Setosha - the Beating Heart
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 3
PSK Fleet Headquarters, New Republic
Fleet Admiral Broestler stepped around his desk, his hand extended in greeting. “Eldest Carter, Captain Andersen, I’m pleased to finally meet you in person. Please, make yourselves comfortable.” He gestured at the table and plush chairs in the reception area of his otherwise bare office.
Reaching back to his desktop console, he touched a button. “Jamis--tea for me, the usual. Brew for Eldest Carter and Captain Andersen.”
In seconds, the office door opened again. An aide with a tray entered and carefully placed thick porcelain cups in front of each person at the table, set down a pot of tea and a pot of brew, then withdrew quietly. Admiral Broestler filled the cups for his guests before seating himself in the middle of one of the long sides of the table.
“How did you obtain the South Circle Island blend?” Eldest Debra asked politely when she had tasted her brew. She was a short, older woman, and like so many of those from the Families, spare, as if nature had trimmed away all of her that wasn’t essential for survival.
“Until recently, trade with the Families was roundabout and difficult,” Admiral Broestler said. “And it was prone to interruptions. Still, some things are available if one is determined and can pay the right people. I have an aide whose responsibility is to find the right people, whatever the question. I also enjoy family resources that permit me to indulge my curiosity.”
“On Home, this is considered an expensive delicacy,” Eldest Debra said.
“I fear it is an acquired taste in my home,” Admiral Broestler said ruefully. He sipped his tea and waited a polite moment for his guests to savor their drinks.
“I wanted to speak with you informally,” he began. “We are about to launch an operation that we hope will cause considerable damage to the Empire. I want to know if any of your officers are interested in joining the venture.”
“This wouldn’t be a publicity trip, would it, Admiral?” Eldest Debra inquired with a sharp tone. “When I met with your King this morning, we agreed there would be no publicity missions. The situation is too grim for useless trips.”
“No, Eldest, it’s not. I confess you have a right to ask that question. The political situation here is confused. Some of the minor parties are making quite a fuss about our proposed alliance, though for the life of me, I can’t see why. We both have everything to gain from working together. I expect this operation will demonstrate that.”
Eldest Debra nodded, her gaze fixed on her cup. “I understand, Admiral, that there is a bill currently under consideration by your Parliament that would prevent our ships from serving with one another. The sponsors refer to cultural values I cannot say I understand.” She sipped her brew again. “That legislation would, if enacted, kill any alliance we formalize, regardless of the terms of the treaty.
“This morning I was told that the government would ignore this bill as it is apparently illegal. However, I can’t help but wonder about the difficulties it suggests.”
“Parliament has no say in operational matters,” Admiral Broestler said. “The bill is symbolic and would have no standing, even if passed. The Navy and the Government will ignore the bill, and the individual members will be censored for acting contrary to the law.”
“Still, Admiral, passage of this measure, even just as a symbolic gesture, would have a chilling effect on the United Families. I have expressed that view to your King, but he put me off in much the same way you did.”
“It will not pass, ma’am. His Majesty has already met with the members who proposed this, and I can assure you the measure will not even see the floor for a vote.”
“And if it does?” Eldest Debra asked. “Bad ideas have a way of holding on for a long time. It might, for instance, prevent us from fulfilling the contracts we talked about for the Destroyer Escort program. The Families are prepared to spend a great deal of money on those Destroyer Escorts.”
“If that measure appears on the floor for a vote, His Majesty will kill it by Royal Fiat. He has assured me of this personally. He doesn’t do that very often, but in this case, he attaches enough importance to an alliance with the United Families that he would do so.
“Hopefully, that lays to rest your concerns. Let us move on.” His fingers passed over several controls built into the tabletop. A wall panel slid aside, and a vidscreen lit up, displaying a roster of ships and officers.
“The ships with the yellow stars next to them were in his original Task Group. As you can see, we’ve reinforced him with another light cruiser squadron and a second flotilla of destroyers. I thought several of your ships would round out his Task Group quite nicely and provide us with opportunities to learn how to better coordinate our ships in action.”
