by Dietmar Wehr
“Yes, I do understand how things must look from the Committee’s point of view. What I would like to point out, is that the enemy was clearly better prepared for a war than we were when we first encountered them. Given their numerical and tactical advantages, I’m of the opinion that we’re actually doing not too badly, all things considered. I...”
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but we don’t agree. Furthermore, in spite of denials to the contrary from your senior staff, we’re convinced that you’re all hiding something from us. Therefore, from this point going forward, you will clear all orders regarding force buildup, ship construction, infrastructure development and promotions and deployment of personnel above the rank of Lieutenant Commander, with me prior to issuing those orders. Is that clearly understood, Admiral?” Kelly held her breath. She looked at Howard who seemed strangely calm. He said nothing for almost ten seconds, then leaned forward and said in a neutral tone of voice.
“I’m absolutely certain that our prospects for winning this war would be negatively impacted in a major way by that arrangement and I will not agree to it. Furthermore, if the Committee insists on this course of action, I will submit my resignation effective immediately.” Kelly could see by the reaction of the Committee members that they hadn’t expected that. After the Chair consulted very quietly with the members on either side, he said,
“You’re making a mistake if you believe that you’re the Indispensible Man, Admiral Howard. We’re going to call your bluff. Now stop this foolishness and accept the fact that I as representative of the Committee will be looking over your shoulder. You’ll see…what are you doing Admiral?” Howard looked up from his tablet, that he’d been typing on, and said,
“I’m composing my resignation letter, Mr. Chair. If you’ll bear with me for just a few more seconds…there! I’ve just submitted my resignation.” With that he got up and started to walk out.
“You can’t leave! I order you to sit back down!” As Howard pulled open the double doors, he said,
“I don’t report to you anymore. Goodbye.” and walked out. Kelly could see from his expression that the Chair was visibly dismayed by Howard’s actions. While he consulted again with the other members in hushed tones, she turned to look at the three 2-star Admirals who headed the Personnel, Logistics and Infrastructure divisions. They would be the logical candidates for a replacement CSO and they were huddled together and whispering as well. After almost a minute, the Chair cleared his throat and said,
“Well, since Admiral Howard is not prepared to meet his obligations as a Space Force Officer, we’ll now appoint an interim CSO until we can select a final replacement after conducting a more careful search. Admiral Dietrich? Am I correct in thinking that you are already designated as the Deputy CSO in situations where the CSO isn’t available?” Dietrich broke off the huddle and nodded to his two peers.
“Ordinarily that would be correct however I will not accept the appointment if the Committee expects me to agree to the new approval requirement.”
“Are you prepared to resign too?” asked the Chair.
“Yes I am and before you even think of moving down the chain of command to my two colleagues, we have just now agreed that we will all resign if the new approval requirement is in force.” Kelly saw the other two Admirals nod.
“Who would be the next most senior officer below you three?” asked the Chair with obvious anger.
“I’ll answer that question if you insist but before I do, I’d like to point out that having the Hero of the Hour resign on the same day as he successfully defended Earth from a massive space attack in one thing but I doubt very much if the general public will sit still if they hear that the top four officers in the Space Force all resigned at the same time. They’ll want to know why and speaking for myself, I’d be prepared to make myself available to the media and let the public know why. This new approval policy is ill-advised and dangerous. This war can’t be won if our strategy is held hostage to the short term political agendas of elected officials. We are trained to think in terms of a long term strategy. If you want to be helpful, and then continue to give us what we ask for and let us do our jobs.”
“I don’t find this game of brinksmanship at all amusing, Admiral. I’m THIS close to accepting your resignations too! However, rather than act rashly, I’ll consult with the other members and we’ll let the majority opinion prevail. For now, you can tell Howard, that we’ll hold off on the new approval policy for the time being and he can withdraw his resignation if he wishes. This closed session is now adjourned!” When the Committee members had left the room, Admiral Dietrich turned to Kelly and said,
“Commander, please find Admiral Howard and tell him the good news.” It didn’t take long to find him. He was in his office packing his things.
“You can stop packing, Admiral. The Committee caved in, at least temporarily, when your three Division Heads threatened to resign too. The Chair said you can resume your position as CSO if you wish.” Howard didn’t seem surprised. He stopped packing and sat down.
“I already know, Commander. I’m in contact with Iceman via my implant and he heard the whole thing. Were you able to read Iceman’s text message too?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Did you catch the implications of Shiloh’s confirmation that your team, the RTC and the weapons people should be relocated off Earth?”
“No, Sir. I was too wrapped up with what was happening in the meeting.”
