"Additionally, you should not initiate discussion of the matters before the Board of Inquiry in any way, with anyone. Do not try some sort of PR campaign to clear your name. Let the process unfold in its own time. It is my experience that the best long-term results are obtained in that way, regardless of how personally frustrating the interim period may be for you.
"It is important for the Navy that the proceedings of a Board of Inquiry not be compromised, that they proceed per the regulations. There are always people who seek to manipulate board proceedings in some way. For this particular Board of Inquiry, that is perhaps more true than for others. It is part of my job as an attorney and officer of the board to make sure that doesn't happen.
"My first task will be to interview you at length as to your involvement in events, and the facts about which you will be called upon to testify. We will handle that in a series of lengthy meetings over the next several weeks. I have some research to do before I will be prepared to conduct those interviews. I will get in touch with you when I am ready to proceed.
"Do you have any questions at this point, Admiral?"
"Just one, Captain. How long will the Board of Inquiry take?"
"For a matter of this magnitude, I would expect the entire process, from now through the publication of its findings, to take no less than a year, and no more than eighteen months. That may seem like a long time, Admiral, but it is quite speedy considering the importance of coming to a proper finding."
"Admiral Campbell. Come in, come in," Admiral Durand said.
"Good to see you, Sir," Bill said.
They shook hands, and Bill sat in the chair that Durand waved him to. Bill was carrying a small black case, perhaps 3" x 5" and an inch thick.
"Is that what I think it is," Durand asked.
"Yes, Sir. The complete forensic package from Kodu."
Bill handed Durand the case.
"Excellent. That was nicely done, collecting all the forensic data immediately. I saw your inventory in your report. Well done, Admiral."
"Thank you, Sir."
"I don't have to tell you of all people how important this Board of Inquiry is. Mistakes were made, and we lost five thousand people. I have my own opinion of what happened, and I suspect it's not too much different than yours, but other people have, well, shall we say, a different view. Perhaps even a vested interest. I assume Admiral Childers has obtained legal counsel from JAG?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Who did they assign?" Durand asked.
"Senior Captain Mitch Forsythe."
"Excellent. I suspected Admiral Cavanagh would tweak to this, and apparently he did. All the defense attorneys in JAG are pretty much bulldogs, especially those assigned to flag-rank cases, but Mitch Forsythe pretty much sets the standard there."
"That's good to hear, Sir."
"No doubt."
Durand tapped the evidence case on his desk and looked at it absently while he collected his thoughts.
"There's another matter that's bothering me about the Kodu incident. As I understand it, the Paradiso ships appeared in Kodu not long after Task Force 32 arrived at Kodu-5."
"That's correct, Sir. The fleet exercises had not even begun. I happened to be watching in Planetary CIC when the Paradiso fleet dropped out of hyper."
"And the orders for fleet exercises had not been circulated on Kodu?"
"No, Sir. I know for a fact that they were closely held by the Task Force 32 commander until mere days before they spaced for Kodu-5."
"As I suspected. I would have been surprised had Admiral Childers done otherwise. But that means, Admiral, that someone here on Sigurdsen advised Paradiso of the fleet exercises well in advance. It's a month's transit from Paradiso to Kodu. Putting a fleet together and spacing to Kodu from Paradiso didn't happen overnight."
"Yes, Sir. My thoughts as well."
"All right, then. I have a new assignment for you, Admiral. It's time we finally cleared out the rats from the cellar. You've worn an inspector's badge before, and you're good at it, so I'm giving it to you again. I want you to assemble a staff, and go after the active agents here on Sigurdsen. We've been too lax on this for too long, and we got away with it. Five destroyed ships, three drifting hulks, and five thousand dead spacers later, I finally have license to go after them in a big way, from higher."
"Excellent, Sir. It's time, and past time."
"Assemble your staff requests, Admiral. You have priority over just about anything else on my plate, and you know the people you need better than anybody. At the same time, we need to keep this quiet. We don't want to chase them out, we want to find them and kill them. Think of some misdirection you can use as a cover."
"Yes, Sir. I'm on it."
"Good hunting, Admiral."
Jan and Bill compared notes when they finally got home to their standard-issue furnished flag townhouse. Their bags had been delivered to the house and were sitting on the living room floor when they arrived. Bill went to one of his bags, dug around for a few minutes, and found the Inspector specialty badge he had worn for the Grand Tour. He applied it to his uniform, then turned to Jan.
"How do I look?"
"Rear Admiral Inspector? Criminy. Makes me shiver, and I didn't do anything," Jan said.
"Yes, that could be a bit of a problem. I need a cover."
He didn't say what his assignment actually was, and she didn't ask. By this point, they had been playing this game a long time.
"Well, that seems obvious. You're looking into what happened on Kodu," Jan said
"At Sigurdsen? Not on Kodu?"
"Sure. All the officers and crew from my battleship squadron are here now, not there."
"OK. Maybe. I'll have to think about it. What about you? How did it go over at JAG?" Bill asked.
"I like Captain Forsythe. He seems like he knows what he's doing."
"Durand says he sets the standard for the defense attorneys over there. He was really pleased at the assignment. His view of Kodu is the same as ours apparently."
