For Honor We Stand (38 page)

***

16:25Z HOURS 21 MARCH 2315

URGENT:  FOR IMMEDIATE IMPLEMENTATION

TO:  ROBICHAUX, MAXIME, LCDR USN, CO USS CUMBERLAND

DUFLOT, GERARD, CMDR USN, CO FRIGDESGRU TD-2008

RE:  PROBABLE ENEMY TARGETS

1.  RECEIPT OF YOUR COMMUNICATON OF 14:18Z HOURS THIS DATE IS ACKNOWLEDGED.

2.  YOU ARE BOTH IMPERTINENT AND INSUBORDINATE, AS MY REPORT TO ADMIRAL HORNMEYER AT CONCLUSION OF THIS MISSION WILL REFLECT. 

3.  YOUR ORDERS ARE UNCHANGED.  DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME RENDERING FURTHER TACTICAL ADVICE TO THIS COMMAND.  ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS OF THIS KIND ARE NOT WELCOME AND ARE HEREBY FORBIDDEN. 

4.  MY INFORMATION IS THAT YOU HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS JUST TRYING TO RUN A SINGLE, VERY SMALL DESTROYER WITHOUT TAKING ON THE ADDED TASK OF DEVISING TACTICS FOR AN ENTIRE OPERATIONAL GROUP.  DEVOTE YOUR ATTENTION TO IMPOSING SOME REMOTE SEMBLANCE OF ORDER AND REGULARITY ON YOUR SHIP, WHICH IS SORELY IN NEED OF THE SAME, AND LEAVE TACTICAL PLANNING TO THOSE OF US WHO HAVE THE CAPACITY, SKILLS, AND TRAINING TO DO IT COMPETENTLY.

5.  YOU ARE DIRECTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE AND ADVISE BY IMMEDIATE RETURN SIGNAL YOUR INTENTION TO COMPLY WITH THE FOREGOING ORDERS.

***

18:11Z HOURS 21 MARCH 2315

TO:  DUFLOT, GERARD, CMDR USN, CO FRIGDESGRU TD-2008

FROM:  ROBICHAUX, MAXIME, LCDR USN, CO USS CUMBERLAND

RE:  PROBABLE ENEMY TARGETS

1.  RECEIPT OF YOUR COMMUNICATION 16:25Z HOURS THIS DATE IS HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGED.

2.  THIS OFFICER AND ALL PERSONNEL UNDER THIS OFFICER’S AUTHORITY WILL COMPLY WITH NAVAL REGULATIONS REGARDING OBEDIENCE TO SUPERIOR OFFICERS AND OFFICERS PLACED OVER THEM BY ORDER IN OPERATIONAL COMMANDS.  IN SHORT, THIS VESSEL AND I WILL FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS. 

3.  I HOPE WE ALL LIVE LONG ENOUGH FOR ME TO TELL YOU “I TOLD YOU SO.” 

***

“I have already taken an extremely strong dislike for this Commander Duflot.  He is an unnecessarily sarcastic and condescending individual who has a compulsive need to exercise power over others.  Further, he demonstrates a strong predilection to use the power that comes with his position as a means of demonstrating his personal superiority.  He exalts himself by demeaning others.  He is a bully in uniform.  I should like very much to punch him in the nose.”  Doctor Sahin pointedly turned his back on the exchange of signals which he had just read from the monitor/display wall of Max’s Day Cabin, his body language an emphatic rejection of Duflot’s message.

“I’ve never met the man,” said Max, “and I generally make a point of not forming a negative opinion of anyone in my chain of command, above or below, until we have met face to face, or at least operated in the same formation for a while.  There are just too many people who look great on paper and turn out to be arrogant assholes, or who send you a snippy signal or write a sarcastic order but in person turn out to be totally stellar individuals.  They were just having a bad day, or something they said comes off as sarcastic when it wasn’t meant that way, you know how that goes.”

“I do know how that goes.”  Bram sat down and folded his hands in his lap.  “Something that is meant in a joking manner can sound sarcastic or condescending when reduced to a terse electronic communication.  And, as difficult as it may be to believe, I have personally had situations in which my communications were mistakenly interpreted as being sarcastic when they were not so intended.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“I assure you, it is true.  People are very ready to find sarcasm in what they read.”

