness or any other issue were given more than respectful attention by the Joint Committee on War. A century and a half of historical precedent left him little maneuvering room there.
"Are staffing problems resolved?" Kalinin asked. That had been a major question mark. Servots and serviles could not do everything, and Bellerophon was enormous relative to a conventional warship.
"I have the full authorized complement," Kalinin answered. "And all positions filled by long-time watchstanders on this ship." Wolverson told himself not to frown. Four hundred all ranks was a huge crew for a warship, but Bellerophon was a huge warship. At least they all understood the unique features of Bellerophon's design, and had mostly all served with each other.
"That's a plus." There were some things Kalinin could not say to a subordinate. A long-time crew whose members all knew each other, knew their limits, and knew each other's limits had stronger esprit d'corps. The political history of military units with strong internal loyalties, in addition to loyalty to the Republic, raised hackles along his back. He had been born in the wrong country to remember the Incursion, and what had preceded it, but he had heard all too much from those with first-hand experience. "I know you've got a first-rate table set out. Give yourself time to enjoy it." Wolverson saluted and bowed his way to the inner cabin.
A discrete knock at the outer door. "Hatch is not dogged," Ter-Minassian said. At the Academy he had once spent an hour determining what that phrase meant, and the sort of equipment for which it had once been appropriate. Junior Captain Josephine Wilmot bobbed around the door, giving an Academy-stiff brace and salute, which Kalinin gravely returned. His Fleet Tactical Officer was astonishingly creative, a creativity she based on precise adherence to Newton's -- and everyone else's -- rules. The draping swallowtails of the LPSDF dress coat might not hang on her as well as on some of the other crew, but so long as Regulations forbade individual tailoring of uniforms there was probability zero that hers would be tailored other than as Regulation prescribed.
"Sir, we've run all the scenarios you recommended, and drilled squadrons with them," she said. "And I've generated alternatives, once we see how the FEU deploys itself."
"Very good," Kalinin repeated. "I read your performance analyses. I looked at the fleet drills. I am obliged to concur. However, those decisions are being made by the Joint War Committee, which sees matters somewhat differently." The War Committee had a bee up its bonnet about the evils of having too many contingency plans, and being unable to execute any of them well. He had been given an inflexible maximum count on contingency plans and variations, and a Corps of Inspectors that was duty-bound to enforce that limit.
"Thank you, Sir," she answered.
"I am also most grateful for your blunt honesty in evaluating my squadron commanders and their squadron performances. While I may not have done things precisely the way you recommended, you may correctly assume that my deployments relied very heavily on your findings." Kalinin smiled. "Lest there be any doubt, I intend to attach an 'Exemplary' finding on your next EPF." The Joint War Committee read Evaluation and Performance Forms carefully. They allowed him at most one 'Exemplary' recommendation in a biennium.
"I...Thank you, sir." She was visibly taken aback.
"Don't thank me. Thank yourself. You earned it," he said. "And I read most carefully your protest regarding my decision to regroup ships between squadrons, especially where I put Manzikert and who is with her." For once Incursion history had given him an advantage. Absolutely no one could complain that he had broken up squadrons rather than leaving them intact. He had made a point of listening carefully to Senior Captain Vincent Alden St. James, commanding officer of Manzikert and her squadron, before making assignments to the Manzikert Squadron. He'd also planned his prior private remarks to St. James so that St. James had requested the better half of the ships he had been assigned.
"I hope my concerns were not too forward, Sir," said Wilmot. Kalinin had taken one of the weakest officers in the fleet, given him a stack of ships with interesting problems, and put him square on top of the warp point.
"Absolutely not. Your points were very well taken. On-point defenders are liable to have the least time to respond to novel weapons or tactics. While I could indeed put our best-trained squadrons there, that training is based on responses to predicted challenges. Against the unpredictable, officers and men prone to more individualistic approaches may -- I hope -- fare better." He smiled blandly. A look of understanding crossed her face. She did think that she understood what she had just been told.
