from the repair of ships and the manufacture of equipment that we may very soon need in battle.”
“It won’t help us, Minister, Sir…”
“Silence! Captain, if you dare to challenge the command’s decisions again, I’ll dismiss you from your functions and send you to command a battalion on Kapteyn, so that you remain in this hole for the rest of the war and not cause any more trouble.”
“Mr Minister,” I answered as calmly as possible, “but I have never exceeded my authority anywhere, not once. The development of new weapons and their preparation for testing is my immediate responsibility. My job description doesn’t say I can’t involve other ministries and agencies. I made a formal request to Minister Zwerev, and he granted it, which means he was able to do so without compromising the Federation’s defence capability, and his decision in no way affects the Ministry of Defence, headed by you. This is his sole responsibility.”
“Well, let’s just say you are right,” Bronstein agreed, cooling off a little, “But why is it that the Minister of Defense finds out about the preparation of such an operation two days before it begins, and the General Staff doesn’t know about it at all?”
“Because this is not an operation by the Federation armed forces, but a combat test of a new experimental weapon, Mr Minister,” I patiently explained, “and it is being conducted under the auspices of the New Equipment and Weapons Commission of the Ministry of Defense, which I have the honour to head. The job description I mentioned earlier says that I’m obliged to notify you of the tests, and not to get your agreement for them at the planning stage. You are, of course, free to make any adjustments to the test plan, if it is contrary to the current interests of the General Staff or the Ministry of Defence as a whole, that’s what the notification is for, so that I don’t accidentally mess things up for you and the General Staff. But somehow I don’t think that’s the case.”
“And I think you’re a cocky squirt, Captain. I recognize your distinguished combat service, but you’re neither politician nor an official, and I’m afraid you’ll never be either. You should be commanding a landing brigade, maybe a division. You want me to write down an order right now, Captain? That’s where you’d be. ”
“You have no idea, Mr Minister, how happy I would be to accept this appointment, but being a commanding officer of a Commando Division, it is impossible to resolve the outcome of the war, and I want the Federation to win, and I will pursue it with all the means at my disposal.”
“Those are beautiful words, Captain. And I can see that you’re being sincere. Would you like me to be frank with you? You’ve done a very foolish thing by bringing your ideas to the High Command meeting. I didn’t just tell you you weren’t a politician. You shouldn’t have done that. In the eyes of respectable generals, you are a boy with the rank of captain, who tries to impose his plans on adults with such stars on their shoulder straps that you have yet to grow up to, and it’s not like with this attitude, you’ll ever make it happen. You think I don’t understand that there was some merit in your words? I’m well aware of that, and at the meeting, I understood that, too. But you should have reported your thoughts to the Chief of Staff first, since your position allows it, then he and his analysts would conduct a comprehensive analysis of these ideas, would make corrections and turn a naked idea into a preliminary plan of operations. And then he would come to me with this plan, and I would also make comments and changes, and only then could we propose it for discussion at the Presidential meeting.”
“And when would I have done all this, Mr Minister? I was pulled into a meeting right off the tarmac.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said those things at all. You should have brought your idea up later, in the usual way. It would have been more useful.”
“We don’t have time, Mr Minister. I listen to you, and I wonder how the Federation has managed to survive twenty years of fighting such a dangerous enemy with such an approach. You’re Fleet Admiral, Mr Minister, I don’t believe you don’t understand what would happen if we let the quargs build their battleships…”
“Captain Lavroff,” Bronstein abruptly interrupted me, “You’re not listening to me at all, and you’re not drawing the right conclusions from what I’m saying. The only thing that makes me still talk to you is your genuine desire to defeat the quargs, which you have demonstrated many times to all of us, and which you constantly put above any personal interests. Right now, as you drive me mad with your boorishness, you’re risking your career, and I think you understand that perfectly well. Why are you doing this, Captain?”
“I need this operation, Mr Minister,” said I with the utmost patience,“We’ve already spent too much time preparing it. If we allow the quargs to strike our planets with their new weapons, the Federation will not stand. I know that for a fact, I’ve seen a ship like that in battle on both sides of the sight. You’re right, now I don’t care what happens to my career, but I don’t want 200 billion people going into nonexistence because of my inaction. I’ve already died once, Mr Minister, but that guy looking down on us gave me a second chance, and now I owe him, because he didn’t do it for nothing, and I’m used to paying my debts in full.”
“Asteroid fever?” asked Bronstein thoughtfully, “I remember, I was told.”
“Mr Minister, I took the liberty of drafting your order to test new torpedoes. It says you authorize them, but you leave it up to me to select the targets in the enemy’s rear. If I don’t come back from there, it’ll be my fault, because it’ll be my decision, and your headaches will go away without me. Well, if this works out, it’ll be obvious to everyone whose orders I acted on,” said I sending the appropriate file to the Minister’s tablet.
Bronstein looked me in the eye for 15 seconds and kept silent, and then he looked down at the screen and went into the reading. The Minister frowned and tweaked the text, then he put the tablet down and looked back at me.
“I’ve signed the order, Captain. The Fifth Strike Fleet will provide you with ships to support the operation. Agree on the number and types of ships with Fleet Admiral Nelson.”
“Thank you, Mr Minister,” I replied getting up.
I was coming out of Bronstein’s office when he stopped me by saying.
“I think I’m going to put up with a headache somehow, Captain. I like the alternative scenarios much less.”
Chapter 3
We entered the quarg space in five separate groups. The ships of Admiral Nelson that accompanied our transports were far behind, because they weren’t equipped with our latest versions of the EW stations. Taking these ships with us to the enemy’s rear meant only exposing them to an unjustified risk and putting the entire operation on the verge of breakdown.
The autonomous space docks, where the quargs were building their giant ships, were located in five enemy-controlled star systems located quite far apart. We were therefore forced to take our ships to the assault line independently of each other, having agreed only on the exact time of the operation. The simultaneous onset of the attack was required to provide the surprise upon which my plan relied heavily.
Admiral Bronstein was right to call our operation an adventure. It could not have been anything else, given the terrible lack of time and resources we experienced in preparing this operation. RWC and GWI barely made the torpedoes and command planes we needed, and the conversion of the transports into half-recon ships, half-aircraft carriers was so difficult that sometimes I had to stay on the docks 24 hours a day. The result was still something that should have been called sub-recon-sub-aircraft-carriers. The medium-size troop transport is a pretty good carcass. It’s not a cruiser, of course, but it’s