“Well, Iceman and I have been discussing it. Clearly there’s nothing we can do to stop a biological attack on the Avalon Colony. When Shiloh urged me to quarantine the whole system, that tells me that the Nimitz Base is going to be affected too. The quarantine is clearly warranted but as Iceman pointed out, if it was successful in terms of containing the spread of the weapon, then why the need to move our key project teams somewhere else?” Kelly thought fast and didn’t like the answer she was getting.
“Could it be that he was warning us of another direct attack on Earth, Sir?” After a pause, he said,
“That’s a possibility but if the vision is that vague, that doesn’t help us in terms of the timing of the attack, does it?”
“No Sir, but if our future did include the spread of a biological weapon to Earth why wouldn’t the vision warn us of how to stop it?” Howard tilted his head slightly to one side. He was clearly listening to something Iceman was saying. He then nodded again and said.
“It’s a good question and Iceman’s answer is that it may be that we never find out for sure how the weapon spread to Earth and therefore wouldn’t know how to prevent it. Iceman’s feeling is that the quarantine will buy us some vital time to get our house in order so that there’ll be enough of us left to fight on. I hope that’s way too pessimistic but I can’t fault the logic behind it.”
“What I don’t see is how a biological agent could spread if we quarantine that entire system, Sir.” Howard sighed.
“We can’t isolate that system indefinitely, Commander. The Committee and the public will eventually demand to know what’s happened there and I’ll have to send at least one ship there. They will naturally take every possible precaution but something may slip through the cracks anyhow.” Kelly thought about that for a while and said,
“I’m glad I won’t be the CO commanding that mission. Considering the casualties we took today, who do we have that could be given that assignment?” Howard looked up into infinite space for a couple of seconds and said,
“I think I know the right person for that job…if she’s still alive.”
Chapter 16 - You’re Not Seeing The Big Picture
Johansen just happened to be the only human on the Euryalus when the alert sounded. When she ran back onto the tiny Bridge, she hit the switch to connect her with the station, that the ship was docked with.
“This is Johansen! What’s the alert for?”
“Radar has just picked up 55 ships coming our way at high speed! No identification and we’re not expecting
any ships so we’re pretty sure they’re hostile! I suggest you get your people back aboard and hightail it outta here!” As she began to strap herself into the Command Station chair, she said,
“How fast and what’s their ETA?”
“15% of light speed. Range will be zero in 3 minutes if they don’t slow down.” Shit! This freighter won’t get beyond laser range in three minutes! It’s too damn slow! Fear started to well up in her. She would rapidly find herself in virtually the same situation as in her nightmares. She noticed her hands start to tremble badly.
“Your crew is on their way!” All of sudden, she knew what she had to do.
“Negative! Negative! Tell my crew to stay with you people and find room on your lifeboats! I’m going to take this ship and ram one of those bastards! Johansen clear!” As she shifted Helm control to her station, she suddenly realized that her hands weren’t shaking anymore and the fear was gone too. What replaced it was rage. With Helm control at her station now, she started the undocking procedure and then realized that the automated sequence would take way too long.
“Fuck that!” she said out loud. Switching helm to manual control, she grabbed the small joystick at the end of her right armrest and thumbed the switch to activate maneuvering thrusters. Pushing the joystick hard over, the ship tried to move away from the station but the docking clamps held on to it. With her left hand, she increased thrust to maximum and heard a shockingly loud screeching noise as the ship ripped loose from the station’s docking clamps. Alarms sounded and red lights appeared on her status board. Her ship was venting atmosphere from the damage caused by the forced maneuver. She ignored it. Automatic systems would close off the affected areas. Not that it mattered. In less than 3 minutes she’d be dead anyway. I’m sick of being afraid. I’d rather be dead than continue to live that way.
It only took 45 second to line the ship up with a vector that would intercept one of the oncoming ships. She redlined the engines and locked the trajectory into the autopilot. The tactical display showed the oncoming fleet and their projected course. She looked at the time to impact. 111 seconds. Before she could look away, everything went dark.
Shiloh looked at the image on Valiant’s tactical display and said,
“Admiral, I really think Valiant should wait here for TF89’s freighters to return, which will be within 48 hours, so that I can escort them back to Site B as quickly as possible.”
