by Jay Allan
"Yes, Your Excellency." It wasn't the time for excuses. Not yet. "We had an advantage of 45% in tonnage and 42% in hulls."
"And yet we were not only defeated, but apparently suffered a loss factor more than double that of the defenders." A new questioner this time. Lin Kang, the naval chief of staff. Liang's commander.
Liang wondered, is he feeding me a lifeline? "Much of that differential resulted from the difficulty in re-vectoring our ships back to the Alpha Cephei warp gate after Admiral Al'Assar ordered the retreat." Liang was nervous. Trying to shift the blame was risky.
"Admiral Liang, we are well aware that Admiral Al'Assar was in overall command." The civilian again. Liang couldn't tell if the guy was trying to save him or bury him. "The Caliph has already rendered his judgment. Admiral Al'Assar met his fate in the airlock of his flagship." The speaker paused. Liang tried to stand steadily, but he could feel the tingling in his legs. "Nevertheless, we would like to know from you exactly what transpired."
Liang started to speak, but his mouth had gone dry. He'd been in battle dozens of times; he was no coward. But standing here waiting for these old men to decide his fate called for a different sort of courage. He cleared his throat. "Your Excellencies, I would like to begin by stating for the record that our officers and crews fought with great bravery and distinction. That the battle was lost is in no way attributable to the devotion of our naval personnel."
"We understand that our forces serve with distinction at all times, Admiral." The civilian again, more impatient this time. "However, we are concerned with the command decisions that resulted in the defeat and the loss of over half the committed force and 28% of our entire active naval capacity."
Liang shifted his feet nervously. "Yes, Your Excellency." They aren't going to let you evade this, Liang thought. "Admiral Al'Assar insisted on stripping the cruisers from the combat groups and sending them in as a first wave. I objected strongly to this plan. Many of our officers can bear witness to this."
"There is no need for that. The Committee is not questioning the honesty of one of its senior commanders." Admiral Lin again.
A good sign, Liang thought hopefully. Though he may just be defending the honor of the service. "Yes, Your Excellency. The cruisers were sent through the warp gate well ahead of the main attack force. Admiral Al'Assar wanted the initial assault to go in at very high velocity. The attack date was delayed nine days to allow the first wave to reposition and accumulate the required velocity before transiting." Liang paused and scanned the Committee members.
"Continue, Admiral."
"Yes, Your Excellency. The cruisers went directly at the station, intending to zip past the defending fleet and launch an overwhelming missile strike, rendering the installation combat ineffective before the balance of our forces engaged the enemy fleet. However, the enemy was not deployed in a conventional defensive array; the entire Alliance force was positioned near the station instead of formed up for a warp gate defense.
Admiral Al'Assar's tactical plan was blunt, a straight line advance from the warp gate to the station. Unfortunately, Admiral Garret had vastly increased the density of the protective mine belts, and our force went right through the thickest section. The task force suffered catastrophic damage, and the command structure was severely disordered. By the time the ships were able to launch, their attack was significantly weakened, and the entire Alliance fleet was linked into the station's point defense array. The missile barrage was almost totally ineffective. Worse, our cruisers took even more hits from the station's missile volley."
Liang paused to take a breath. "We did manage to inflict some damage to the station with energy weapons as the task force passed, but the window of fire was brief because of our high velocity. The cruisers immediately began to decelerate, however they needed at least six days to get back to the combat zone, which meant they were effectively out of the battle."
"Tell us what occurred when the main force began its assault." This was a different civilian member of the Committee - a man, about 60 years of age, very well dressed in a stylish black suit. Liang recognized him as Wu Xilong, the head of internal security. A dangerous man, even more so than most of the others.
Liang described the events of the battle as succinctly as possible. The Alliance bomber squadrons had surprised the fleet and inflicted enormous damage. He squarely blamed Admiral Al'Assar for unreadiness, though he had been caught flat footed too. Making things worse, the attack had forced the CAC-Caliphate ships to jettison their external missile racks. Between the loss of the hull-deployed missiles and the damage inflicted, the fleet's barrage was significantly weakened, while Admiral Garret's was well-planned and perfectly plotted.