“Bram, you’re not understanding me.  I’m not saying that I don’t believe that someone thought something you wrote was sarcastic.  I’m saying I don’t believe that they thought so in error.”

The doctor snorted.  “I suppose I should be offended, but you have isolated one of my most pernicious and deep-seated character flaws.  It has cost me many friends and alienated more than one colleague whose favor would have been advantageous to have.  I have often wondered why it has not alienated you, as well.”

“Because I know enough psychology to recognize a defense mechanism designed to keep people at a distance when I see one.  Because I know the difference between sarcasm and true insult.  Because I view everything you say through the lens of my knowledge that you are my loyal friend and would never willingly hurt me.  Because I understand that your nature is to look at everything around you and analyze it objectively, the good and the bad, and then tell me what you think, without pulling any punches to spare my feelings.  Because I know how tone deaf you are about how your objective, clinical observations about the situation will affect people’s feelings and, when those feelings are bruised, I know it’s not because you meant to bruise them.  And, because I’m not some thin-skinned military hospital administrator running his clean, little fiefdom in a safe rear area, but an experienced combat officer who is accustomed to the company of other men who have been in battle and who are some of the most sarcastic beings that the galaxy has ever spawned.  Because you are my friend, and friends overlook small slights and minor injuries:  when two people walk closely together down the same narrow path, sometimes they can’t help stepping on each other’s feet or jabbing each others ribs with their elbows.  When they arrive at their destination covered with bruises, it doesn’t mean they’ve been in a fight.”

The doctor nodded his understanding, smiled, and looked at the tabletop.  Not since his parents died had anyone ever come right out and said that they recognized one of his faults, and accepted him in spite of it.  Ibrahim Sahin had always felt like a square peg in a round hole.  Now, for the first time in his life, he had the sense that, although the hole was not quite square, neither was it completely round, and that his friend was making it more square for him every day.  He didn’t quite know what to make of the feeling.  All he knew was that he liked it.  “I don’t know what to say, except ‘thank you.’”

Max made a dismissive gesture with his right hand, something looking vaguely as if he were encouraging a fly to leave the vicinity.  “Think nothing of it.  You are a tremendous asset to me, both personally and professionally.  If that doesn’t entitle you to a few allowances, I don’t know what does.”

“So, my friend, back to this west end of an east bound camel, Duflot.  You were saying that you don’t like to come to any kind of negative assessment of a man whom you have never met.  I may sometimes be a bit ‘tone deaf’ as you say, but I could swear that I heard the distinct sounds of a ‘but’ approaching.”

“But,” Max smiled at Bram, having made sure that the doctor got his ‘but,’ “I’m afraid you’re right.  I may have to make an exception for this guy.  He’s not only arrogant and condescending, but stupid as well.”

The two men were having a light supper in Max’s Day Cabin.  Thanks to the supplies obtained from the art dealer turned Foreign Minister of Rashid IV, both men ate well.  Max was having a shrimp po-boy sandwich:  French bread loaf segment, still anachronistically referred to as “foot-long,” sliced submarine style, filled with fried shrimp, and “dressed” with mayonnaise and just a bit of spicy mustard (no lettuce and tomato this far out, alas), along with French fries, and cherry pie.  The shrimp were good, having been frozen shortly after being caught on seas of Rashid IV which teemed with transplanted Earth marine life, and the bread—the foundation of a good po-boy—was excellent, with a light but crispy crust and tender fluffy insides. 

Good bread was one of the compensations of life on board a warship in deep space.  No matter how long a warship had been out and how scarce the vegetables and milk and eggs and meat became, there was nearly always fresh bread because the ingredients for bread occupied little space and could be stored for years.  Not only was warship bread fresh, it tended to be uncommonly good.  Even on ships as small as Destroyers, every galley had a man whose specialty was bread, rolls, and biscuits—a man who always had a store of his own special recipes that were a point of pride.  When spacers got together and reminisced about old ships on which they served, the particular flavor of the bread on their former vessels was almost always a focal point for nostalgia.  Men had been known to get in loud arguments that escalated to fistfights over which of their former postings had the tastiest dinner rolls. 

