HMS Prince Adrian
Manticore Planetary Orbit
Manticore Binary System
December 7, 1905 PD
“what do you think he’s going to tell us, Skipper?”
“And what, exactly, makes you think I’ve added precognition to my many other talents, Lev?” Alistair McKeon asked just a tad testily.
“Because you’re the Skipper, Skipper!” Commander Lev Carson, Prince Adrian’s executive officer, widened his blue-gray eyes. “They told me at the Island. ‘Your skipper knows everything,’ they said! Are you telling me they lied? Say it ain’t so!”
“Just because we know everything doesn’t mean we’re supposed to share everything with the ignorant louts they assign us as XO’s. You’re supposed to be acquiring the experience—God help us all—to qualify as a cruiser captain someday yourself.” McKeon shook his head. “I shudder to think of the apocalyptic consequences of giving you your own ship, you understand, but that doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to train you up for the role the best way I can, anyway. And, trust me, BuPers and the promotions board won’t even consider promoting you to my own current, lordly status until you demonstrate that you, too, know everything.”
“You know, it’s perfectly okay to just say ‘I don’t know, Lev. What do you think he’s going to tell us?’”
“That would hardly befit a lofty junior-grade captain such as myself when addressing a mere commander,” McKeon said severely.
Carson chuckled, but then his expression sobered.
“Seriously, Skip. Do you have any idea what this”—he waved at the briefing room’s bulkhead display, which currently showed only Prince Adrian’s wallpaper—“is all about?”
“Not a lot more than you do.” McKeon shrugged. “I mean, obviously it’s going to cover our operational stance, but until we get the damned declaration, we’re all just pissing in our vac suits. So it’ll probably be a bunch more of the same stuff. Not that I’m not positive the Earl would love to be giving us movement orders tomorrow!”
“Yeah.” Carson scowled. “We’re burning time, Skipper. It’s gonna come home to bite us all in the ass before this is over.”
“And precisely what makes you think that matters to cretins like North Hollow and High Ridge?” McKeon asked in a far bleaker tone.
Carson started a quick reply, then stopped himself. The commander knew much of that bleakness was his CO’s own professional appreciation of just what the delay of a formal declaration was going to cost the Navy somewhere down the road. But a lot of it was considerably more personal. The entire ship’s company knew about Alistair McKeon’s deep friendship with Countess Harrington.
“Well,” he began after a moment, “at least—”
A musical chime interrupted him, and the ship’s wallpaper vanished from the bulkhead, replaced by a conference display centered on Captain Byron Hunter. A rectangle of smaller, individual windows surrounded the dark-haired captain. Most of those windows were filled by vice admirals or rear admirals and their chiefs of staff; the ones that weren’t were all filled by commodores . . . except one.
That was the one that showed Alistair McKeon and Lev Carson.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” Hunter said, nodding to the assembled squadron and division commanders on his own display. “Admiral White Haven will be with us shortly, but he’s been delayed by a conference with the First Space Lord. And, no”—Hunter flashed a wry grin—“it’s unfortunately not to get our sailing orders.”
More than one of the assembled officers snorted—or chuckled—at that one, but it wasn’t really all that humorous.
“In the meantime, though, the Admiral’s asked me to go ahead with the background brief I was going to be presenting anyway,” the captain continued. “So, without further ado, let’s get to it.”
McKeon sat a little straighter as White Haven’s chief of staff touched a smart screen and brought up his own notes. McKeon hadn’t really anticipated sitting in on briefings at this level, but that was before Commodore Erica Wilensky, Cruiser Division 33.2’s designated CO, had “become unavailable.” There were rumors that the reason she’d become unavailable was a conversation she’d had with Earl White Haven. Given that Wilensky was a second cousin of Pavel Young, with a reputation only marginally better than his had been, McKeon had little difficulty believing that. Any dictionary could have used Wilensky’s picture to illustrate the definition of “corrupt, overbred, under-brained aristocrat,” and she hadn’t exactly covered herself with professional glory in the course of her naval career.
