December 26th, 2261. 05:30 Lambda Bootis System. CNS Des Moines – CNC
John was staring at the results of his program. He’d massaged the inputs a bit then replay it to see what, if any, changes occurred. Each time his fleet would do more damage and suffer less. But cracking the battlecruiser was proving to be difficult.
“Computer, how many known variants of the BC-12 class of Alliance battlecruiser were produced?”
The computer’s VI icon spun for a moment before answering, “Four known.”
“Do we know what variants have been included in their fleets? Is this model accounting for this?”
“It is presumed, but not confirmed that alpha and beta variants are being used in these new fleets. Later variant models are still in active service.”
Billy then walked over and leaned on the railing behind John’s seat.
John paid him no notice and continued, “List the known deficiencies of the alpha and beta variants. Rerun the simulation with the appropriate variant and display results.”
“Dude, are you still trying to beat a battlecruiser fleet?”
John spun around in his chair to face Billy, “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Well, yes technically I do. But I wanted to see you fail a bit.”
“That’s a total dick move sir,” Beth said quietly.
“Agreed, Billy, sit down and shut up,” Eileen ordered him back to work, “John, what are your results?”
John flicked off and stuck his tongue out at Billy when he sat down at his seat, “Success. Though it’s costly.”
He transferred the simulation to the main screen. All work stopped as the simulation began its playback. Now, the crew was running with some very sketchy intel, and they were also running on some assumptions about the quality of the crews that could be found on these older ships. The stealth fleet was still able to take down an enemy fleet. Though half her destroyers and frigates were annihilated in doing so.
“It’s a pyrrhic victory. Plus, the likelihood of losing a cruiser is basically there too. Both of these are surviving on hopes and prayers,” John said, “I wouldn’t order that fight, the benefit just isn’t there.”
Hugo stepped out of his office and watched the replay of the battle. He said nothing but was impressed that it was possible. Even with the caveats, John had listed in bold letters to the right of the simulation, that their wing could take out that many ships were nothing short of amazing.
“Lief, in my office please.”
John stood up and walked over to the office. The office was free of any personal effects, aside from two pictures of Hugo’s wife and children. He was leaning back and smiling in his chair as John took his across from his desk.
“Hell of a job with that sim,” Hugo said, “Now I’m going to throw a curveball at you. We believe there’s a really old battleship in the wing we’re trying to find.”
He slid a data slate across the table.
John picked it up and skimmed it, “That’s a smaller squadron than what I’ve been simulating. But fighting that would be asinine.”
“The captain thinks otherwise.”
John made a gesture for the door to close, “Permission to speak freely sir?”
Hugo nodded.
“Then our captain is a suicidal dumbass. He’s going to get the wing killed if we try to take out a battleship, much less a battlecruiser fleet. The BB-14 class vessels are still thirty percent larger than these battlecruisers. They also have nearly double the close-in combat weapons. Not to mention turreted rail cannons that can tell our puny little ships to fuck off explosively.”
“The captain is of the mindset that it is possible to achieve a victory. He wants us to cook up an attack plan. We believe a portion of the fleet will be arriving here in a day or two.”
John shook his head, “You are asking for the impossible. Let’s say it’s just the big boy and a handful of escorts. If we make a single mistake, just one mistake. Poof. Sir, I mean this with the utmost respect, we should not even be thinking of engaging a battleship wing, whether it is or isn’t escorted properly. And that’s completely ignoring the legality of doing such a thing. I’m not even sure if our orders even allow for that technicality.”
“Our orders do allow for an engagement with hostiles under very specific conditions,” Hugo said plainly.
“Conditions that we aren’t allowed to create, sir. If we go through with this attack, we’re going to end up dead. Or worse, captured.”
“I will forward your concerns along to him. For now, work on this plan,” Hugo said before seeing John stand up, “Oh, before you go. Don’t sandbag this either.”
John left the office and walked back to his seat. He looked up and stared at the ceiling for a moment. How had it come to this? That was the only question running through his mind. Why would his captain, and more importantly the captain of the stealth wing, want to attack the Alliance here? Assuming of course that fleet appeared.
He got to work on the simulations using his tactics. They were impressive results, given what he had to work with, but the losses were hard to bear. In fact, most of the time their fleet was either wiped out to a single ship, with the Des Moines surviving. Survival bias was obviously programmed into his simulation. It was simply not a scenario that was winnable.
Just for shits and grins he plugged in Admiral Shephard’s battle tactics into the simulator and let it run. Using several-year-old Alliance battle data it performed admirably, but still resulted in the complete destruction of the stealth fleet. John then plugged in more recent battle data. The results were utterly disastrous.
John forwarded his results to Hugo at the end of the shift with a simple message. ‘It is difficult to free fools from the chains they so revere. I must impress upon the futility of any course of action against any of their fleets, but especially against anything that has battlecruiser or battleships.’
