Firestar
Copyright© 2009 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 16
Orders came the day after Corey was fitted with her prosthetic. They were in the usual cream-colored envelope. Afraid that she might tear them in half—she had just started learning how to use her prosthetic—Corey asked the courier to open and read them.
“You are hereby requested and required to report to the Eldest of the Command & Staff School at your earliest convenience.” The courier handed them to Corey and took her leave.
“At least they waited until after the operation,” Corey’s roommate, Fourth Officer Colleen Mathies, said from her bunk. “The last person I roomed with had to leave before they replaced her leg.”
“I suppose I should be grateful,” Corey said. She flexed her prosthetic repeatedly. It was silver, with the joints covered with white plastic. There was a small black square on the back, a replacement for the shunt contacts that would be there on a real hand. It had also come with a gray glove that she could wear over it.
“The doctors must have done something right,” Corey went on. “My missing hand stopped itching sometime in the night.”
Colleen rubbed her bare scalp. “Maybe I’m getting better, too. I think I actually feel hair. Don’t get radiation sickness, Corey. It messes everything up.”
“So they tell me.” Corey picked up the hand-strengthener the doctor had given her. She was supposed to apply a specific amount of pressure to the device—marked by a line next to the grips—and hold it while she counted slowly to ten. She squeezed, and overshot her mark. She drew a breath and tried again. The trouble was there was no feedback. She couldn’t ‘feel’ how much effort she was exerting. That, she’d been told, she would learn with time.
Colleen shifted on her bunk and turned the page in the magazine she was reading. “Here’s something that should interest you,” she said after reading the first few paragraphs. “This is an article about the Jellicoe Battle Group’s first deployment. The author calls the attack you made ‘silly and suicidal.’”
“Well, she’s partly right,” Corey said, concentrating on her prosthetic. “It was suicidal, now that I think about it. Only the pistol misfired. Some gals from the Chalons tried the same thing and got badly shot up.”
Colleen looked up in surprise. “But I thought it was the latest great tactic, one that was guaranteed to defeat the Idenux every time. You’re being hailed as a tactical genius for thinking of it.”
“Don’t let the comments section in the Command & Staff Journal fool you,” Corey said. “The Idenux should have fried us on the way in. The real secret tactic was the interaction we worked out with the cruisers that joined that furball. The trouble is nobody wants to try that.”
“So I’ve heard,” Colleen said, making a face. “They don’t want to shackle the fighters to the cruisers, or something like that.”
“Actually, I’ve heard it both ways,” Corey said. “Cruiser captains are jealous of the attention pilots get--”
“Especially those who want battlecruisers instead of carriers,” Colleen interrupted. “They’d just as soon scrap every carrier we have.”
“I thought you served in cruisers and would take their side.”
“The good ship Sugita,” Colleen said. “I’m the Weapons Officer, even if I’m not directly related to the Eldest of the Battle Group. That’s Edith Matsuoko, if you didn’t know, and while we’re the same Family, we’re thankfully in different Septs. I wish we weren’t even that closely related. She’s tried to fill the whole Battle Group with members of her Family; every staff meeting is like a reunion.”
“I’d heard rumors about that,” Corey said, “but nobody would tell me which Battle Group it was.”
“Captain Matsuoko sternly opposes the battlecruiser concept, so of course every officer in the Battle Group not related to her supports it. Anyway, what were you going to say about the fighters and cruisers working together?”
“The cruiser officers don’t want it, and neither do the fighter squadrons. About the only one I’ve heard of who likes it is Josie Davenport.”
“I’m not surprised,” Colleen said with a snort. “Now there’s a maverick if there ever was one. I’m surprised she made Captain, even if her grandmother’s sib is Eldest of the Council.”
“Have you looked up her record?” Corey asked. “I did while I was in school. She escorted 19 different convoys and didn’t lose a merchant. She had to fight the convoy through on almost every trip.”
“Still...”
“Not promoting her would have been a major injustice,” Corey continued. “We need more officers like her.”
“Well, somebody’s tried to blunt her fangs. The Eldest of her Battle Squadron is Captain Edita Macquarrie. I think the only thing they agree on is the idea of killing Idenux. Well, that, and doing something about our clerks.”
“Have you met them or something?”
“I have a sib who’s a Marine Officer on the Phormio, Captain Macquarrie’s flagship. She’s attended a few staff meetings and told me all about what goes on. Makes me glad I’m not on someone’s staff. Still, service in the Phormio Battle Group might be interesting if it ever officially completes its trials.”
“Oh? Problems?”
“Captain Macquarrie keeps finding things to test. In the meantime, so the story goes, she’s been carrying on her own private war against the Idenux. That’s all unofficial, of course, and everyone will deny it from here to there.”