“I thought our ships were too weak for modern naval combat,” Corey said quietly. “Or, at least that’s what I have been told by your Strategy Planning Board.”
Admiral Broestler grimaced as if tasting something sour. “Plans are very important. As Chief of Operations, it is my duty to review many plans, including those of Admiral Dutton. He and I seldom see eye to eye. I am a slave to operational necessity, and, unlike Admiral Dutton, am responsible for their results.”
“A question, sir?” Corey asked. “Or more precisely, a clarification. What is the exact relationship between you and your Strategy Board? I ask because one of the people who attended a meeting of theirs today said it was two hours of criticism of our Navy. I will not explain to you the impression this left in those officers, or the ones that they briefed. Your Strategy Board appears to view us as some sort of lower vassal to be ordered around at will, not an ally with a wealth of recent combat experience.”
“The Strategy Board acts as a link to the politicians in the Superior Parliament,” Admiral Broestler said. “Individually, your ships might not be as strong as ours, but ships almost never operate alone. I see the reports of line officers, and none of the comments I have heard include anything derogatory concerning your ships’ weapons, speed, or agility. Officers who think in terms of single-ship duels belong in the Academy. They have no place as instructors, mind you, but as students.”
Eldest Debra inclined her head slightly. “Admiral, I must concur with Captain Andersen’s perception,” she said. “I was informed directly by no less than your Naval Commissioner that our ships are only suitable for guarding. This seemed common knowledge to him.”
“Sir Arthur is a skilled politician, Eldest. While he excels in administrative and political tasks that are vital to our war effort, I do not rely upon his strategic or tactical insights. I fear that what Sir Arthur knows of naval combat can be written on the back of a credit chit without defacing it.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head, “as Chief of Naval Operations mine is the only opinion that counts on this matter, and my opinion is that Sir Arthur and the others of the Strategy Board are incorrect in their understandings.”
“Isn’t Sir Arthur your superior?” Corey asked. “Or am I confused by what appears to be a murky line of authority.”
“No, ma’am. Sir Arthur is the civilian representative of the Government to the Navy, and represents us in Cabinet. He expresses many valuable opinions in Cabinet. I provide him with most of those opinions. In turn, he reflects the opinions of those around him, which I find useful. Organizationally, the Naval Council of the Cabinet is parallel to my office, not the other way around. I apologize for the complexity of our organization; it is the result of too many years of peace. However, to clarify things, I report directly to His Majesty; they do not.”
“Which makes you, effectively, independent of the Naval Council,” Eldest Debra said.
Admiral Broestler nodded. “I avoid reminding the Council of that technical detail unless the situation demands that they do something untraditional,” he said dryly. “They tend to forget that we are in a desperate war which we are losing. Their duties shield them from a very unpleasant reality. This is no longer a war of traditional toe-to-toe slugging, exchanging missiles and beams at two light-seconds, and may the best fire control and damage control win. No. Brute force has not worked for us. We must now rely upon speed, maneuverability, deception, and superior coordination.”
“Big ships engaging each other in disciplined formations appears to be a very sensible way of fighting,” Eldest Debra said, her tone cautious. “I’ll confess there is still a minority in the Families that favors that approach over the carriers we developed.”
“But you didn’t.”
“We extrapolated the outcomes from our experience with our current warships,” Corey said, “and did not build the larger ships. We could not afford the crews that they would require. Ours is a small population, and we have learned that we must achieve the largest effect for the crew involved. This, among other things, has led to certain design and operational choices.”
“Perhaps you should have the concept further,” Admiral Broestler said. “It is our experience that nothing can stand up to a battleship except another ship of the same class.”
“Perhaps. That is one of those things I am here to learn.” Corey let that subject go. She had had a chance to see a PSK battleship from close range, and in her opinion, they had several vulnerabilities. “Before we present our ideas, Admiral, I feel I must tell you of one possible conflict that we will have. We will continue our own operations, and your Strategy Board will probably be shocked that we will not clear those operations with them in advance. We still have operations against the Idenux, and our own space to protect, and we will not give that up.”
