Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (21 page)

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said to the top of the desk.  She wondered suddenly what he was like on dates and if the girl had to be the one to initiate the fooling around, then shook her head.  Gods of Our Mothers, where had
that
come from?

“I can get you all the support you’ll need, Satore, but you’ll be the one responsible for the technical end.”  She studied him, an uneasy feeling of doubt worming through her.  “I need an honest answer, Satore.  Can you do it?”

His mouth twitched, then twitched again.  “Ma’am, am I going to have to fly these gunboats to determine their handling characteristics?”  There was a trace of sweat on his forehead.

Emily shook her head.  “No, Satore, we’ve already done that.  She held up a data cube.  “All you have to do is make the training station act like a real gunboat.”

Satore’s shoulders slumped in relief.  “Oh, thank the Gods, the guys were telling me I’d have to fly the gunboats myself to learn how they handle and I get motion sickness something awful.”

Emily gritted her teeth.  “You don’t have to fly it,” she repeated, “but you have to make the training stations realistic.  The crews have to feel like they’re in the real thing.  Can you do that, Satore?”

Now he looked at her with those blue eyes.  “Oh, sure, Commander.  I’ll make it real enough, alright, but Ma’am, please don’t blame me when those trainee crews lose their lunch.”

“How soon can we see the first one, Satore?”

He scratched his head.  “Well, Commander, do I have a dedicated production bay?”  Emily nodded.  Satore shrugged.  “Figure a week to do the design for the physical training station.  Another three weeks for the software, if I can get some help.  I know Lori – Specialist Romano – has a few people tied up, but I should be able to get enough good programmers to get it done.”  He suddenly grew aware he was looking right at her and hastily dropped his eyes back to the top of the desk, his cheeks flushing.

Emily sighed.  “Get going, Satore.  We need it as fast as you can build it.  Dismissed.”

* * * *

Production continued and accelerated.  By the end of the second week they had fifteen heavy gunboats, by the end of the third week a total of forty.  Atlas freed up some production capacity in the fourth week and in that week alone they churned out thirty birds, for a total of seventy.   Meanwhile the carriers were brought out of mothballs and readied.  The physical structure of each of them was fine, but they all needed updates in software, anti-missile defense and the engines had to be brought up to par.  Lior told her not to worry.

The Victorian Heavy Gunboat Wing was beginning to look real, but there was still one problem.

They still had no crews.

Grant Skiffington had explained it to her.  “We have a problem,” he said flatly.  Emily looked at him expectantly. “Admiral Razon of the Refuge Coast Guard won’t release his gunboat crews to man our ships.  He says they have spent years training them to fly the Refuge gunboats and if we take them, Refuge will be defenseless.”

Emily frowned.  If she had to, she could take this to Admiral Douthat and Queen Anne.  Between them, she was sure they could get the gunboat crews.

“But that’s not the real problem,” Grant continued.  “The real problem is that even if we could get them, we don’t want
those
Refuge crews.”

Emily cocked her head.  “Explain.”

Grant shrugged.  “The front-line Refuge crews are the same crews that have been getting slaughtered in every battle with the Dominion.  Their idea of a proper assault is just to rush in and shoot their missiles.  No flanking maneuvers, minimum jamming, no concentration on specific targets, just fly in fast and fire your missiles.  Even if they joined us and took over the heavy gunboats, we aren’t going to persuade them to fight any differently, only now when they suffer heavy losses, they’ll be flying
our
heavy gunboats.”

“You don’t think we can train them?” Emily asked quietly.

Grant shook his head.  “Not in time, no.  We’ll have to undo years of training and culture.  When I tried to tell them how Victorians fight, Em, they weren’t simply not interested, they were
scornful.
  More than one of them said that if we fight like cowards, we deserve to lose.”