The doctor was having a sandwich as well, an open-faced roast beef affair covered in savory brown gravy made to be eaten with knife and fork rather than held in the hand.  The roast was excellent as well and fork-tender, Chief Boudreaux in the galley acting in accordance with the traditional Cajun wisdom that a roast is ready to be made into sandwiches only when it “falls apart with a hard look.”  Bram also had French fries on the side, which he dipped in the gravy instead of using ketchup, which he had always detested (“looks like blood and tastes like red sauerkraut—why do I want it on my food?”).  It wasn’t exactly a traditional Turkish meal, but traditional Turkish food being somewhat scarce on the
Cumberland
with her Cajun Captain and Cajun Chief of Culinary Services, Sahin made do and, all things considered, made do rather well.

“Why do you say that Duflot is stupid, other than that he lacks the wisdom to avoid unnecessarily belittling and alienating someone with whom he is about to be working closely in a matter of life and death directly affecting the lives of hundreds of people and indirectly affecting the course of the war and, as a result, the fate of more than two hundred billion people?”

Max chuckled ruefully.  “When you put it like that, it makes him sound even more stupid that I was thinking he was.  I suppose that getting this ambassador to the negotiations
is
pretty damn important.”

“Pretty damn important?  We are talking about forging a strong military relationship among the four powers now at war against the Krag and, therefore, changing the balance of power in a war that our species is fighting for its very survival.  ‘Pretty damn important’ understates the situation somewhat, don’t you think?  That’s rather like saying that the human heart is a ‘relatively significant organ.’”  Max nodded his acquiescence.  “What I do not understand is why, if it is so important, is Norfolk attempting to accomplish it with only these three ships.  Why not put Commodore Doland on one of those huge Battleships that’s as big as a reasonably-sized city, escorted by a huge Fleet Carrier and a bunch of Cruisers so that it would take the entire Krag Navy to do him ill?”

“That strategy sounds good, but is likely to lead to disaster.  Here’s why.”  Max was secretly impressed by the doctor’s having uncharacteristically gotten the names of the ship Types and other naval concepts and nomenclature correct in his question.  “First, a force comprised of capital ships is going to be slow.  The energy requirements of pushing a ship that big through compressed space are too high to make sustained runs at high c factors, so for anything longer than a crossing from one star system to the next system over they need to jump.  This brings us to the second disadvantage, that you can’t move a force like that in secret.  You start moving half a dozen capital ships through inhabited systems or even systems that have any civilian traffic in them—and if a system has got jump points it almost always has at least some civvy poking through it somewhere almost all the time—then, in a day or so, the blabby freighter Captain has told all his buddies about the huge task force that he just saw on his sensors and everyone in the sector knows that something is afoot.  Then, you’ve got problems.  Since your huge protective convoy is so damn slow, once the Krag know what’s going on it is a lot easier for them to get a force in there to attack you.  Remember, they don’t have to defeat the force, just destroy the ship carrying the Ambassador, which they would have a high probability of doing if they got in there with four or five Destroyers.  They come in fast and catch the group by surprise.  The Carrier doesn’t have time to launch fighters, so the only cover is the Combat Area Patrol and your escorts.  The Destroyers converge from all around in all three dimensions so that the defenders have to cover the entire sphere.  The CAP is almost guaranteed to be in the wrong place or headed in the wrong direction, so the destroyers just blow past them, then they ignore the escorts—they take some attrition but they are moving so fast that most get through—and bore right in on the Ambassador’s ship.  Then, they all fire their missiles, break off, and run like smoke and oakum.  At least one of those Krag Foxhound missiles gets through, and, POOF, no more Ambassador.”

“Smoke and oakum?”

“Old nautical expression.  Used a lot on some wonderful old novels I’m reading.  You’d like them.  There’s one series where one of the heroes is a doctor.”

“I’m sure I would find the portrayal of my fictional brother perfectly odious and that I would feel for him not the slightest trace of kinship.  What, by the way, is ‘oakum’?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but it sounds good with ‘smoke.’  Anyway, when you look at their options, I can’t criticize Norfolk on their basic tactical decision.  The odds are better if you use a small number of very fast ships.  They can use their compression drives to cross through interstellar space straight to their destination at high c factors, making them hard to locate and even harder to catch.  They are stealthy enough to hide from most attackers and fast enough to evade most of the rest.”

“All right.  Now that you explain it that way, it makes sense.  It is a very counter-intuitive idea though, that one can actually be safer with a smaller, less formidable force.  But, you still haven’t explained why you think that Commander Duflot is stupid.”