Against the Tide tcw-3

by John Ringo

  “Honestly?” the mer asked, surprised.

  “Honestly.”

  “General,” the mer said, trying not to sound angry. “This bottom is mud. We’ve got the choice of trying to hold our position in the current or hold onto the dock or lie in the mud. It’s like, six meters deep. You tend to sink. Frankly, sir, it sucks.”

  “So, you wanna chair?” Edmund asked.

  “Something,” the mer replied with a shrug.

  “Herzer?” Edmund said.

  “Got it,” Herzer replied. “The mer need something to sit on.”

  “Anything else?” Edmund asked.

  “Oh, lots, General,” the mer replied. “The message system sucks. Our quarters suck. There needs to be more than one of us mer and one delphino here. I could go on and on.”

  “Herzer… no, Destrang, sit here and listen to the mer and delphino litany of complaints,” Edmund said. “And pick up anything coming in from the fleet that you think I really need to know. I’m going to bed. Nobody is going to be making sense before morning. Joanna, what are you still doing here?”

  “Waiting for daybreak,” the dragon replied. “If I’m going that far, I’m going to need all the thermals I can get.”

  “Herzer,” Edmund said. “We need dragon resupply points along the coast. Nothing elaborate, just a stockade with some beef cattle or pigs and somewhere for the dragons to land. And more wyvern for messengers; they don’t have to be carrier qualified. As a matter of fact, it’ll be a good place to train young riders and wyverns. Joanna, leave as soon as you think wise, but the sooner the better. And that’s it, I’m done.” He got up and carried the chair back up to the pier.

  “Thanks, son,” he said, handing it to the messenger.

  “You’re welcome, sir,” the messenger replied.

  “Have a nice night,” Edmund said as he walked off into the fire-lit darkness.

  * * *

  “Attention on deck!” someone called as Edmund walked into the reestablished headquarters. There simply wasn’t anywhere to put it at the docks so for the time being it had moved to the officers’ club. A cold front was in the offing and he appreciated the shorter walkÑthe O-Club was practically next door to the VIP quartersÑbut it didn’t mean he wasn’t planning on getting everything moved as soon as possible.

  “Rest,” he called, waving his hand and looking first at the large map someone had pinned up on the wall. The map was clearly hand drawn, and hastilyÑseveral of the landforms were wrongÑbut it gave him a good approximation of what was going on. The approximate position of both fleets were marked as were other units at sea, most of whom were heading for the nearest secure port. The best part was the weather markings of the large storm, a “nor’easter” that had blown up.

  “They’re going to get caught by the storm,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Kabadda replied, walking over with a mug of coffee in his hand. He handed it to the admiral and Edmund took it uneasily.

  “I can get my own coffee, Kabadda,” Edmund said, but he took a sip anyway. It was the way he liked it, almost a syrup with sugar and cream. Somebody had done their homework.

  “We’re not quite prepared with the briefing, sir,” Kabadda said. “But we will be by 0900.”

  “I doubt it,” Edmund replied. “I don’t want the short dog and pony show that you guys put on before. I need full information on all ships. What we know of their stores, information about their captains’ background and experience. I need all the intel we have on the enemy, same deal. I heard something, during the attack, about the dragons being shot at. I want information on that as soon as possible. The briefing will include as much as we know about the condition of the dragons on our ships as well as crew condition. And, especially, how long for the fleet to return and our estimated material condition when they get here. When they get in I want food waiting for them, bands playing, slaughtered carcasses for the dragons, a barbeque for the crews and decent onshore housing for everyone. They’re going to have serious casualties; I need to know the condition of our hospital establishment. We need a casualty list from them before they arrive. We’re going to have to take much the same fleet out, again, and this time we’re going to have to win. We’re not going to do that with troops that are demoralized. So the first thing we’re going to be working on is morale. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” the chief of staff said.

  “There are four aspects to winning a battle. Battle plans, which includes adequate intel, leadership, material, and morale. We are going to have a set of the first that work, bet on it. The second I’m going to be looking into carefully; what I’ve seen so far does not thrill me. The third we’re going to have to make or steal. The fourth has several parts. One of them is adequate living conditions and the knowledge that the others are as good as you can make them. When the Fleet sails again, the sailors, NCOs and officers are going to have to know that this time they are going to kick ass and not even bother taking names. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send a message to the Fleet. I need information on conditions on every ship. If they don’t have a dispatch sloop, get one out to them. And tell the mer to find that other carrier. I don’t want to be surprised again. If it’s retired, and I’d bet it has, we’ll send out the resupply vessels.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, assign one of your officers to show me around the base facilities,” Edmund finished. “I can look into that. We’ll have the brief this afternoon. If anything comes up that needs my immediate attention, send a runner.”

  “There is a large amount of paperwork, sir,” Kabadda said. “Most of it is addressed to the commander.”

  “Anything that’s not from either Mike Spehar or Sheida have one of your people open and read. I’m not going to be handling correspondence from every dime-store clerk in an officer’s, or general’s, uniform that wants to joggle my elbow or know some stupid minutiae. Handle it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kabadda opened his mouth as if to reply and then shut it.