“The clerks probably hate her. She’s not following Regulations or something.”
“Hate is probably too mild a word for what they feel, but they can’t do anything to her; she was Admiral Bridges’ Flag Captain and can pretty much ignore the clerks.”
Corey gave up on practicing with her prosthetic, at least for the time being. “Do you know where I can find which ships are headed back to Home?”
“Contact Operations in the morning,” Colleen said. “They’ll get you taken care of.” She handed Corey the magazine. “Here, read the article. It’ll do wonders for your blood pressure.”
Corey skimmed through the article. “Did you see this other one? It’s a defense of the battlecruiser concept.”
Colleen propped herself up on one elbow. “Not really. What does it say?”
“You’ll love this one section,” Corey said. “Here, let me read it to you.
“In 1945 OE, a heavy cruiser had 950 crew, a battlecruiser (USS Alaska) had 1700. A heavy cruiser had 8” guns and cost $12,000,000 to build, a battlecruiser had 12” guns and cost $35,000,000. The 8” gun fired twice as fast as the 12” gun, the latter penetrated further and caused 50% more damage when it hit. The respective cost trade-offs were one battlecruiser to three heavy cruisers.
“Applying the N2 Law, it is easy to calculate how many heavy cruisers you would need to match four battlecruisers. 4x4x1.0 = 16. So 16/0.33 x YY gives 7 as a value for YY. This suggests that seven heavy cruisers would destroy four battlecruisers. The cost of building four battlecruisers were $140,000,000, the cost of seven heavy cruisers was $84,000,000, giving a net exchange of $56,000,000 and 6,800 crew on the battlecruisers versus 6,650 crew on the heavy cruisers. This favorable exchange rate--”
“Favorable exchange rate?” Colleen interrupted in shock. “Losing seven ships to eliminate four is not an acceptable exchange rate at any time, unless it’s stopping a raid on an inhabited planet.” She grabbed the magazine and read the passage. “Does the author have any combat experience?”
“I don’t think so,” Corey said. “Do you think this was supposed to be humorous?”
Colleen shook her head. “No, it’s just the way they think.” She tossed the magazine to one side. “I understand the Idenux have introduced a battlecruiser.”
“I saw them,” Corey said. “There were a couple of them defending the system we took with the Jellicoe Battle Group. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more about them in the literature.”
“What happened to them?”
“All but one were destroyed during the battle.”
“That’s why you won’t see anything,” Colleen said. “It puts the battlecruiser concept in an unfavorable light.”
Colleen picked up the magazine. “Why do you agree with that officer who thought your attack was ‘silly and suicidal’?”
“I didn’t agree that it was silly, it had to be done. We needed to break up the Idenux formation, and the cruisers weren’t doing it. As for suicidal...” Corey shrugged. “Run the numbers for their point defenses. There were six cruisers leading their formation. They each have six point defenses, though only half of them could engage us. Each point defense can burn six missiles per minute. They’d fry 12 fighters in a heartbeat. The only thing that saved us was that the cruisers were hammering the head of their formation with a major barrage.”
“I read that you launched your own missiles at the same time.”
Corey nodded. “That was more than 200 independently maneuvering warheads shielding us. I don’t know how many were fried, but they let us get in close. And when they did...
“Actually,” she said softly, “that’s a good example of cruisers and fighters working together. Neither of us could do it alone. They got us into the formation, we busted it apart, and they mopped up.”
Colleen sighed. “At least you’re fighting this war. The most action Sugita has seen was to exchange shots with a raider that pursued a merchant just a little too vigorously. Service in the Main Fleet is pretty dull.” She nodded at Corey’s prosthetic. “When they finally graduate you, hope that you get sent back to Jellicoe, or maybe the Frontier Fleet. If you’re stuck in the Main Squadrons you’ll run a serious risk of dying from boredom.”
“Let’s hope not.” Corey got up. “You said Operations can get me transportation?”
Colleen turned the page in the magazine. “They’ll get everything taken care of for you.”
“Where should we post these latest prodigies?” Captain Ceylinn Rodrigues asked sarcastically, flipping through the list of newly minted officers. She was Eldest of the Staffing and Personnel Department, and this was the meeting she held when the list of direct commissions from one of the colleges on Home came out.
“Who do we have,” she added, “who can knock some sense into their heads after the nonsense they’ve been exposed to?”
“Two of them are Admiral Bridges’ pets and untouchable,” Second Officer Jasmine Lee said. “She has the Eldest’s ear, and the last time we tried it...” Her voice trailed off as the other officers nodded. Second Officer Eileen Harrigan had posted one of the officers Admiral Bridges was personally training to a recruiting office on Setosha. Fourth Officer Harrigan was now handling the paperwork at a four-person Survey Service research station deep in the Nebula. Everyone in the office had taken that lesson to heart.