"Really. Well, that's nice. Makes me think I'm not crazy."
"No, Hon, you're not crazy," Bill said.
"Anyway, Forsythe says I shouldn't talk to anybody about anything. Period. Until the Board of Inquiry publishes its findings. And he says this whole thing is going to take a year to eighteen months before it shakes out."
"That sounds about right."
"So I'm going to be grounded, with no assignments, for a year to eighteen months. Does that give you any ideas?" Jan asked.
Bill looked into her eyes for a long minute.
"Maybe it's time to have that talk we keep postponing," Bill said.
"That's what I was thinking. I won't even have to put in for maternity leave."
It was more than seven months later that a visibly pregnant Vice Admiral Jan Childers testified to the Board of Inquiry. Jan had been surprised to find that the Uniform Section of the Personnel Division actually had regulation maternity uniforms available even for vice admirals. She appeared before the board in full uniform, with all her decorations.
The Merit Board had weighed in with their independent assessment of the Battle of Kodu with another award of the CSF Combat Medal, making a total of three, and the Victorious Action ribbon, making a total of six. They also corrected what they considered a previous oversight, and added Theater of Service ribbons for the systems Jan had covered on the Grand Tour: Waldheim, Courtney, Natchez, Meili, Bliss, Hutan, Mountainhome, and Shaanti. She had already had a Theater of Service ribbon for Waldheim, for the Battle of Feirm, so they added a silver star to that one. Together, her Theater of Service ribbons covered almost half the Commonwealth.
The total decorations Jan wore to the Board of Inquiry proceeding were: the CSF Combat Medal, with two clusters, for Parchman, Feirm, and Kodu; the CSF Science Medal, with cluster, for her original hyperspace dissertation, and for her later work defining the inner and outer system envelopes; the Distinguished Service Medal, with three clusters, for Valore
, Saarestik, Calumet, and Feirm; the Victorious Action ribbon, with one gold star, for Valore, Parchman, Saarestik, Pahaadon, Feirm, and Kodu; Theater of Service ribbons for Valore, Parchman, Saarestik, Pahaadon, Calumet, Bahay, Waldheim (with one silver star), Courtney, Natchez, Meili, Bliss, Hutan, Mountainhome, Shaanti, and Kodu; Basic Tactics School badge; Advanced Tactics School badge; and Unarmed Combat School badge.
Jan had to weight the other side of her uniform jacket so it would hang straight.
She was the most decorated officer in the room.
The Board of Inquiry was not an adversarial proceeding. There was no designated party; that is, a person under investigation. It was the investigation of an event. As such, there was no adversarial process, no cross-examination. The direct examination of witnesses was carried out initially by counsel for the Board of Inquiry, and other questions were asked by the board members themselves.
The members of the Board of Inquiry were named by the Defense Minister in convening the board. As the event under investigation was under the command of a vice admiral, and all board members were required to be senior to any principal, the members of the Board of Inquiry all had to be four-star full admirals. Because the event under investigation was a combat loss of ships, they all also had to be line officers, not staff. Because of this requirement, and the limited number of line full admirals available, it was acceptable under the regulations to use recent retirees as well as serving officers.
The members of the Board of Inquiry in the Kodu incident named by the Defense Minister were the obvious choices: Admiral Jeanette Xi, head of the Tactical Division, president; Admiral Janos Stepic, former head of the Tactical Division; and Admiral Desmond Deshpande, the prior commander of Task Force 32 on Kodu.
"So how did it go?" Bill asked.
"You know I can't discuss my testimony," Jan said.
"Let me guess. They didn't ask any questions you hadn't anticipated, and they focused on your orders as you understood them, your written objection to those orders, your planning for the foreseeable incursion, and the actual manner in which the battle unfolded. End of story."
"I won't characterize my testimony. I can characterize you, though, as unusually insightful and experienced in these matters."
"Ha. Told you. Nothing to worry about."
"What about your day?" Jan asked.
"Oh, same old stuff. You know I can't tell you anything either."
"OK, so let's talk about something else. Names."
"I thought you had decided," Bill said.
"Well, I know what I like, but you've been noncommittal."
"I just didn't want to make you feel locked in to anything. Leave you free to change your mind."
"So you're good."
"I'm good," Bill said.
"Then it's decided."
Margaret "Peggy" Childers Campbell was born two months later. Senior Chief Margaret "Peg" Cho (retired) had died the previous year.
The Board of Inquiry had still not released its findings.
The Board of Inquiry had a lot of evidence to consider: the ship's bridge and sensor recordings for every surviving ship of TF32; the set of plans and estimates Jan had drawn up for various operations to counter an offensive move against the planet under several different scenarios; the plans and memos concerning the naval exercises on Kodu-5, themselves drawn up at Sigurdsen; the complete contents of Jan's computer account, including all messages and documents; the complete contents of the computer accounts of dozens of naval staff officers at Sigurdsen, up to and including the current Chief of Naval Operations.