Someday, many years hence, he might be able to explain to her the political issues. Not only had he assigned St. James the more interesting ships and officers, but his detailed interest in crew assignments had allowed him to give St. James the more interesting men and women. Supposedly a Manzikert squadron CA docking at Versailles doubled profits for the local bars, brothels, and peacekeeping establishments. This was doubtless an exaggeration; an Ancestral-Victory Class armored cruiser carried under 50 crew. The Joint War Committee would not let him assign St. James to something harmless, like close-in defense of the core of the sun, so he had done what else he could.
"There are some things I can request, but not order," Kalinin said. "Nothing forbids you to run private scenarios, in your off-duty hours, against non-conventional challenges. If questions are asked, it is certainly true that the makers of Star Commando Jill, et al., are very fond of buying material from Force officers, and the royalty share earned by the SLPSDF looks well on any record. It just so happens I have a list of officers elsewhere in the Flotilla who might share a similar interest. I've forwarded you the list. Of course, this is purely a private matter, should you happen to be interested." Kalinin told himself that even Wilmot would catch his drift. "But now I have a line starting to form outside."
"Sir!" She saluted rigidly and withdrew. He gave himself a few moments thought. How was he supposed to develop a fleet based on the old German concepts of tactical understanding and individual initiative, when the Fleet always gamed against the same limited set of opponent tactics? On the other hand, his two predecessors had gotten carried away with contingency planning. No matter the contingency, they had a plan. Or two plans. They had also suffered tactical and strategic disasters every time they had run drills against his mock FEU fleet, disasters that had not prolonged their terms in office. It was, of course, a shame that his mock fleet worked to create confusion, so that different parts of the defender force invoked contradictory contingency plans at the same time.
His Fleet Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Intelligence Officers traditionally saw him together. They worked hand in glove. Commander Pedro El-Rifai was tall, very heavy, with curly dark hair and a perpetual smile. Lieutenant Commander Guido Bilodeau was taller, ever more heavy-set and perpetually glum. El-Rifai had at his fingertips everything known about FEU military doctrine, this being the same information that Ter-Minassian largely knew by heart. Bilodeau was in fact one of the finest humorists on the ship, with a set of jokes suitable for all but the gravest occasions. Bilodeau's primary mission was almost hopeless. Breaking codes in real time could not be done, allowing that the opponent was even marginally competent. FEU radar and lidar were sufficiently advanced over American counterpart models that its capacities were usually challenging to determine. A few minutes' polite conversation confirmed that the past few days had brought no significant changes in SLPSDF understanding of FEU doctrine. Ter-Minassian sent them on their ways. He could wish that El-Rifai was a less doctrinaire, less prone to taking as gospel every word from every ASN intelligence summary, but he was still a good officer.
<
br /> His junior officers and technical staff were next. Lieutenant Commander Angela Quava was tall, long-limbed, blonde -- the California Blonde genesculpts had been a fad, letting Ter-Minassian date her birth within a few years. He was torn between wanting to promote her, because she was highly effective as Chief Radar Office -- 'radar' being an anachronism relative to the range of detectors actually in use -- and wanting not to promote her, because she would be extremely challenging to replace, at least with someone competent. He told himself that the question was out of his hands, and in the charge of the States of Lincoln Congress. Lieutenant Edgar Huang, Chief Signals Officer, was the solid blocky figure who once upon a time would have been mistaken for a football player. Once upon a time? Back when Americans were infatuated with spectator sports, Kalinin thought to himself, back before the Incursion and Aftermath left the landscape littered with near-useless giant spectator facilities. Dr. Chester DeGrazzia Markovian was Civilian Staff, and Prior Service. He had served on Bellerophon repeatedly. Indeed, he had been Bellerophon's Chief Gravitonics Officer on one of its tube emplacement cruises. Now he'd retired, to an ample salary, but could be counted on to analyze anything seriously new that the FEU threw at them.