  “What?”

  “Admiral Draskovich felt that knowing what information was flowing was important, sir,” the general replied, uneasily.

  “The term is ‘delegation,’ Kabadda,” Edmund replied. “My job is to make sure that everyone knows theirs and does it to the best of their ability. It is not to do their job for them. Mine is going to take up enough of my time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The same goes for you,” Edmund added. “Your job is to ensure that the weapon is prepared. But you cannot do that if you’re running over every single materials or personnel list. That is what the G-1 and G-4 are for. And their job is to make sure that their people are trained, and doing their jobs, to the best of their ability. Not doing their job for them. Not nitpicking every detailÑtheir people are the ones that are supposed to nitpickÑand, most especially, not constantly micromanaging their people’s actions. If somebody screws up, you show them the error of their ways. If they can’t get their head around doing it right, after adequate retraining, you find somebody who can.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kabadda said, nodding.

  “Was that an automatic response?” Edmund asked. “Or did you listen?”

  “I was listening, Admiral,” the chief of staff said, indignantly.

  “Great. Who is going to guide me around the base?”

  “I wi…” the chief of staff started to say and then smiled ruefully. “I was about to say ‘I will.’ That was the wrong answer, wasn’t it?”

  “Bingo,” Edmund chuckled. “You’ve got more important things to do.”

  “I’ll assign one of my aides,” Kabadda replied.

  “Fine,” Edmund said, draining his coffee. “I’m going to have another cup and then talk to some of the headquarters people. I’ll probably be at this for about an hour.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Edmund walked over to where a chief petty officer was hovering over a group of seamen, male and female, who were labo
riously copying from a manual.

  “Hey Chief,” the admiral said.

  “Admiral,” the CPO replied, bracing to attention.

  “Can it, we’ve got real work to do,” Talbot replied. “What’s your name, Chief?”

  “Senior Chief Naoko Greter, sir,” the chief replied. “NCOIC of the signals group.”

  “Well, Chief Greter, I’d kill for another cup of coffee. Where’s the urn?”

  “Why don’t I get someone to get it for you, sir?” The chief chuckled. “Besom! Coffee for the admiral. That’s what runners are for, sir.”

  “Delegation works.” Edmund nodded, handing the mug to a very young female seaman. “So what are you guys doing?”

  “The fire destroyed most of our signals books, sir,” the chief said with a grimace. “And the press we used to run them off. Until we get a press up and running again we’re having to hand copy.”

  “Is everything being done that is possible to get the press up and running again, Chief Greter?” Edmund asked.

  Herzer wondered at the formality of the question until he realized Edmund was repeating the name to get it memorized.

  “As far as I can tell, sir,” the CPO replied. “I checked with the machine shop and their guys had it as one of their top priorities. They already had the frame done but the letters had to be ordered.”

  “Anything you need you think it’s reasonable to ask for?”

  “I’ve got all the people I could find who can read and write with a fair hand organized on it, sir,” the chief shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

  “Good,” Edmund nodded. “Who do you think I should go cheer up next?”

  Chapter Nine

  The duke worked his way around the room, informally chatting with at least the senior officer and senior NCO of each of the teams that directly supported him. As he did Herzer came to realize that he was subtly drawing them out. Not only learning their names but getting a feel for their capabilities. All of them were, naturally, nervous, facing the boss who had so abruptly replaced Admiral Draskovich. With the destruction of the headquarters all of them were facing problems and Herzer realized that the duke, while appearing on the surface to simply be chatting, was learning who in the headquarters could face a challenge and who couldn’t. Some people could take a break in routine and others could not. Both types were useful to the military, which had more than its share of boring jobs. But the most useful, by and large, were those who could respond to chaos and bring order from it. Unfortunately, the headquarters seemed to be severely lacking in the latter.

  Operations, especially, seemed to be running around like headless chickens. They had multiple messages piling up giving locations of ships and in many cases requests for reinforcement. Edmund leafed through the messages, passing them on to Herzer as he was done.

  Herzer, in turn, was surprised at the… tone of many of the messages. Most of the remaining carrier captains, as well as the captains of the ballista frigates that were attached to them, were simply asking what they should do. Not where they should go or where they should rendezvous, but what they should do about the battle damage on their ships. There were also requests for resupply, naturally, but Herzer had to wonder what they were doing sitting on the desk of the operations section. They should have been sent directly to G-4, the department in charge of logistics. There the requests would be assembled and collated so that if a resupply force could be put to sea, it would be loaded for what they needed.

  After reading the messages and shaking hands with the harried captain who was trying to get some order in his section, Edmund strolled over to the logistics section where a very young female lieutenant was copying items off of one list and filling in another.

  “How’s it going, Lieutenant?” the admiral said.

  The young woman had been so absorbed in her task that she hadn’t even noticed the approach of the new boss.

