Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (15 page)

“As
a matter of fact there is, Sir, but I’m not sure how well you’re going to like
it.”

“Let’s
hear it, Major, and don’t hold anything back. If you have an idea, bring it
forward no matter how crazy you think it may sound, understand?”

“Yessir.”
Foster took another deep breath while she collected her thoughts. “If we
approach this war like a chess game, we’ll lose unless we get very lucky.
Majestic will calculate the best counter-strategy to our counter-strategy, and
it’s sophisticated enough to think many moves ahead. It will therefore outthink
our Super-Oracle every time, and the FEDs are counting on us to continue using
P2. My staff and I therefore believe that we should stop using our Super-Oracle
to plan our strategy and only use it to predict the FED’s counter-moves. If we
set up a planning group that can brainstorm ideas, then P2 can evaluate them
from the enemy’s point of view. That will help us avoid the really bad ideas
and concentrate on the best ones. This planning group should be encouraged to
think unconventionally. The more we can get away from rational, logical
strategies, the less likely it’ll be that Majestic will be able to anticipate
our moves and defend against it. To use the chess analogy again, what we need
to aim for is equivalent to sacrificing the Queen in order to put the opposite
side in a position where it can’t win no matter what it does.”

Janicot
held up his hand to prevent her from continuing. “But won’t Majestic see that
outcome and try to avoid it?”

“Well,
my analogy does leave something to be desired, but to answer your question in a
more general way, we need a situation where we either win the war outright or
at least inflict a severe setback to the enemy regardless of whether they ‘take
our Queen’ or not. The planning group’s challenge will be to figure out how to
engineer that kind of a situation.”

Janicot
nodded. Sorensen seemed to understand too. “Okay, Major, what’s the next step,”
said Janicot.

Foster
was ready for that question. “My current staff members are good at translating
P2’s recommendations into actions, but coming up with strategic ideas is not
their strong suit. Since most of the strategic ideas will involve ships, I’d
like to recruit some of our naval officers for the new planning group.” Foster
saw a small smile cross Janicot’s face.

Oh,
thank you, Major Foster. Assigning Drake to the planning group won’t look like
punishment, but it’ll make Lee happy, and you’ll get an experienced combat officer
for a while.

“If
you have specific individuals in mind, Major, I’ll consider them, but I think
Commander Drake would be perfect for this group.”

Now
it was Foster’s turn to smile. “I was going to request Commander Drake anyway,
Sir.”

“Good!
What about your husband, SubCommander Murphy?” Janicot was surprised when
Foster shook her head.

“Ah…Bret
is already working on the Site X and shipbuilding projects, Admiral, and he’s
off planet at the moment.”

“Ah,
I see. You can have Commander Drake immediately. Let me know who else you’d
like to have in the group. I want this planning group to generate some results
quickly, Major. Think you can do that?”

“We’ll
do our best, Admiral.”

“In
that case, I’ll leave you to it. You’re dismissed. I think Secretary Sorensen
and I have some things to discuss, and this is as good a place to discuss them
as any.”

“Yessir.”
Foster quickly got up and left. She was anxious to get the planning group set
up and operating. As Janicot watched her leave, he couldn’t help wondering once
again if she was hiding something. That nagging feeling just wouldn’t go away.
He’d have to worry about that later. Right now he had a depressed Defense
Secretary to cheer up.

Chapter Ten:

Day
71/2546

Drake
let himself fall into the chair in the tiny cubicle that was assigned to him
while he was part of the planning group. He was tired after another
brainstorming session with ideas that were getting more and more bizarre as
time went on. So far, all of the ideas examined by the Super-Oracle had
resulted in FED counter-moves that were nothing short of disastrous. He closed
his eyes and leaned back so that his head was touching the wall behind him.
After a few seconds he heard a knock on the open door. When he opened his eyes,
he saw Major Foster standing in the doorway with a sympathetic look on her
face.

“I
know exactly how you feel, Commander. The group seems to be spinning its wheels
without moving forward.”

“I
can’t help thinking that we’re missing something. What are we missing?” asked
Drake.

Foster
shook her head and shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me. There are only so many
planets that our ships could attack or defend. It feels like we’ve examined all
those possibilities. So far, the roll-the-dice attack on Earth is still the
least bad option on the table.”

“Yes,
and I meant to ask you about that one-chance-in-four result. Who did P2 assume
would be in command of our fleet?”

Foster
thought for a moment and said, “No one in particular. It assumed an average
tactical capability because we don’t have enough data on each potential
leader’s tactical skill level to be able to make a reliable choice.”

Drake
smiled. “Then we need to find out by running a series of simulations in which
every flag officer and ship CO will be evaluated. With a little luck, at least
one officer will stand out from the rest. That’s got to improve our chances.”
He noticed that Foster’s eyes widened.

“Yes,
of course. This is exactly why we needed navy people in the group. We Army
types just don’t think in terms of naval tactical skill. It’s almost a foreign
concept to us. I’ll recommend the simulation project to the CSO immediately.”
Before Drake could say anything, Foster had turned around and left.