“I would have been surprised if you did. Yours is an independent force, not a subordinate part of the PSK Navy.”
“That has escaped the attention of Lord Dutton and several others. Anyway, given why we are fighting, I thought it best to warn you that we will continue seeking out the Idenux and our kin. If Admiral Lord Dutton doesn’t care for that, if those who are subservient to him, such as Admiral Manersan, object, then that is too bad.”
“Is it true that you beat Admiral Manersan in the Fleet Simulator?”
Corey nodded. “Twice.” She turned to the list Admiral Broestler had projected. “What did you have in mind by including some of our ships?”
Admiral Broestler sighed. “We did not want this war. We were happy in our own part of space. If we have an official war aim, it is for the Empire to leave us alone. Unofficially, it is His Majesty’s view that a defensive war will merely postpone our inevitable destruction. The Empire will not leave us alone. Therefore, we now attempt to take the offensive and force the Empire to sue for peace.”
“I understand your previous offensive efforts have not been very successful,” Eldest Debra said.
Admiral Broestler shrugged, his expression bleak. “No, Eldest, they have not. As I said, during the first five years of this war, we pursued a policy of stand-up fights, counting on our better technology and control systems to defeat the Empire’s superior numbers. The results were not what the Naval Council assured His Majesty they would be. In the last three years, fully a third of our active fleet has been destroyed. The Imperial Navy has suffered tremendous losses, much greater than our own, but they have replaced their losses and multiplied their strength while we have replaced only most of our losses.”
“If there is any bright spot in all of this, it is that our officer corps has undergone a rather brutal but efficient selection process. Those officers serving on ships who did not learn and learn quickly are dead. The incompetent or merely unlucky commanders are no longer with us. Unfortunately, a great many good people died getting us to this point.”
“We have endured a similar process over a much longer period of time,” Eldest Debra said.
Admiral Broestler stared at the display on the wall. “That brings us back, however indirectly, to why I asked for this meeting, ma’am. Whether Parliament likes it or not, our navies are going to work together, and I think what I have in mind presents a good opportunity to work out the practical problems.”
“In other words, all of this is to lead up to your asking me if we could contribute ships to Admiral Crown’s forces.”
“Yes.”
Eldest Debra raised a questioning eyebrow at Corey. “What is your professional judgment on this, Captain Andersen?”
“Why not leave the transports and a few escorts here?” Corey said quietly. “That would allow us to send Chancellorsville and its consorts along with Admiral Crown. I am reminded of a general on Old Earth who recommended that knowing yourself and knowing the enemy are the two most essential things in war. Our pilots and crews would benefit from this opportunity to gain experience from PSK crews who understand the Imperials better.”
“I had thought to employ the Chancellorsville in a different, though related operation,” Admiral Broestler said cautiously. He touched a button on his console. A holotank rose through a section of the floor. As it powered up, it showed the relative locations of PSK worlds in green, the Empire in red, and, to one side, the Families’ stars in blue. He manipulated the controls, highlighting several PSK-controlled stars.
“The star I’ve ringed in yellow is a major industrial center,” he said. “The Empire plans to take that center away from us, thereby crippling our current building programs. We’ve tied up a significant part of our fleet holding that system. Of course, this means other areas,” he touched another control and several PSK stars began flashing yellow, “are vulnerable to the Empire.
“What I propose to do is to move against their main staging base, here.” A star began flashing in red, “but to do so indirectly. Two years ago we would have attacked their resource bases in that sector that supply that base, but I thought that if we make it difficult to repair their ships it would be more effective than striking where they are the strongest. The Empire tries to repair their ships as close to the active sector as possible to minimize transit times, and I want to make that a vulnerability.”
“How do they repair their bases?” Corey asked. “Or do you know?”
“They don’t have standard repair facilities like we do,” Admiral Broestler said. “We designed one repair facility and then produced a dozen copies of it. Their Shipbuilder’s Guild demanded that all repair be open to competitive bid, and that no major company be slighted. As a consequence, each Imperial repair facility is run by a different corporation, and one repair facility cannot repair another.”