By the time the two sides engaged at energy weapons range, the Alliance force was still outnumbered, but fewer of its ships were heavily damaged. The fleets savaged each other with laser fire as they approached, and when they passed, the ships spun about and continued to fire. He credited his weapons teams with a strong performance under difficult circumstances, and tried to attribute the disappointing results to the damage they had suffered.
"After the energy weapons exchange," he said, "Admiral Al'Assar ordered maximum deceleration. Unfortunately, it proved impossible to adequately change the fleet's vector before we reached missile range of the station which, unfortunately, was still fully operational. Worse, many of our ships had been damaged and were unable to produce maximum thrust, so the formation degraded. A number of heavily damaged ships could not maneuver away from the station's missiles. Isolated, with their point defense seriously degraded, many were destroyed."
"Is that when our fleet attempted to flee?" A woman's voice. There was only one female member of the Committee, Liang thought with a chill. Li An, First Minister of C1, the main intelligence agency of the CAC, and one of the most reptilian members of the human race ever to draw breath. The CAC did not make it easy for women to advance to the upper levels of power, and how many bodies she'd disposed of during her climb was a matter for the most circumspect conjecture.
"Your Excellency..." He was trying hard to stay calm, but Li made him even more nervous than he already was - she made everyone nervous. "...it was at that point that Admiral Al'Assar ordered the individual fleet elements to retreat at their best speed." Despite a major effort to remain calm, his voice cracked a bit. "Unfortunately, at this point, Admiral Garret was able to target numerous isolated elements of the fleet, inflicting additional losses before the surviving ships were able to reach the warp gate and transit to the safety of Alpha Cephei."
Li put her hand up. "Enough, Admiral Liang." Her tone was icy. "While I will acknowledge that Admiral Al'Assar was in overall command and that he displayed a level of incompetence greater than your own, I cannot overstate the Committee's disappointment at your performance in this sorry affair." Liang didn't dare respond, but he couldn't help fidgeting under her frosty gaze. "You have presided over one of the greatest military disasters in the history of war in space, and you have handed the Alliance an enormous victory...one that has seriously jeopardized our position in the war as a whole."
I'm not going to leave this room, Liang thought. He stood as still as he could, but he was beginning to panic. Li An did not allow procedure or ceremony to interfere with efficiency. If she wanted him dead he would never see it coming. He kept imagining a shot ringing out, hitting him in the back of the head. He could feel the sweat trickling down his neck.
"Do you know why you are here, Admiral Liang?" Had her voice softened slightly?
"Yes, Your Excellency. To provide a report on the events of the battle and to answer for my part in it." Maybe I will get out of here yet, he thought.
"Wrong, Admiral."
My God, it is Li An who had me brought here, he thought. Why? What does she want with me?
"Your ineptitude in the recent engagement is quite apparent to us." Her merciless eyes bored into his. "Had that been the only factor, I can assure you that things would have been dealt with be
low this level. Your actions are unpardonable; you very well might have shared Admiral Al'Assar's fate."
There's a but coming. Maybe I have a chance after all, he thought.
"However, there is a way that you can atone for your failures and serve the state." She punched a button on the desk, and the large viewscreen at the front of the room activated, displaying photos of two Alliance officers. "Our recent reverses have been almost entirely attributable to these two enemy commanders, General Elias Holm and the newly promoted Fleet Admiral Augustus Garret."
She paused briefly. "The fortunes of war, as they say, are sometimes unpredictable. Though we were well-prepared for the conflict and, indeed, enjoyed almost uninterrupted success during the initial phases, fortune has taken an ill turn. It would appear that our enemies have not one, but two bona fide military geniuses in their service, while we..." - she looked at him contemptuously - "...have nothing of the sort."