Hamish Alexander, on the other hand, was generally acknowledged as the best strategist and tactician currently in uniform, and he had remarkably little sympathy for marginally competent—at best—feather merchants. Worse, from Wilensky’s perspective, very few members of the Star Kingdom’s aristocracy could match the White Haven lineage, despite which—or possibly because of which—Alexander had exactly zero tolerance for anyone who used the accident of his or her birth as an excuse to sneer at those less nobly born.
Those factors would have been enough to produce a certain tension between him and Wilensky under any circumstances. The fact that she’d been even more vocal than most members of the Conservative Association in defending Pavel Young—and, by extension, condemning Honor Harrington—could only have made it worse. In fact, she was officially on record denouncing the Young court-martial, over which White Haven had presided, as a “hyper-partisan witch hunt ordered at the highest levels of the current government for political reasons,” which constituted a direct violation of the Fourth Article of War for any serving officer. The Judge Advocate General had let her off with only a slap on the wrist—solely, as everyone knew perfectly well, because the current political climate was “hyper-partisan,” if not for precisely the reasons Wilensky claimed, and hammering her harder could only have made that worse. But the entire Navy knew about the White Haven temper, and a significant percentage of that Navy had heard the rumors that Honor was prominent among the outstanding junior officers to whom Hamish Alexander stood sponsor.
All of which made it . . . unlikely Commodore Wilensky would have found herself excessively welcome under his flag.
It was also why one Alistair McKeon, who didn’t see eye-to-eye with her either, was delighted to not find himself under her orders. And not just because it allowed him to step, however temporarily, into her slot as the Senior Officer in Command, Cruiser Division 33.2. He doubted a mere junior-grade captain would be allowed to retain that slot for long, but he was a full two months senior to Cristina Zaragoza, HMS Cestus’ CO, and it was his until someone more senior turned up.
“First,” Hunter began, “and as I’ve already said, we still haven’t received anything remotely like movement orders. At the moment and—unfortunately—for the foreseeable future, it looks like we’ll remain attached to Home Fleet. The Admiral’s been assured—again—that if and when we ever get a formal declaration of war, Sixth Fleet will be formally stood up and we’ll almost certainly be tasked to secure control of the Trevor’s Star terminus. Obviously, like everything else, that’s subject to change, and the longer the declaration’s delayed, the more likely it becomes that change will intervene.”
None of the faces on the display looked happy to hear that. None of them looked very surprised, either, McKeon noted glumly.
“At the moment, the Admiralty’s forced to continue operating on an officially peacetime footing,” Hunter continued. “What that means, in practical terms, is that we’re mugging Peter to pay Paul. All of you know that without a formal declaration, Admiral Caparelli has only limited authority to commit forces to combat, but you may not be as fully aware that the same political factors which have delayed the declaration have stymied every request for additional, extraordinary funding, as well. Nor can the Admiralty legally mobilize any Reserve personnel or vessels without special—and specific—Parliamentary authorization . . . or that declaration we still don’t have.
“That means we’re restricted essentially to our active units as of Hancock and Second Yeltsin, minus those on the binnacle list with battle damage. We’ve recalled everything we can from Silesia, but we had very few capital ships in the Confederacy, so it hasn’t added much depth to our wall-of-battle. And that means we’re spread a lot thinner than anyone would like and that we’re shorter on munitions than anyone would like. Even on our bare-bones operational tempo is running down spares and ammunition at an alarming rate, and between the damages from Hancock and Yeltsin, the captured prizes we’re looking at adding to our own wall, and regular maintenance cycles, we’re looking at significant serviceability issues and zero free yard space in which to address them.
“The good news, such as it is, that since we’ve accomplished virtually all of Riposte Gamma’s immediate objectives, we’d have to basically stand down anyway until we get the declaration. We’ve run even essential maintenance dangerously short fighting a war on what they used to call a ‘shoestring,’ and the fact that we’ve been forced to suspend offensive operations will at least give us a chance to deal with some of our most critical repair needs. On the other hand, we’ve cut so deep that those maintenance issues won’t go away anytime soon, even if we miraculously get a declaration and full funding tomorrow. And the fact that we’re getting in at least some needed repairs is a very limited bright side to be looking upon, because while the Peeps are still in what you might call significant disarray, indications from ONI are that Pierre is steadily consolidating his power.”