He left his station and walked to the exercise room. John needed to get his mind off of his current project. Pumping iron would do that. But that feeling, the pit in his stomach, wouldn’t go away. The senior leadership of not only his ship, but their wing, were being overly aggressive but for what reason?
16:50 CNS Des Moines – Stateroom
The Des Moines stateroom was its largest meeting room. Their captain took a liking to it and had many meetings in it that rarely had more than three or four individuals. This evening, when John should have been getting some well-deserved shuteye, it was full of senior officers.
John was sitting towards the back of the table and was staring at the data slate in front of him. He was replaying the simulated battle on it and was stunned at the number of assumptions and the frankly amateurish job that was used to produce the desired results.
Worse yet, their captain was the one that programmed this simulation. It clicked for John. This hot mess of a simulation was going to be their justification for hostilities. For the first time in his life, and his short career for that matter, John felt trapped. He didn’t have any control over his destiny. He was along for the ride, whether he wanted to or not.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He flicked the data slate and tossed it down on the table in front of him casually. There wasn’t much more he could do at this point. John leaned back in his chair and sighed. When the meeting was over, he’d record a time-delayed message to send to Alice.
That gave him a chill down his spine. He wanted Alice to know that he truly did love her and wanted to thank her for making him a better person. There were so many things he wanted to say in that message. He was working out an outline in his head about what to say when Kory and Kelly walked into the room.
Both were smiling. This wasn’t the post-sex glowing kind of smiling, but the ignorant kind of smile. Their flippant attitude caused a very distinctive and deep loathing for the two individuals deep within John. He always thought the two weren’t actively malicious in their comings and goings. But that presumption of his was clearly wrong.
“Good evening and apologies for keeping everyone up. We’re expecting an enemy fleet to jump into the system soon. We’re going to eliminate them then fall back to friendly space.”
Deniz was the first naysayer in the room and immediately spoke up, “Our orders are very clear, we are to avoid combat. If we know a fleet is coming, we should drop observation probes and jump to friendly territory.”
“Our work in the system isn’t done yet,” Kelly grinned.
“An enemy fleet approaching our system clearly gives us the leeway to reposition, or outright end, our current tasks. Disengagement is appropriate here,” Deniz implored the senior leader.
“I concur with the Chief’s assessment,” John said from the rear of the room.
“You would run away from a fight?” Kory asked.
“I’ve lived through the numerous fights I’ve found myself being in by picking and choosing the time and place when I throw down. I do this very carefully. Fights are picked when the odds of success are minuscule or non-existent. Putting myself into a corner willingly isn’t a recipe for success.”
Hugo then piped up, “The odds aren’t exactly non-existent here though.”
John picked up the data slate, “Sirs, have you looked at the assumptions programmed into this simulation? None of the attributes and I mean none, line up with currently observed Alliance military tactics. This simulation is best described as a work of fiction rather than anything grounded in reality.”
“It’s been programmed to accurately assess the fleet composition. There’s also a world of difference in technology between our ships and the enemy ships,” Kelly said, “Your simulations didn’t account for the differences in technology.”
Hugo shook his head, “I would stress that the work the lieutenant did was of the utmost quality.”
Eileen then spoke up, “I tend to agree with the lieutenant here. I’m not sure these attributes are accurate, they just don’t line up with recently observed Alliance tactics. I just ran a simulation using the recently observed tactics and the results aren’t anything at all like this.”
Kory was now visibly agitated, “The other ships have done their due diligence and it is believed that these results are accurate. Now moving on. We need to discuss the battle and specifically when this will occur.”
John retreated to his thoughts. He, along with everyone else, was going to die within forty-eight hours. That was a sobering thought that he didn’t care for one bit. The data slate was picked up and he began reading through the other ships' summary of the battle simulation.
It was stunning how awful it was. John was scrolling through the summary, and it just felt, off somehow. He then checked to see how or when the senior leaders of the other ships. That pit in his stomach grew. This stealth wing’s leadership seemed to be subservient to Kory in a cult of persona-like situation.
Deniz continued with his naysaying throughout the meeting. Kory steamrolled through the negative comments though. Outside of the CNC junior officers and the Chief Engineer, no one else seemed all that sour on the plan. That was one more thing that John just couldn’t comprehend.
Just before the meeting adjourned John spoke up, “Pursuant to the Code of Uniform Conduct section thirty-six, section eight, I am requesting an official record be made in the ship's log. To paraphrase my issues, I believe an attack on an enemy is an unlawful execution of orders and is not authorized. Furthermore, this analysis of the coming battle is overly presumptuous to the point that it has no basis in reality.”
“The meeting is adjourned. We need…” Kory began to speak before John interrupted once more.
“Captain, this is not something that you can ignore or sweep under the rug. You must respond and acknowledge the concern in our official log.”
“Lieutenant, you don’t get to dictate to me how I run this vessel.”
Hugo then spoke up, “Captain you are right, he doesn’t get to dictate anything on this ship. But in this case, he speaks the truth. You must file this complaint in the ship’s official log and respond to it now. In short, this meeting won’t be adjourning until you make an official response.”