“You’re not seeing the big picture, Shiloh.” said Howard. “All of our pre-attack operational plans are in chaos now. Valiant is the only remaining warship, that’s still fully operational and a carrier to boot! We have to know what happened at Epsilon Eridani in order to find out what needs to be replaced and EE is only a single jump away. Valiant can go there and be back here in less than 72 hours. So you go there, evaluate the situation, bring back any survivors and in particular bring back Angela Johansen, if she’s still alive and if her ship can’t make it back on her own. I want to put her in charge of the survey mission to Avalon. And in order to do THAT, I’m going to have to take away one of your freighters. We’re short on personnel now as you can imagine and those freighters are highly automated and therefore require a minimal crew. I may need another one to go to Bradley Base. As for the other three returning to Site B, the supplies and equipment, they were going to take there, are probably going to be needed elsewhere in the short run. Maybe we can substitute some tankers. I know their cargo capacity is a lot less but we’re not going to need them for a while and…” Shiloh interrupted.
“Yes you are going to need them, Admiral. Have you forgotten about the sentry frigates?” Howard looked blank.
“I don’t…”
“Our Early Warning Network, Admiral. Those sentry frigates can’t refuel themselves. They have to be refueled at either Nimitz Base or Bradley Base. If those bases are destroyed, the frigates will be unable to refuel and will lose power. The A.I pilots will then eventually run out of battery power and die. We’re going to have to send our tankers there to rescue them.” Howard’s face went pale.
“Oh God! I’d forgotten about that. You’re right; we have to get them back. We’re going to need those A.I.s I think.” Shiloh nodded.
“But even if we didn’t need them, we’d still owe it to them to bring them home.”
“Yes. I agree.” Howard took a deep breath. “Look, Shiloh, I’ll try to get as many of your freighters reloaded as quickly as possible but I can’t promise anything at this point. I do have one bit of good news for you though. The soil and plant samples from that planet at Site B checked out. That planet can be safely colonized. You know what that means?”
“Yes, Sir. It means we need those freighters more than ever. We should transplant the Haven Colony there as fast as possible.” Howard blinked. He obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead. The Haven Colony was the closest existing colony to Site B. The astrographic databases captured by the enemy would have information on the Haven Colony and its location. Moving them to the Site B planet would take far less time and effort than transporting the same number of individuals from Earth and also save them from eventual attack by the enemy.
“The Committee isn’t going to like diverting resources to establish another new colony at Site B if it looks like we’re giving up on the existing Haven Colony.”
“Admiral, at this point, I think the less you and I concern ourselves about the Committee, the better it will be for Humanity. I hope I’m wrong but if we’re to have any chance at all of avoiding complete extermination as a species, then we have to plan for the worst case. There are less than 100 people at Site B now. About a third are women of child bearing age. That’s a very small gene pool to try to rebuild with. If that’s all we end up with, we’ll lose a lot of knowledge and skills, that a civilization will need that aren’t critical to building a shipyard from scratch, if you see what I mean, Sir.” Howard did see. Medicine, science, law and other areas of Human endeavor would not be represented and that knowledge would be lost. The Haven Colony had people with those skills.
“It’s easy to say that we should ignore the Committee but they can still throw a monkey wrench into our plans if they decided to reassert their authority.” Howard could tell that Shiloh was starting to get angry.
“You have to find a way to keep them off our backs, Admiral. Have your staff dig up some dirt on them, blackmail them, bribe them, whatever it takes! Promise them we’ll evacuate them and their families in the event that the situation on Earth becomes untenable. Anything!”
“And if I can’t? Then what?” Howard noticed that Shiloh suddenly became very calm.
“I will NOT let them sabotage our efforts at this crucial moment in time. Iceman has let me know, that if push comes to shove, all the A.I.s will obey me regardless of what the CSO or the Committee order and there are enough of them now, that they could make their presence felt. I know your heart’s in the right place but if those fools try to replace you, they’ll lose control. What hope will Earth have then if all of the A.I.s leave for Site B? That’s why we have to get the SPG and the other teams off Earth quick! Without them, Site B is just a long shot. The RTC team has to figure out how to send back the visions that we’ve already had, in order to keep our chances for eventual victory alive and they can’t do that if they’re dead because they were still on Earth when the bio-weapon hits.”
“I suspected that you might have that kind of influence over the A.I.s. I’m actually glad to hear it. If nothing else works with the Committee, I might use that fact as a threat and it’ll come across as a lot more convincing if I believe it myself. I’ll authorize the SPG to make an inspection tour of our colonies, starting with Haven. The RTC team is flying under the Committee’s radar anyway so moving them won’t be a problem. The Advanced Weapons Team will be more difficult. That group has over 100 people in it now. I can’t move them all without the Committee getting wind of it.”
“Out of that hundred, how many are key members of the team?” Howard smiled.