“They might expect a feint,” Corey said, staring at the holotank. “Of course, this is a feint that could easily be a real attack. Even as a feint, it may give you interesting possibilities. They would see your main battle fleet heading toward this one star that is vital to them. If they don’t defend that system, they lose it, and the consequences of that loss would be bad. So they must defend it. They would hold part of their fleet back to defend against a second attack. That second attack could be Admiral Crown, accompanied by the Chancellorsville.”
Admiral Broestler nodded. “And the first attack, the feint?”
Corey got up and walked around the holotank, studying it. “Are the controls here similar to those on your Fleet Simulator?”
Admiral Broestler nodded. “They’re basically the same.”
“Why does the feint become a real attack, Admiral?” She studied the controls for a few more seconds, and then began typing commands. “We can’t guarantee the timing, but with any sort of rough coordination, we could whipsaw the Empire in that sector between two attacks, leaving them one reaction behind.”
“Would you happen to have another carrier available?” Admiral Broestler asked.
“No, but I’m sure you could scrape up some regular warships.” She asked Eldest Debra a question in a low voice. “We could pair a squadron of our cruisers with one of yours,” Corey said finally. “Maybe even more ships.”
Admiral Broestler sat back in his chair, watching as Corey moved two task groups toward the main Imperial staging base for the entire sector. “Where,” he said at the end of her demonstration, “will I find the officers who can carry this out? I will need someone with experience working with your ships. That, I’m afraid, is limited to those officers in Admiral Crown’s Task Group.”
“I think you are looking at this problem the wrong way,” Eldest Debra said. She leaned forward, her eyes glittering. “We’ve discussed this at some length, and we have a proposal for you. The problem, sir, is one of pre-conceived ideas. That will always happen when two groups with different experiences work together. What if we found a way to remove those ideas?”
Republic City, People’s Star Kingdom
Republic City stretched out below the restaurant’s windows, gleaming with light like a web covered with the first dew of morning. The restaurant crowned a hill overlooking the main business district, its nighttime view of the PSK capital making it one of the premiere attractions in the city.
“It must cost a fortune to eat here,” Corey said. She swallowed a capsule and then produced the packet of seasoning the doctor had given her. She sprinkled it judiciously on her food. After a few sample bites, she added more.
“Not for a serving officer,” Alan said. “The Navy Officer’s Club pays most of the tab. All I have to pay is the difference and the gratuity.”
Corey watched a couple walk past. The officer, a Commander, looked resplendent in his dress white uniform. The woman...
Corey leaned forward and pitched her voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “Is she wearing what I think she is wearing?”
Alan looked at the woman. She was tall, with flawless olive skin and beautifully arranged dark hair that hung well down her back. She was wearing a long dark red dress with a deep plunge front and no back. She carried the train of her dress casually draped over her arm.
“What do you think she’s wearing?” he asked, curious.
Corey furrowed her brow. “I think it is called a nightgown or a drinkie wrap or something like that.”
“It’s called a dress,” Alan said, struggling to keep his face straight. Nightgown? Drinkie wrap? “Sometimes they are called an evening gown or a cocktail dress. You don’t have them?”
“I’ve seen pictures of them in our history books,” Corey said. “I didn’t realize people still wore those things.” She sighed. “If I ever needed a reminder that we are from different cultures, she just provided it.”
“What do you wear to...?” Alan’s voice trailed off. What do you wear when you go out, he’d been about to ask. But who would they go out with? As far as he knew, men were kept completely separate from the women in her culture. Going out with a man wasn’t even conceivable for her or her sib-sisters. She probably just thinks of me as a fellow naval officer, he thought. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed in that or not.
“What were you going to say, Alan?”
“What do you wear for formal occasions?” he asked. “I mean, you have your uniform, but what did your sib-sister wear when she was given her award?”
“Her best clothes,” Corey said, a little puzzled. Suddenly the light dawned. “Oh, do you mean do we have clothes like what that woman was wearing, that dressy gown thing? No, we don’t. You only see things like that worn by actors in old-time plays.”