“The code doesn’t require a captain to note a junior officer’s complaints or aversion to an order in the ship’s log,” Kelly said dismissively.
Deniz spoke up once more, “Even without the uniform code it behooves you to do so when you’ve asked the department to do the work to justify this attack, the expert speaks up and both his work and speech are ignored, and you’re ordering our fleet to do something that is not allowed under our orders.”
Kelly looked forlornly at Kory when she looked up from her terminal, “The code is quite clear on this matter sir. The relevant section, ‘Should any actions be undertaken, or orders given that are not consistent with the expressed deployment orders, the captain must make a note of any concerns issued by any officer or enlisted crewman. The official note in the log, and the captain’s response, must be made prior to any action being undertaken or as soon after an incident occurs.’ You must not only include the note but your response.”
Kory looked very upset but composed himself quickly once more, “Very well. I am entering the notice of opposition to this action. My response is that the elimination of this fleet will benefit the Confederate Naval Fleet in future engagements. This meeting is now adjourned.”
00:25 CNS Des Moines – John’s room
John entered his room and immediately punched the bulkhead. He sighed deeply and looked up at the wall. He no longer felt in control of his destiny. And his mortality, or what’s left of it, was assured to end.
He sat down at his terminal and was about to start recording a message. But the distinctive beep was made indicating someone was at his door. He hid the terminal’s screen and pushed the button on his desk to open the door.
“Enter.”
Hugo walked in, “That was not the right way to handle this.”
“Permission to speak freely sir?”
Hugo nodded.
“Did you notice this bullshit simulation?” John transferred it to his screen and began its playback, “Holy shit sir, the apple isn’t falling far from the tree.”
John then held his finger up as he pulled the playback of the last attack Admiral Shephard was in charge of. He synched the two battles up and began their playback. He shook his head.
“Looks at this idiocy. Seriously, look at it. His father got fucking curb-stomped by a numerically and technologically inferior fleet. You know why that is?”
“Superior tactics.”
“Exactly. Please don’t tell me you approved of his simulation. This is not going to work in any way shape or form sir.”
“John, I need you to work toward making this succeed. Can you do that?”
“Using this hot garbage? Nothing anyone in this fleet can do can make this work. At all. Using this though?” John tossed a data slate to Hugo, “We will at least acquit ourselves reasonably well. In his battle plan, he pisses on the enemy and annoys them. In mine, we punish them before we get blown the fuck up. I’d rather go out flicking off my enemy one last time in spite than to go out like a pussy as Kory would have us do.”
Hugo grinned as he looked at the slate, “Between you. me, and the wall, I’ll make sure this gets loaded in and reviewed.”
“Sir, we MUST stop this. It’s not too late to back out.”
Hugo shrugged, “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
“What do you mean it’s too late? Why is everyone going along with this madness?”
“John, we may not officially be at war, but we are. The sooner we make the enemy bleed more the sooner things can go back to normal.”
“We might make them bleed, but it’s going to cost us our lives. The trade will be far from worth it,” John said quietly, “I will do my duty. In the unlikely event, I live I will make sure this cult of persona is exposed and proper blame assigned to those that supported it.”
“No need for threats. When the battle is over and we’re heading home I’m sure you’ll have a change of opinion.”
John stood up and saluted Hugo, “I misread you, sir. I presumed that you were different from the rest of the senior leadership on board. I will be submitting a transfer request to another ship in the unlikely event we survive. Until then I will fulfill my duties as requested and required. I cannot serve under anyone in good conscience that would willingly go along with this madness.”
Hugo looked surprised. He then nodded and let himself out. John sat back down in his chair and stared blankly at the screen.
“FUCK!”
John logged into his terminal and began researching when it was allowed, or even required, to go around his current leadership to voice a complaint. When he found the relevant sections in the code and similar situations to reference, he began writing a letter to Admiral Dufresne.
In standard John-fashion, the letter was straight and to the point. It outlined how Commander Shephard was in breach of several codes, flagrantly violating standing orders, and willfully putting the ship in danger for no apparent reason. Additionally, the simple fact that the reconnaissance ships were being used in a combat operation made no sense tactically as they are best used to identify where things are for the fleet to shoot.
Once the message was completed, he saved it and added it to the long list of items to send during the next burst. That likely would be before their next engagement or before they jumped into slip space. John pulled the message and added very specific instructions that should the attack go through as planned, then the message should be sent.
John didn’t want to ruffle any feathers unnecessarily so if the attack was canceled. It’s ok to be aggressive and to look into these things. He would likely do something similar. But if cooler heads didn’t prevail then this message needed to be sent
Once done he turned on the video recorder. John looked tired, disturbed, and troubled. And more than any other emotion he wore disappointment on his face. He looked down at the table but then back at the camera and began speaking.
“Hi, honey. I love you. I don’t say that enough to you and for that, I apologize. I doubt you will ever know how much your companionship has truly helped me in the short time we’ve been together. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am likely dead now…”