  “Not very damned good.” She sighed, not looking up. “Whatever it is, I don’t have it.”

  “What a perfect answer from a supply person,” Edmund chuckled.

  She looked up then and leapt to her feet, ashen.

  “Sorry, sir,” she stammered, “it’s just that…”

  “I understand,” Edmund replied. “Everyone wants something and they want it right now. The question is, are we going to be able to get it?”

  “So far, so good, sir,” she replied. “What I was doing was taking the requests from the fleet and compiling ship packets, sir.” She glanced down at the lists and seemed to drift off for a moment.

  “Betraying my total ignorance,” Edmund said after a moment. “What is a ship packet?”

  “Sorry, sir,” the lieutenant said, shaking her head. “When we send resupply ships out, some of the stuff that’s requested is in bulk. Beans and ketchup for the wyverns, salt beef and pork. But some of the stuff is specific. For example the Henry Tachos needs a new set of steering rigging; the fire they had burned up most of the rear of the ship. We try, where possible, to assemble the specific needs for the ships in one place on the resupply ships and then load it according to the order in which the ships are going to be supplied.”

  “And you are…?”

  “Lieutenant Dierdre Miuki, sir,” the young woman replied.

  “Does that need to be done in the headquarters, Lieutenant Miuki?” Edmund asked. “I’d think that would be passed on to a lower section to be assembled?”

  “We sort of triage it here, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Then it gets gone over again by the G-4 staff.”

  “I notice that while you were concentrating, you’re not terribly busy, Lieutenant… Miuki, was it?”

  “Yes, sir, Miuki,” she replied. “I’m waiting on the rest of the signals from the fleet, sir.”

  “Which are over at operations.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?” the admiral inquired, mildly.

  “They… go through ops first, sir,” the officer said, swallowing.

  “Van Kr…” Edmund said then shook his head. “No… Destrang.”

  “Sir?”

  “Go over to operations. On my authority, pore through those messages. Pull out any that only pertain to material needs and move them over here. Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” the ensign said languidly, then strolled back over to ops.

  “You’ll have your messages shortly, Lieutenant,” the admiral said. “But all I want you to do is sort out who wants what and send it on. Let someone in the G-4 section make up the ship packets or whatever. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant Miuki.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Herzer and the ensigns followed the admiral to the far side of the room where he stood looking at the map for a long time, then turned around shaking his head.

  “No plan survives contact with the enemy, Herzer.”

  “No sir,” Herzer said, smiling faintly. “That’s why they call them the enemy, sir.”

  * * *

  Megan smiled as Paul rolled off of her and she rearranged her clothing as she cleaned up.

  When she had first arrived in the harem the “standard” clothing was light silk robes that were presupplied. Some of the girls made clothing of their own; Mirta Krupansky for example was an accomplished seamstress. The simple rule, strictly enforced by Christel, was that the clothing had to be “nice to look at” by which she meant “skimpy.”

  Megan had used a crisis with Paul, a time when he nearly killed himself from neglect, to effect several changes. One of them was to get Mirta to do more classes on sewing. The woman was clearly older than she looked or acted and had spent her time studiously avoiding any attention in the harem. Megan more or less forced her to take a more proactive role and over time all of the girls, even Megan, became competent at making “appropriate” outfits.

  But another change that Megan effected was the robes. They had struck her from the beginning as being silly. And not having
panties or bras was just idiocy. So, soon after the “crisis,” she had convinced Christel to “outsource” for standard clothing that, while alluring, was a bit more practical. Among other things, working out in the robes was a pain and doing so stark naked was a specific pain; Paul was eclectic in his taste in women, with the exception of breasts.

  The “standard” clothing in the harem, now, was a short midriff top, front-opening bra, either short skirt or very short shorts and panties. They arrived in various sizes and then the girls “fitted” them a bit more closely. Of course, when Paul came to visit those came off and a variety of “special” outfits went on.

  Megan’s “special” outfits tended to look not much different from the day-to-day ones, just in more vivid colors and richer fabrics. She was currently wearing a short, split, hip-hugging skirt and a very brief halter top, both in a rich, rippling red material.

  She picked up her ripped panties and shook her head.

  “You’ve been away too long again, Paul,” she said.

  “Yes, I suppose I have,” the council member replied. He looked much better than during the crisis. The girls had managed to convince him that starving himself wasn’t good for him or them. And he had tended to spend more time in the harem afterwards; most of his work was done via sentient avatars which had to be “gathered” and resent on an almost daily basis. They were, for all practical purposes, “him” but as time went by their experiences tended to make the personalities fragment away from the base. Gathering them always was somewhat traumatic as he dealt with the various problems that arose in brutal bursts.

  But that meant that he could do it just about anywhere and for several months after the crisis he had tended to do the “reintegration” in the harem, usually while Megan or Christel watched over him.

  The combination of the girls stuffing him and coming out of his reintegration trance with a pretty female snuggled up against him had done wonders for his psyche. Which was why Megan found it odd that he had been gone for nearly a month. Presumably, given his actions, celibate.