She studied the woman, who was being seated at a table around the curve of the restaurant. “I wonder how she gets in and out of that thing? It seems like it would fall off of her. I think wearing something like that would be uncomfortable.” She studied the expanse of thigh exposed as the woman crossed her legs. “I think it would be cold, too.” She narrowed her eyes, studying the woman’s feet. “And how does she walk in those shoes? They must hurt.”
“You need to talk to someone who could tell you that,” Alan said, “my sister Anna, for example. I bet she could answer all of your questions.”
“There’s probably not enough time,” Corey said. “Starting tomorrow, we’re both going to be busy.”
“Oh? What deviltry have you thought up now?” She frowned at the words, mouthing them silently. He tried a different phrase. “What mischief have you come up with?”
“Oh, is that what you meant? I didn’t hear the word properly.” She smiled. “Yes, there will be some mischief involved. Your Admiral Broestler—he is a nice man, not at all like some of the other Admirals I’ve met—we proposed something, and he liked it enough to agree to it. I can’t say more because of security.”
Alan almost choked at hearing the Chief of Naval Operations called ‘nice’. “Are we talking about the same Admiral Broestler?” he asked. “Fleet Admiral, tall, broad shoulders, balding? That Admiral Broestler?” She nodded. “Corey, it is widely suspected that Admiral Broestler has smiled only three times in his life.” Alan ticked off the points on his fingers. “One, on his wedding day; second, on the day his daughter was married; and third, when his daughter presented him with a grandson.”
“Yes.” Corey smiled at his story. “A boy. That would be a time to be happy. One of my cousins had a boy just before we left for here. That’s the second boy in my Sept born this year.”
She picked at the meal on her plate. The doctor had given her an approved list of food for her dinner with Alan. She knew Alan had warned the restaurant staff of her dietary restrictions before they came. She was convinced the only criteria the doctor followed when she put the list together was to remove anything with taste. Steamed vegetables were all right. The soup was bland, even with seasoning, and the bread was acceptable. She wanted more—a pilot needed protein to keep up her strength—as if the Navy was going to let her back in a fighter. But the principle was important. She made a note to have something to eat when she got back to the embassy.
“Eldest Debra and I met with your Admiral Broestler a few days ago.” She tasted the soup again. “We agreed to certain things.” She put down her spoon. “That woman must be cold. The weather has turned cold these last few days, and--”
“What did Admiral Broestler agree to?”
She looked around, and then covered her mouth. “We suggested I go on a cruise with your Navy to observe things.”
“That probably wouldn’t work,” Alan said at once. “Kingdom Security would have a fit. And you’d be the only woman on board a ship of men.” He grinned. “If you get tense when you see one of us outside, how will you be when missiles start flying?”
“That is a valid point,” she said, her face serious. “Admiral Broestler said he would think about it. Yesterday his aide called the Embassy and agreed. I really must not say any more.”
“You’re not shipping with the Altair, are you?”
She sighed and put her hands down. “No, I won’t. I understand your squadron will be paired with the Chancellorsville again, though I don’t know the details.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” Alan didn’t want to talk about work; he talked way too much about work with her. He decided to change the subject.
“I suppose our sky looks uninteresting to you.” Individual stars were visible through the window, along with closer objects that were either stations or ships.
“It seems so empty,” Corey said. She watched a light grow larger, resolving into a ship that landed at the nearby port. “I miss the color of our sky. There’s always something rising or setting, the nebula, the aurora, the ring, meteors, things like that. Not like this.”
“I was impressed with your sky on Home,” Alan said. He pointed at a light moving near the horizon. “We put most of our industry in orbit. You can see one of the factories there.”
“We thought about doing that,” she said, “but didn’t. We have a strong dislike of going outside the magnetic field of our planet unless we must. It’s enough that the Navy does, as do scientists.”
She resumed eating, concentrating on her soup. “About the only thing we put off-planet are research labs, mineral extraction, and shipyards. Two million kilometers of vacuum is an effective protection for biology experiments, and most of our ships never enter an atmosphere. The mining, well, we both know there is no better place to find quality ores than pieces of a planet that never happened.”