Li motioned to one of the men standing along the back wall of the room, who walked toward Liang. "Admiral Liang, you are indeed fortunate, for we have prepared a plan to rid us of Admiral Garret once and for all. Through no small efforts, we have penetrated Alliance Intelligence and obtained a copy of Admiral Garret's most recent orders. He is still in the Gliese 250 system, attending to fleet repairs. However, he will soon depart with a taskforce bound for Eta Cassiopeiae."
Liang was uncomfortable with Li's aide standing right behind him, but he remained still and managed not to turn around and look.
"You will leave here immediately and transit to the Capella system to take command of the force assembling there. You will intercept and engage the Alliance force bound for Eta Cassiopeiae. You will target and destroy Admiral Garret's flagship. Regardless of the outcome of the battle, you will eliminate Admiral Garret, whatever steps you must take. If you succeed, your poor performance in the recent combat will be pardoned, and you will retain your rank and perquisites."
Here is comes, he thought nervously.
"However, if you fail, you will be punished as a traitor." He didn't think her voice could get more intimidating, but he was wrong. "I trust you understand what that means, not only for you but for your family as well."
He imagined his wife, his children, even his aged father strapped to a bare metal chair in a soundproofed plasti-crete room in the sub-levels of C1 headquarters. Those rooms were the stuff of nightmares - cold and featureless, other than the drains in the floor for washing away the blood and other fluids.
"I will not fail, Your Excellency." Then for good measure he added, "Thank-you, Your Excellencies, for the chance to redeem myself."
"Good, Admiral. Agent Deng will brief you fully. You leave within the hour."
"Yes, Your Excellency." Liang bowed to the Committee and turned to follow his new companion into the outer gallery. One chance, he thought. I cannot fail.
Li An sat at a large mahogany desk sipping a drink. Although the CAC cultural ministry encouraged citizens to embrace Asian traditions, Li favored bourbon, smuggled, at great cost and effort since the war began, from the Alliance. Behind her there was a wall of windows with a panoramic view across the harbor to Kowloon. The glass was special, not only strong enough to stop a mid-sized rocket launcher, it was reflective on the other side, which allowed Li her view and her privacy at the same time.
Most of the government buildings were west of C1's headquarters, in the main business district, but Li preferred the luxury and slightly less frenetic pace of the Wan Chai neighborhood. And Li An usually got what she wanted. No one in the CAC's multi-tentacled government knew as many secrets as she did. Infighting and plots were common among upper level functionaries, but no one wanted Li An as an enemy.
Though she frequently worked late in the solitude she enjoyed, tonight she had two guests ensconced in the buttery-soft leather chairs opposite her. Wu Xilong sipped at small glass of Maotai. Li couldn't decide if he really enjoyed it or just liked the image of the traditional state drink. She and Wu were generally rivals - technically she had jurisdiction over external affairs while his covered all internal security matters. In actual practice, they frequently stepped on each other's toes. Tonight, however, they were of like mind. It was in no one's interest for the CAC to lose the war, and they were far closer to that unpleasant eventuality than anyone below their rarified heights knew about.
Her other guest was Lin Kang, though he had discarded his naval uniform for non-descript civilian attire. Like Li, Lin Kang preferred his liquor imported, usually vodka, though in this instance he had accepted only tea.
"If fortune is with us, our friend Admiral Liang will succeed at his mission." She drank the last few drops in her glass. "He is now well-motivated." She grabbed a crystal flask and poured herself a refill. "The intelligence that enables his effort was difficult to obtain, but it is highly reliable."
"I am concerned about the naval resources we are providing to Liang for this mission." Lin Kang was a worrier by nature, but he had good cause to be concerned. Liang was taking well over a third of their depleted strength to attack Garret's fleet. If he suffered another defeat they would be in a great deal of the trouble, with no significant new naval construction scheduled for completion for at least two years. "Perhaps we are being too aggressive."