“Fortunately, only two officers fall into that category,” Captain Rodrigues said. She picked up the list in her thin hand. “We have 48 others to post.”
“I don’t want to post any of the Marines to the Peter Young, Chu Wei, Chesty Puller, or Viktor Leonov despite their evaluations,” Third Officer Elli Ulriksdotter said as she read her copy. She was the junior officer present, and by custom, she handled the Marines. “Call me old-fashioned, Ma’am, but I’ve always thought it was too risky to put so many Marines on one ship. They need to be spread around. The only reason to have specialized Marine ships is if we intend to invade someone, and you don’t invade an entire planet with the 1,200 Marines those ships carry between them.”
“I agree,” Captain Rodrigues said. “Those ships are a waste of resources. Why don’t you post a couple of them to Setosa, a couple to Weon, and spread the others through Home Fleet? It doesn’t matter who you put where; they’re Marines, so they’re pretty much interchangeable. Sort of like parts to a machine.”
The others laughed at her joke, just like they did every time they heard it.
Officer Lee picked up a message that had just come in. “Did you see this, Ma’am?”
Captain Rodrigues’ fingers tightened as she skimmed through the message. “Oh, she’s gone too far this time.”
“What is it?” Officer Ulriksdotter asked.
“The Navy’s retiring two Light Carriers,” Officer Lee said. “The Eldest’s Office says this is to get enough pilots for one of the Strike Carriers. Admiral Carter has been in charge for less than two months, and she’s already messing things up.”
“We’re reducing the number of ships in the Navy, just when we need the strength?” Officer Ulriksdotter said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“We’ve lost 28 staff positions supporting those ships,” Captain Rodrigues said. “That’s even worse! Doesn’t Admiral Carter know that the only way the Eldests will support the Navy is because we provide jobs for the people in their Families?” She sighed. “Granted, they were old ships that required a lot of maintenance, but look at all of the jobs they provided!”
“I’m surprised she’s getting away with it,” Officer Lee said.
“We can’t stop the decommissioning of those carriers,” Captain Rodrigues said, “but we can make sure everyone knows what a poor decision it was. I’ll make a few calls.”
“There’s more, Ma’am,” Officer Lee said. “That woman is recalling 60 pilots who’re no longer with the carriers. She wants regular ranks for them, mostly Third and Fourth Officers.”
Captain Rodrigues looked puzzled and took the orders from Officer Lee. “What for? If she’s not assigning them to fighters, and those ranks say she’s not, then what is this? First we have to find jobs for 28 staffers who lost their jobs, and then she dumps 60 ex-pilots on us, people who have no real skills except sky-hooting in a fighter.”
“We have plenty of non-combat posts we can stick them in,” Officer Lee said. “There’s that new base they just built on my Family’s land. It’s back in the mountains away from everyone. We could put them there. We could call it refresher training or something. I know somebody in maintenance; they can ship some fighters over there to give those people something to do.”
“Perhaps,” Captain Rodrigues said. “All right, do it. It’ll probably turn into an Old Pilots Home or something.” The others chuckled. “In the meantime, pass me that stack of Personnel Files.”
She paged through those folders, finally setting a few aside. “These officers were promoted because Captain Johnson exercised Eldest’s Prerogative.” She shook her head. “Captain Johnson’s not even an Admiral, and her Family is a minor one on Weon! She needs to learn her place in the grand scheme of things, and it’s not putting on airs above her.”
“Blame it on Admiral Haines,” Officer Lee said. She gestured at the folders crowding her desk. “She jumped Captain Johnson over the heads of several more senior officers to give her Jellicoe. That made a complete mess of our promotion system. I still don’t understand why she agreed to let Admiral Carter be her replacement for Eldest, either. Carter ran a base for the Buccaneer Navy of all things. Before that, she was a Captain Commanding at Setosha’s Navy Yard. Those aren’t qualifications for Eldest of the Navy.”
Captain Rodrigues shrugged. “Yes, well, we won’t discuss Volyn Carter’s supposed qualifications. That’s being worked on at a much higher level than ours. Too many toes were stepped on when she got her bar. Including mine, she thought. Admiral and Eldest was an administrative position, and she’d earned that promotion. Being passed over rankled, and she was going to show up Admiral Carter for the fraud she was.”
“Back to Captain Johnson,” Officer Ulriksdotter said. “Why don’t we bury every one of those gals? That would show her.”
Captain Rodrigues grimaced as she shifted in her chair. Her hip was acting up again. She didn’t want to take her medication, not until they’d gotten through these postings. After that, she would treat herself to three days of blessed relief in the hospital. She resented their ancestors for not evacuating this planet when they’d had the chance. Home’s higher surface gravity ruined more backs and hips than people knew.