“True,” he said. He watched the orbiting factory for a minute, all the while trying to think of a topic to get her to open up. They couldn’t talk about the weather; they didn’t have friends in common outside of the Navy, and he didn’t want to talk shop like they had when they were on her planet. What else was there to talk about?
“Have you heard from your sibs?” he asked, referring to her identical sib-sisters. “How are they getting on?”
Corey’s face lit up. “The last courier brought me a letter from Sonia,” she said. She dug a holopic out of her pocket, looking at it fondly. “Heather’s doing fine with her pregnancy. She should be four or five months along, and she says the doctors are happy with her progress. We know she’s going to have girls, and so now she’s thinking of names. She wants my suggestions, too, of course.” She smiled and passed the holopic across the table. “This came with the letter. As you can see, her pregnancy is starting to show.”
Though he expected it, Alan couldn’t see much difference. Except for the clothes, both women in the picture, her sib-sisters, looked exactly like Corey. They were triplets, just like all the women were in her culture. When he looked closer, he thought the one on the left’s cheeks looked very slightly rounder and wondered if there was a bulge to her tummy? He wasn’t sure.
“I can barely tell,” he said as he handed the holopic back. “But I’ve only seen Heather twice. I assume she’s the one on the left.”
Corey nodded. She looked at the holopic, smiling. At the moment, her face had a softer, more vulnerable look to it, the same look he remembered seeing on her face when she was with her sib-sisters.
“Sonia’s arm is almost completely healed,” she said. “She still doesn’t realize how close a call she had that day.” Sonia had broken her arm during the Idenux Raid on Home, the same day Corey had broken her arm while on the Families Carrier de Ruyter.
“You can’t tell civilians,” Alan said. “They just don’t understand.”
“She was standing on a balcony watching two Idenux fighters strafe the city.” Corey rolled her eyes in exasperation. “She described the whole fight to me, the condensation trails, the explosions, the sounds of the firing. Those Idenux fighters damaged a building right across the street from her, and she didn’t think anything of it.” She shook her head and put the holopic away.
“She had a perfectly good shelter she could have been in, just like Heather was. But no, she has to go stand outside and watch the fight.” She tried gesturing with her hands and ended up waving them in exasperation. “Why anything could have happened to her. She could have been hurt by flying debris, or ... or worse.”
“I think that means she’s just as reckless as you. I heard about your nickname.”
Corey laughed softly. “I’ll never be able to get rid of it, you know,” she said, leaning back. “I’ll go down in the history of the Fleet as Crazy Corey. A hundred years from now, someone will come across that nickname, and they’ll know exactly who it was.”
“About like that gal you told me about who was nicknamed Moon Cow?”
“Exactly like that,” Corey said. “Nobody else ever gets your nickname, either, so I’m stuck with being called Crazy.”
“Have you told your sibs about it?”
“Sonia has probably heard it.” Corey picked up her fork and resumed eating. “She hasn’t said anything to me, but I expect I’ll get an earful when I get home. I don’t believe Heather knows. She’ll believe it when she hears it, though. She always said I was the one who liked to stick her neck out.”
“How’s your leg? Someone told me it was broken in your last fight.”
She shrugged. “It still aches a little, but that will go away. The lighter gravity of your planet helps.”
“So how do you like the idea that you’ll be an aunt?”
Corey paused, fork halfway to her mouth. “A year ago I think it would have bothered me,” she said. “But being any sort of an Eldest for a while, especially an Eldest in Fleet, changes you. Life is precious. Nothing reminds you more of that than writing Dear Sib letters. I’m looking forward to being an aunt. It won’t be long before I’ll be buying birthday presents, Landing Day presents, and so on.” She smiled ruefully and resumed eating. “It will still be strange, though. Being an aunt means you are older, and I don’t feel older.”
“I have a niece and a nephew,” Alan said, “and I know what you mean.”
“Have you thought of having children, Alan?” she asked.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.