It
took three days to set up the simulations. The equipment was borrowed from the
Naval Officers School, and only one officer could be tested at a time. The
Super-Oracle commanded the FED ships. Luckily, all Union warships were still in
orbit around or on Sparta, so all commanding officers were tested over the
following five days. Of the twenty-five officers of at least Commander rank,
Drake’s performance put him fourth in terms of ranking. His only consolation
was that he beat Vice-Admiral Lee, who came in 10th. As Drake looked at the
results on the main display in the simulation room, he sensed Foster come up to
stand beside him.

“P2
reran its calculations assuming that our number one ranked officer  commanded
our side, and the odds only improved slightly, from 1 in 4 to 1 in 3.5.”

She
heard Drake sigh. “I could have told you that ahead of time, Cate, because
nobody actually won the simulated battle. P2 came out ahead every single time.”
After a pause he said, “I wonder…”

Foster
shook her head in annoyance.  She hated it when people started but didn’t
finish a sentence. “You wonder what?”

Drake
shrugged. “I was just wondering if the defense is so effective because P2 is
commanding that side of things. In a real battle, a fallible human being will
be commanding the FED fleet. Maybe we should run the simulations again the
other way around, with humans defending Earth against a fleet commanded by P2.”

“It
can’t hurt to try, but there’s no sense in testing everyone. Let’s just test
the top six officers.”

Twenty-four
hours later they stopped the simulations after testing only the top three. The
computer beat all three. Even Foster was shocked.

“It’s
too bad we couldn’t put P2 in command of our fleet,” she said to Drake who was
sitting nearby.

“Who
says we can’t? How much space does that beast take up?”

Forster
checked and shook her head. “None of our ships are anywhere close to being big
enough to house a Phase II Oracle.”

“Okay,
what if we go back to the Phase I version?” asked Drake.

Foster
crunched some more numbers. “Well, available space is still running short, but
not by much. If we stripped a ship of all equipment that wasn’t essential to
maneuvering, hyper-jumping and combat, there theoretically might be enough
room, but we’d literally have a ship where a mouse couldn’t move around inside.
I don’t see that being realistically workable.”

“What
if we take out all missile tubes and missile storage?”

After
crunching some more numbers, Foster said, “That’s beginning to look more
doable, but it would mean the fleet as a whole would be weaker, and our side
didn’t win by a wide margin in those last three simulations.”

Drake
thought about that for a bit and said, “Can we shut down those components that
were added in Phase II and test the remaining machine in command of a slightly
reduced fleet against our best CO?”

“Yes,
we can do that. I’ll set it up.”

The
test was quite revealing. Oracle used the same overall tactical plan that
worked before, but the reduced firepower of the Union fleet wasn’t enough to
defeat the FED fleet. At Drake’s urging, they ran the same simulation two more
times. The result was two FED wins and one SSU ‘win’. Drake shook his head. The
SSU win was marginal at best. One Union ship was left, but it was too badly
damaged to conduct any operations against Earth or even return to Sparta. To
his mind, it was actually a draw. Assuming more ships would be available wasn’t
the answer either. If the SSU had time to build more ships, so did the FEDs. He
and Foster were now sitting in her office.

“I
thought we might have been on to something, but apparently not,” she said in a
dejected voice.

Drake
was too busy thinking to reply right away. When he did, he said, “Would P2
consider a strategy where we deliberately tried to lose a battle?”

Foster
frowned. “Not on its own. Only if we told it to.” Before she could ask why,
Drake interjected.

“What
about Majestic? Would it consider that kind of strategy on its own do you
think?”

Foster
hesitated. “I don’t really know. Maybe. Why?”

“I
have an idea. I’d like you to tell P2 to run another strategic projection given
the following assumptions. First, Makassar’s industrial capacity is completely
destroyed. Second, our fleet is destroyed during an attack on Earth that leaves
the FED fleet mostly intact. I’m willing to bet that P2 will predict that the
FEDs will quickly follow up that battle with an attack on Sparta.”

“I
know we want them to attack Sparta and be defeated, but that strategy assumed
that we’d have ships left to threaten Earth and drive home to them how
vulnerable they are, so that they’re more willing to negotiate a peace treaty.
But if our fleet is destroyed too, I don’t see the advantage of doing that.”

“The
advantage is that the FEDS will be back to square one in terms of both
shipbuilding and fleet size.”

“So
will we,” said Foster.

Drake
shook his head. “Not exactly. We’ll still have plenty of missile boats for
defense, unlike in the beginning when we only had one, and our shipyards on the
member planets will still have partially finished ships, whereas back then no
ships were under construction. We’ll also have started work on our backup
shipyard facility, while the FEDs will have to begin building up Makassar all
over again. That means that their shipbuilding surge won’t start for years. In
the meantime, we’ll be building ships faster than they will, and we can use
that to keep hitting Makassar. If our R&D starts to kick in, then we’ll
have numerical AND qualitative advantages. If we can’t shock FED politicians
into suing for peace, then we’ll just wear them down with defeat after defeat, but
it all depends on throwing them off balance. We have to make them think they’ve
got us by the balls, or they won’t commit their entire fleet.”

“There’s
just one problem with that scenario. A lot of our people will have to die on
our ships when they’re destroyed.”