Their positions in the chain of command were a bit anomalous. Any equipment or staff problems they faced were Wolverson's, not his, because they were formally part of Bellerophon's crew. But they reported to him, and faced his wrath when undermaintained equipment failed. Repeated simulations showed Quava and Huang both knew their roles in the command structure. "Questions and issues?" he asked.
Quava and Huang both shook their heads. "None, Sir," Quava said. They were the gears in a large gear train. They had to do their jobs properly, or they would cause a real mess, but like gears in a train their freedom of action was highly prescribed. Markovian gestured for Ter-Minassian's attention. "Commodore, I keep examining the data we have on the previous Clarksburg event," he said. "It is truly remarkable that the FEU managed to keep all these new, highly visible weapons system a complete secret. It simply does not pass the smell test. Something is fishy with our interpretation. But I do not know what. And my Fleet and IonEU contacts -- only the sharper ones see what is fishy before it is explained."
"Are you saying our instruments were spoofed?" asked Quava.
"Nothing so simple. Those ships were really there. But when the EU deployed weapons systems in the past, active detectors, torpedoes...we've always caught them well before the weapons were deployed throughout their fleet. This time there was nothing. Ultrashortwavelength radar is hardly something you can hide, the way you can hide new torpedos behind an old hatch. Not unless you never turn it on to test it. Nor could the EU mask neutrino emissions of their new-type fusactors, not unless their fusactors have been given absurdly heavy screens that they forgot to turn on when they visited us. It's all very odd," said Markovian.
"Recommendations?" asked Kalinin. What was he supposed to do with this information?
"If they've done it twice, they can do it again and again. I believe this means we must expect additional technical surprises," said Markovian.
"Duly noted," answered Kalinin. "I shall of course be most grateful as to insight as to the nature of the surprise. Preferably in time for countermeasures. Oh, and I definitely agree that something is very strange, in a wide number of different ways. In particular, Angela's analysis of things the EU did not do, like respond significantly to our broadcasts or try to stay on our side of the warp point to make a longer-range active search, was most interesting. Even before First Charon, Admiral LaValle did answer our signals. Not very tactfully -- 'eat fertilizer and become joyously deceased' was apparently an American aphorism he misremembered -- but he did answer. This time the EU behaved like the classical twentieth century gentleman who accidentally walked into the wrong restroom and fled in humiliation." He gave himself a pause. "Anything else?" He sent the three on their way.
He always expected technical surprises. How was he supposed to expect it more than he had in the past? Perhaps someday it would be his forces surprising the EU with American technology, though he didn't expect that to happen during his career in the active service.
"Hatch is not dogged," he intoned. Captain Marsha Trinh stepped in, snapped a salute, and followed his gesture to sit. She was short, round-faced, visibly the beneficiary of genesculpting that brought her looks very close to her paternal line -- and not her other three grandparents, all of whom Kalinin had met. "How is refit progressing on Radikul Distrukshin?" Kalinin asked his commander of the Electronic Warfare Squadron.
"Sir, we've upgraded 50% of the jammer and echo modules. Out to twice the frequencies the EU used. Peaking each set before we replace the next slows things a lot. And we've worked out how to pull and replace the lidar jammers -- but practically speaking we need a caisson on the ports to get it done without disrupting everything else," she answered.
"There's no sign of when the unrecorded mods were made?" Kalinin asked politely. Someone had gone through Radikul Distrukshin and her sister ships, and moved several major bulkheads without telling anyone. With new bulkhead locations, a lidar jammer brought down the access way could no longer be rotated athwart its long axis into the hull mounting tube. For some reason he was reminded of the Astrogation Building at the Academy, its rear loading dock, and the gateless safety railing that the engineering staff one fine day had concreted into place across the length of the dock, immediately prior to planting a garden at the bottom of the adjoining building's loading dock.