Emily did what she always did when a problem seemed insurmountable; she cut it up into smaller problems and examined them very closely.  So, problem one was that they had no flight crews for the gunboats.  Solution: either train crews from scratch or find existing crews.  She rubbed her nose, her fingers unconsciously tracing the bump from when she had broken it at Camp Gettysburg.  She had no idea how much time it would take to train crews from scratch, but she was pretty sure that she didn’t have it.  Still, it was worth starting a wider recruitment push.  They’d have to develop aptitude tests to weed out people who just didn’t have the spatial ability, but…

She pulled herself back to the problem at hand.  Where the hell were they going to find trained crews?  Victoria had no history of using small fighter craft, so any Victorian source of manpower would have to be trained from scratch.  She pondered for another few moments, and then realized she was getting nowhere.  She called Captain Lior and explained the problem to him.  To her surprise, he chuckled.

“Oh, I can find you crews,” he said with a certain malicious relish, “but whether that fat-assed Razon will give them up is another question.”

“How will you find the crews?” Emily asked.

Lior snorted.  “If you had actually listened to what I told you, young lady, you’d know the answer.”  He hung up.

Two days later he appeared at her door.  He looked smug.  “I’ve got almost six hundred people, all trained on how to use standard Refuge gunboats, but not wedded to the Coast Guard macho culture.”

“Took you long enough,” Emily deadpanned.  “Who are they?”

Captain Lior sat down, preening with self-delight.  “You remember I told you that the applicants who were rejected for active duty in the Coast Guard were put into the Reserve?”  Emily nodded slowly.  He had mentioned that, now that she thought about it.

“Well, the ‘Reserve’ is a misnomer.  They’re rejects, pure and simple.  They got their training but the instructors washed them out because they weren’t aggressive enough.  They wouldn’t make suicidal runs against enemy ships, wouldn’t charge in when all they had left was an ineffectual three inch laser that wouldn’t even scorch the armor plating on a warship.”

“Too sane and rational to be a Refuge gunboat pilot?” Emily suggested.

Lior nodded.  “Exactly.”

“We don’t need just pilots,” she cautioned.  “We need systems operators and gunners as well.”

He shrugged.  “You can train any of them to be gunners.  They all know weapons systems.  Systems engineers might be harder, but a lot of these folks have technical backgrounds; I think you’ll do okay.”

“Okay,” Emily said, nodding slowly.  “What is the next step?”

Lior smiled evilly.  “Now you have to persuade Admiral Half-wit Razon to give you the Reserve.”  He sat back in his chair.  “And I want to be there to see it.”

* * * *

The meeting with Admiral Razon started poorly and went downhill from there.

Emily and Lior flew to Refuge and met him at his office in the Coast Guard headquarters in Haifa.  Admiral Razon kept them waiting for an hour before they were ushered into his office.  He sat behind a large, very clean desk.  Its surface was empty; there were no papers, no books, no clutter, not even a phone.

He did not invite them to sit.

After a moment, he spoke.  “Where is Admiral Douthat?” he asked, frowning.  “If this meeting is as important as you indicated, I would have expected to see Admiral Douthat, not just a junior Commander.”  Then he looked at Captain Lior with obvious distaste and turned back to Emily.  “And why is this man here?”

Uh oh,
Emily thought, but took a deep breath and plunged in.  “Admiral, I must ask that you forgive me if I have inadvertently breached any etiquette or caused any offense.  We are new here and I have not yet had the opportunity to learn your customs.  But the reason for the meeting-“

“It is not a question of ‘customs,’ Commander,” Razon interrupted sharply, “but of simple respect and military courtesy, which I would expect any military person to know and appreciate.  And while I can certainly understand and appreciate that Admiral Douthat may be too busy to attend every meeting, no matter how important, I do
not
understand why you felt it was at all appropriate to bring this man here.”  He pointed a long, bony finger at Lior.  “This man is no longer an active member of the Coast Guard.  He has no standing in the Coast Guard and, based on the personal vendetta he has waged through his scandalous articles about the Coast Guard over the last decade, I find it personally offensive that you would choose to bring him here”  He stopped speaking and glared at her, his face flushed with anger.