“Don’t put them all on the same ship,” she said when she looked through the roster of graduates again. She paused at one name in particular. “Jasmine, I know you normally just scatter these people through the Home Fleet, but I want you to put this one, Andersen, on de Ruyter. She got herself injured on her Graduation Cruise and is a late graduate. Petra Johnson sent her to C&S, and I want to make an example of her.”
“Put her on Edith Matsuoko’s ship, Ma’am?” Officer Lee took the folder from the Captain and read through it. “Any particular reason? Captain Matsuoko probably won’t have her. Andersen’s not a relative.”
“We’ll force her to take the girl.” Captain Rodrigues smiled in anticipation. “This is one Captain Johnson gave a birthright to. She wrote a glowing letter for her file when she used Eldest’s Prerogative. We’ll show her how much that counts. We all know what kind of review Edith will give her. When it comes in, we’ll put it right across from an earlier reprimand, and I’ll have a friend call a Review Board. With evaluations and reprimands like that, they’ll decide she isn’t fit to be an officer and flush her out of the Navy.”
“Won’t her Family object?”
“She’s from Red Ridges,” Captain Rodrigues said. “I think there are two families smaller than them, certainly none that are poorer. She has no family that can object. She has a grandmother on the Executive Council, that’s why I didn’t put her somewhere worse.”
“This says she’s to be the Coordination Officer.”
Captain Rodrigues drew a line through that notation. “Not any more. Just have her posted to general duties.”
“Captain Matsuoko will run her out of the Navy in no time, Ma’am,” Officer Lee said, “and that will put Captain Johnson in her place.” She made a note in her ledger. “I have a request from her Family; they want her to come home on Extended Leave.”
Captain Rodrigues smiled happily. “That’s another one we need to work on. We’ll do Eldest Marie Andersen this favor, and I’ll call in the debt when Admiral Carter oversteps herself.”
“Nice,” Officer Ulriksdotter said. “There are several other openings in the de Ruyter Battle Group. We could post the rest of Captain Johnson’s brats there if you like.”
Captain Rodrigues shook her head. “No, only post one or two. Let’s not be too obvious about this. I know Edith Matsuoko doesn’t care about what happens on the other ships in her battle group, but her Chief of Staff is sharp, and if we flood them with new graduates, she’ll tell Edith, and Captain Matsuoko would complain to her mother on the Council.”
“Are you sure Captain Matsuoko will be so cooperative?” Officer Lee asked. “Once she gets her hands on someone, the only way off her ship is to resign from the Navy.”
“That’s my point,” Captain Rodrigues said. “Dangerous ideas have to be dealt with firmly. We can’t act directly against this Andersen, not with Captain Johnson as her friend and Eldest Marie as her grandmother. But we can have someone else do it for us. If it works, we all benefit, and if it doesn’t, Captain Matsuoko takes the blame. Nothing will happen to her because Edith’s mother will protect her.”
Officer Lee wrote up the orders and handed them across the table to Captain Rodrigues for her signature. “There you go, Ma’am.”
“I won’t tell Edith what we want,” Captain Rodrigues said. She flipped through the documentation on Officer Andersen. “Here, delete those scores on strategy and tactics, and just say she did her Graduation Cruise; don’t put in anything about what happened. That busybody Chief of Staff Edith has, Jessica Markin, might see these and make her a Coordination Officer after all. We wouldn’t want that.”
“Think it’ll work?” Officer Lee said.
“Don’t make changes to the copies in the files. That way, if something does happen, it’ll all be on Jessica Markin’s shoulders. Edith won’t protect her; after all, Markin isn’t a member of her family.”
“I’d like to find a way to get rid of Markin,” Officer Lee said. “We’ve had a lot of trouble with her in the past.”
“As long as she enjoys Edith Matsuoko’s confidence, we can’t touch her,” Captain Rodrigues said. “But we can always set her up to take a fall. That’s why I don’t want you to make any adjustments in our records.” She didn’t add that if there was an investigation, the blame would fall on Officer Lee, who had actually drafted the orders. Officer Lee was useful, but not indispensable.
She ran her finger down the list of officers. “Now, what can we do about the rest of these people?”
Five days after getting back to Home, the hospital gave her a day off. Corey called Heather and Sonia at once. They agreed to meet in a park on the west side of First Landing.
“Let’s see it,” Heather said as they settled on the picnic blanket. It was a sunny day, and the breeze from the east carried the scent of trees and growing things.
Dutifully, Corey peeled away the glove and held out her left arm. “I’m still learning to use it properly,” she said. “I can almost hold a pen without crushing it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Heather said. She twisted the prosthetic back and forth, examining it. “Did it hurt? I don’t mean the operation.”