"Sometime while she was at Minimum Readiness, Sir. Logs don't give a direct indication. We did run a full stress analysis. Ship structural integrity is still above specs -- by maybe a half percent," Trinh said.
Kalinin snorted. The rule of thumb was 50% reserve strength above any published specification. Radikul Distrukshin should be sent back to the yards, but that was clearly impossible this close to a major engagement. "You know your ship's limits," he emphasized. "Be sure your whole crew does, too. And have the rest of your squadron surveyed for similar changes."
"Sir, that's been done and is complete. Second Kabul Squadron has completed the same," she answered.
"And?"
"Not one ship matches exactly its file blueprints. Fleet Reserve Survey and Maintenance seems to have done all sorts of things and not documented them," she answered. "I'm copying to you the full report."
Kalinin had never been tempted to shoot a messenger. The Commanding Officer of the Reserve Fleet Yards was, however, not a messenger. On the other hand, this sort of deficiency was precisely the sort of paper handling error that drew Senator Caravelle's attention. Her colleagues on the Joint War Committee tolerated her eccentricities, in no small part because she was extremely good at ferreting out state employees trying to cover their backsides and pretend that everything was perfect. Once she had her teeth in a matter, she would chew it over until matters were put right. He knew exactly which member of her staff should have a few key sentences inadvertently highlighted when he filed his circumspect report on the matter to every member of the Joint War Committee.
"Anything disastrous?" he asked.
"Nothing as serious as Radikul Distrukshin. Apparently the vacuum seal replacements on Tippecanoe were mounted backwards. Entirely appropriate, if we were going to fight well inside Harding's atmosphere. That's being fixed as we speak," she answered.
"Is there anything else I would be unhappy about if I didn't know it now?" he asked.
"Sir, we're ready to perform any contingency plan, with at least 120% of planned jamming capacity," she answered. “However, I am also your Fleet Readiness Officer.|
Kalinin was the oldest man in the Flotilla. As a cabin boy, late in the Twelve-Corner War he had sortied with the Western Russian Republic Vladivostok Naval Squadron against the Japanese Naval Self-Defense Forces, a sortie under the order 'Victory or Death' with only the latter outcome expected. The unexpected intervention of the American Bering Sea fleet, odds, sods, and CVN Linco
ln, had given them a victory--and the Republic a new Asian boundary. Nearly two centuries of military experience sent him a twinge of alarm.”
"Mobilization is running substantially behind schedule,”Trinh said. “The Harbin Squadron will not be with us tomorrow. As of ten minutes ago, they're talking about another week." Kalinin grated his teeth. They had been on track an hour ago. Harbin and sister ships would have been another dozen BCs, not quite as modern in design as the New York squadron, but probably more heavily armed. "Apparently Survey and Maintenance was logging work when they began, not when it was completed, and was somewhat cavalier about completing projects delayed by parts shortages."
"Somewhat cavalier?" Kalinin wondered if there was a way to revive the ancient custom of keelhauling
"And I am worried about training foci. Have you spoken to Markovian? He thinks something is not quite right with the last FEU Fleet."
"Da, we have spoken. Many times. He is a genius. He sees traces of shadows, something lurking in the fog. So we discuss what it might be. Fleet Intelligence thinks he is simply wrong. And Markovian worries much of the FEU Fleet is no longer in the Solar system, has not been for a long time -- and we don't know where they are or why," Kalinin said.
"We all worry about that. And Fleet Intelligence knows this is true. But after all these years nothing has happened," Trinh responded.
"I still distrust the guess that the FEU has a civil war with their colonies," Kalinin said. "Not that I have another interpretation. But -- in the old water navy, in a small boat at night, you would feel the waves shift, and you would know that something -- reefs, shoals, something -- was out there in the foggy dark. I looked at those strange FEU ships, and I feel the waves shifting."
Minutegirls Page 28