Jan's working assumption in her forecasts was that emerging from hyperspace in a crash transition within the hard system periphery would leave TF32 with twelve effectives among her twenty-four non-destroyer ships. Personnel losses she forecast at up to 18,000 naval personnel killed as the result of the loss of half her ships in each class. That TF32 retained sixteen effectives after transition was testament to the maintenance regimen maintained by her officers and crews. Personnel losses were limited by the survival of the three Alexander-class battleships that suffered major engineering failures. Most of their 7,200 spacers survived because the ships did not blow up on re-entering normal space, though they were rendered ineffective for the battle. Jan's forecasts showed she considered and rejected the idea of bringing any of the sixteen destroyers and their 6,400 combined crewmen on the operation, as her estimates for survival of the fragile smaller ships were as low as one in four.
Even with those losses, against an outer-colony force that would be unlikely to include any battleships, Jan's forecasts showed that she concluded the operation could be pressed successfully against any outer-colony force she was likely to confront. Few outer colonies, and none in Kodu's sector, fielded battleships. They preferred lighter and faster combatants for their typical operations. Battleships were twice as expensive as heavy cruisers, hard to hide, and (usually) easy to avoid, so the outer colonies preferred the heavy cruiser as their largest combatants.
Jan's forecasts of TF32's likely losses were weighed against her forecasts of the economic and personnel losses likely to be suffered by Kodu if an outer-colony raid were mounted against Kodu with little or no CSF opposition. The forecast losses, in personnel, in the credit-value of infrastructure, and in ongoing economic impact, dwarfed her forecast of TF32's losses.
Jan also considered other losses and benefits. In particular, she considered the PR disaster for the CSF if an outer-colony force successfully carried out a raid on a Commonwealth planet against ineffective or nonexistent CSF opposition, compared to the PR benefit of proving to the outer colonies once again the CSF was not to be toyed with, and they would do anything – literally anything, including risking a crash hyper transition of an entire task force well within the system periphery – to protect Commonwealth citizens and business interests. It also had the benefit of trimming back at least one outer-colony navy, and encouraging them to mind their P's and Q's at home.
In the end, Jan prepared sixteen sets of navigation plans, eight sets of firing plans, and ten additional hyperspace transition modulations against the possibility of an outer-colony force taking advantage of TF32 being out of position to defend Kodu. All this forecasting and planning was done well before Second Fleet made its appearance at the Kodu system periphery.
The Board noted Jan's written objection to her orders for the naval exercises, and the ease with which staff officers at Sigurdsen dismissed the considered objections of a flag-rank commander with extensive space and combat experience.
The Board also noted the speed and effectiveness with which TF32 was able to respond to the threat to Kodu posed by Paradiso's Second Fleet, which speed and effectiveness they attributed to the forecasting and planning work done well in advance by TF32's commanding officer.
Peggy was four months old when the Board of Inquiry released its findings. That put it at the low end of the time range that Captain Forsythe had predicted. The full findings were not made public, although the executive summary was released. Bill sent the executive summary to Jan from the office when it came out.
When Bill got home that night, Jan was nursing Peggy in the big comfy chair in the living room.
"Did you see the Board's executive summary?" Bill asked.
"Yes. I read it while your little terror here was taking her nap."
"My little terror? You had more than a little to do with it. Most of it, in fact."
"Yes, but when she's ill-tempered, she's yours. I have such a sunny disposition, you know," Jan said.
Bill laughed.
"The report was a complete vindication of your actions. And with a big pat on the back for your planning and execution," Bill said.
"Yes, I saw that."
"The full report is even more explicit. I should say, strongly worded. You're off the hook. There can't possibly be any charges against you now."
Jan sighed, and Peggy mewed and squirmed, then quieted down again.
"It's sti
ll five thousand dead. And those bastards still run the Navy," Jan said.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"What do you mean?"
"There's going to be tremendous pressure for Graham to step down. And a lot of his people will go down with him."
"Are you talking out of school?" Jan asked.
"Nope. Word's out on the street already. And several members of the Commonwealth Council have called for his resignation already."
"Good. Nothing would please me more."
It was six days later when Bill came home with the news. Jan was again nursing Peggy in the big comfy chair in the living room.
"Graham resigned as CNO this afternoon," Bill said.
"Really."
"Yes. The calls for his resignation got so strident in the Council, including the Chairman, the Defense Minister asked for his resignation this morning. It was either resign or be sacked. He resigned."
"Will he be charged with anything?" Jan asked.
"I don't think so. It's not against the law, or even against regulations, to be stupid. That would also open up questions about who named Graham CNO, and why. I think they're going to let that sleeping dog lie."
"Too bad. I'd like to see him drawn and quartered."
"I know. But there are some of his people that are, um, a little more exposed, you might say," Bill said.
"Excellent."
"Speaking of which, I may have some long days over the next month. Are you going to be able to handle Peggy and all?"
"Oh, sure. You go get 'em," Jan said.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"By the way. Who's the new CNO? I assume they named someone."
"Admiral Leahy came out of retirement to help clean things up."
"The previous CNO? That's a smart move. I wonder whose idea that was."
"No comment," Bill said.
In the end, it was three months of long days, at the end of which Bill met with Admiral Durand.
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