Hunter paused, then looked up from his notes to make eye contact with his listeners.
“At the risk of verging a bit too closely on Article Four, it’s . . . unfortunate certain members of Parliament can’t find their asses with both hands and approach radar,” he said, and McKeon pursed mental lips in a silent whistle of surprise. Surprise not that Hunter felt that way, but that he was prepared to say so, even here.
Article Four prohibited conduct detrimental to the chain of command and national command authority. Among other things, it forbade a serving officer from publicly demonstrating contempt for his military or civilian superiors, which was where Commodore Wilensky had crossed the line by implying—hell, stating—that Young had been wrongfully court-martialed on the direct orders of someone in the Cromarty Government. Or, at least, of someone in the Navy’s chain of command in order to curry favor with the Government.
Of course, Hunter had been careful to refer to members of Parliament, not to the institution of Parliament itself. It was a narrow distinction, but a real one. Yet while that fig leaf might protect him from legal or official consequences, it wouldn’t do a thing to protect him against those members or their allies in the Service if word of it got back to them.
Of course, he’s White Haven’s chief of staff, McKeon reflected. That means he’s already on the shit list of anybody in the Janacek or North Hollow camps. And he’s White Haven’s chief of staff, not White Haven himself. So he could probably get away with a smack from Caparelli—or even just Cortez—whereas if White Haven said it, openly, at least . . .
Somehow, though, he doubted Hunter would have said it if he hadn’t known White Haven agreed with him.
“We had a golden opportunity,” Hunter continued flatly. “Immediately after Hancock and Yeltsin, after the failure of the Parnell coup, the Peeps were in total disarray. We could’ve walked into at least a half dozen of their frontier systems. For that matter, we could’ve walked straight into Trevor’s Star! But we weren’t allowed to because those members of Parliament chose not to let us. And our people—your people—will pay the price in blood and lives when we’re finally allowed to try to make up for that lost time.”
Most of the heads on that display were nodding now, and Hunter shrugged.
“The good news—although I probably shouldn’t be saying this, either—is that now that the Young court-martial is finally behind us, we may actually get that declaration sometime soon. We can hope, anyway. And in the meantime, the Admiral intends to continue preparing for that longed-for day.”
He squared his shoulders and produced a smile that looked almost—almost—completely genuine.
“In pursuit of that goal,” he continued briskly, “we’ll be conducting a series of training simulations over the next few weeks. You’ll receive a general outline of our plans immediately after this briefing. For now, while we’re still awaiting the Admiral’s arrival, let’s look at some of the training elements he especially wants to stress.
“First, our own experience in Mendoza and Chelsea, as well as other reports from the front, have only reinforced the evidence from Hancock and Yeltsin that our edge in missile combat is even greater than we’d estimated it was, and there’s no evidence that the Peeps have realized yet that we have even limited FTL communications ability. In keeping with the principle of playing to one’s strengths, the Admiral’s laid out a series of tactical training exercises that will examine ways in which we can best leverage those advantages.
“Accordingly, day after tomorrow, we’ll fire up the simulators for a large-scale engagement based on the tactical records from Yeltsin. Vice Admiral Carmichael, you’ll command the Aggressor Force. Vice Admiral Lemaitre, you’ll command the Blue Force. For this exercise, Admiral White Haven will observe and umpire.” Hunter smiled slightly. “I’m sure he’ll be his normal gently compassionate and understanding self.”
This time, the chuckles were outright laughter. Hamish Alexander was many things, including a charismatic commanding officer. Gently compassionate wasn’t one of the qualities most widely associated with him, however.
“Having said that,” the chief of staff went on after a moment, “the real purpose of this exercise is to build unit cohesion as well as develop tactical doctrine. Accordingly—”