"Admiral Lin, I believe that we are short on options." Wu spoke softly, politely, not wanting to offend Lin with what he was going to say. "With all due respect to your military organization, can you honestly state that you have anyone in your command structure that can defeat either Admiral Garret or General Holm? At least without significant numerical superiority that we are not currently able to provide?"
Lin felt a flush of anger, but he stifled the urge to mount a kneejerk defense of the military. Wu was very clearly trying to avoid provocation. Besides, he was right. None of Lin's officers could outfight the Alliance's devil commanders. Fortune had favored the Alliance dogs and given them not one, but two military masterminds. "No," he finally said. "Though we have many fine commanders, I do not believe they are the equals of Garret and Holm."
If we had so many fine commanders, Li An thought bitterly, we would not be at this pass. "Whatever the skill levels of our command personnel, I believe it is an inescapable conclusion that our path to restoring our fortunes and winning this war begins with eliminating these two adversaries." She leaned back in her chair, her eyes darting between her two companions as she spoke.
Lin saw the need for the proposed course of action, but he didn't like it. Li and Wu were spies - they were just as pleased if their ends were served by bodies dissolved in acid in the dark as by military victory in the open. More satisfied, in fact, for they considered such a solution to be expedient. But Lin was a career soldier, and while he despised the Alliance and had spent his entire life fighting them, he also respected them as worthy enemies. He wanted to destroy them, but he wanted to do it in battle and not by thinly-disguised assassination. Still, he knew that Garret and Holm represented a true threat to the overall war effort. Grudgingly, he had decided to go along with the plans.
"My staff will brief Admiral Liang further, and assist him in organizing his new command. He must be underway quickly, or he will arrive too late to complete the plan." Lin tried to sound positive, but he was still unhappy, and he doubted he disguised it completely.
"Very well. We will leave it in your hands." Li An knew Lin had reservations, but she was confident he would do his best to execute the plan. "Now, let us discuss our intentions with regard to General Holm, who is no less of a threat." She paused to allow her guests to interject, but both remained silent and waited for her to continue. "I have developed a plan of some complexity. If we are able to execute it, we will not only rid ourselves of General Holm, but we will also inflict a major military defeat on the Alliance forces. Indeed, there will be ancillary benefits as well, which I shall disclose to you shortly."
She took a sip of her bourbon and leaned back in the plush desk chair. "The resources required for the
execution of this plan have been in the works for some time. As both of you are aware, we were able to agree to the terms of a treaty with the South American Empire quite some time ago. The provisions of this alliance are rather complex, but fundamentally, we have agreed to aid them in conquering five specific colony worlds, four from the Alliance and one from the CEL. These systems will provide the empire with two points of access to the rim, something they currently lack."
Wu listened intently, rubbing his temples silently as Li explained her plan. She knows something I do not, he thought. It made him uncomfortable to lack information, and it annoyed the hell out of him that she had obtained intelligence he had not.
Li continued. "What you are not aware of, is that C1 has been conducting an ongoing operation with the Red Bureau...an effort to deceive Alliance Intelligence." The Red Bureau was the South American Empire's intelligence agency. Not as capable as C1 or Alliance Intelligence, the Bureau was more of a brute force rather than the rapier of its CAC or Alliance counterparts. "We have allowed the Alliance to bribe General Santiago to interfere with Imperial preparations in order to delay the South Americans' entry into the war." She paused for a few seconds. "What they do not realize is that the general has been part of our plan from the beginning."
Li smiled. She particularly enjoyed putting one over on Gavin Stark. The head of Alliance Intelligence was a worthy opponent, one who was rarely fooled by anyone. At first, Li was surprised that her plan had not been discovered, but later she became aware that Stark was distracted and deeply immersed in several unknown initiatives. It made her nervous not to know what he was up to, but she was glad at least to be working against one of his cronies on her op.
"General Santiago has been duping the Alliance all this time?" Wu sounded surprised.
Li looked over at him. I love that he has no idea what I have been doing, she thought. "No, General Santiago is greedy, and he was actually flipped by Alliance Intelligence. However, we were aware of the entire operation from the start."