Well, this is certainly a good start,
Emily thought ruefully.  “Admiral, within a few weeks, months at the outside, we need to man a new class of heavy gunboats in order to successfully launch offensive actions against the Dominions.  We are manufacturing the gunboats as we speak, but we do not have adequate crews for them.  The need is urgent.  I understand that – “  she carefully did not look at Lior – “the Coast Guard Reserve has some six hundred officers that the Coast Guard does not currently use and has no plans to use in the near future.  I am here to respectfully request that you release the Reserve officers to join the Victorian Fleet for the purpose of manning the new heavy gunboats.”

Admiral Razon placed both his hands flat on his spotless desk.  He stared at her expressionlessly for a long moment, then slowly shook his head.  “Out of the question, Commander, completely out of the question.  The Reserve is for rejects, those we deem unfit to serve in the Coast Guard as gunboat pilots.  I would not – cannot – release these people to you.  To do so would be to dishonor the debt we owe to Victoria and bring shame on the people of Refuge.  I can offer you more of the Refuge gunboat squadrons, and I am sure that you will find them capable of dealing with any threat you may encounter.  The gunboat squadrons are all piloted by our best pilots, men and women of proven bravery. 
They
are a true representation of what Refuge has to offer,” he said gravely.

And they’ll all be dead within three months,
Emily thought bleakly.  She thought frantically for something else to say, some other way to persuade him, but nothing came to mind.  Admiral Razon stood, signaling the meeting was at an end.  Emily stood.  The meeting couldn’t have been worse, she thought.

Then, to belie her thoughts, Captain Lior stood up beside her. 

“This was enlightening,” he said, smiling.  “I say this with all sincerity, Admiral:  You are an imbecile.” 

Then he took Emily by the elbow and escorted her from the office.

Chapter 20

Aboard the Dominion Ship
Fortitude

The Communications Officer looked alarmed.  “Admiral, Citizen Director Nasto wishes to speak to you,” he said.

Admiral Kaeser sighed.  He had known this was coming. 
Time to face the music.
  “I’ll take it in my Day Cabin,” he said and went into the small conference room beside the bridge and shut the door.  His comm screen flickered and the frowning face of Citizen Director Anthony Nasto stared at him.

“Citizen Director,” Kaeser said in greeting.

“Admiral Kaeser,” Nasto said slowly.  “I have it on good authority that you have placed my personal representative under arrest.  Can that be correct?”  He smiled slightly and waited for Kaeser’s reply.

Kaeser nodded.  “It is correct, Citizen Director.  I arrested Mr. Hudis for criminal negligence after the last attack on Refuge.  The enemy was waiting for us in force and had clearly expected us.  I deemed Mr. Hudis’ advice to attack, based on his last meeting with the Victorian Queen, to be so poor that his arrest was warranted.”

“Admiral, your loyalty and fervor speak well of you, but let us be clear about the lines of authority,” Nasto said flatly.  “Hudis is
my
aide, not yours.  He reports to me and only to me.  He does not fall within your command nor your jurisdiction.  If any punishment is to be meted out,
I
will do it, not you.  Is that understood, Admiral?”

Kaeser nodded.  “Of course, Citizen Director.”

“I have sent a courier boat to you.  Put Hudis on it and send him back to my headquarters on Timor without delay.”

“Yes, Citizen Director.”

“Lastly, Admiral Kaeser, I want a full report on the last attack into Refuge with a focus on what went wrong and how to avoid such problems in the future.  And I want your recommendations on what steps we should take in the immediate future.” 

“Of course, Citizen Director,” Kaeser replied.

“And lastly, Admiral, a word of caution.  People in high command, military or civilian, are often tempted to play at power games.  Resist that temptation, Admiral.  There is only one power in the Dominion of Unified Citizenry and that is me.  I will not tolerate any others, regardless of their position or the circumstances.  Do I make myself clear, Admiral Kaeser?”

“Very clear, Citizen Director.”

Nasto smiled coldly.  “It would be prudent of you not to forget.”  The comm went blank.

Admiral Kaeser sat back in his chair and thought about what had just happened…and what had not happened.  He was not a fool, he knew he had just used up all his luck, all of his nine lives.  But he had seen other men sent to the
Tartarus
or the firing squad for lesser offenses.  Nasto had reprimanded him, but hadn’t ordered his arrest or his summary execution.  Kaeser thought about that for a long while.