<continued from Part VI>
* * *
* * *
Earth, November 12, 2170
"Infinitesimally small," the Muroc--an extraterrestrial slightly resembling
a bipedal horse--simply shook his equine head. Commodore "Bud" Koreh had
served in the Navy at his present rank longer than most junior admiral's
throughout their entire careers. One could argue that his particular
uninteresting en-trance into the aristocratic, noble community of
officers--through an OCS program--worked against his achieving his first
star. Historically--particularly in Terran navies--flag officers primarily
came from Academy backgrounds; a time honor tradition that separated the
reservists from the career, active-duty officers. However, Koreh had
elected to remain in the service, and for seventy-four years, the olive-drab
alien faithfully and expertly handled his duties in a fashion that earned
him the respect of the Admiralty. The current Chief of Naval Operations had
fought long and hard with his immediate UPDC superior, the Commander of the
Armed Space Forces, to boot Koreh up into the brass. However, Dawson's
efforts came too late. Within the next two or three years, the Muroc
commodore would retire after nearly eighty years in the Confederation's
service; the retirement benefits the only privilege coming with his final
pro-motion.
Nevertheless, the Navy endured the commodore's almost constant presence
in the meantime. He had, after all, served since the UPDF's inception in
2101. Currently, Koreh commanded the Farreach 38 sta-tion, one of a series
of self-sustaining spherical habitats. Six-hundred kilometers in radius,
the number of civilians the station could support had yet to reach its maxim
potential; still, the half-million civilian colonists onboard required a
split in administrative duties. A primarily civilian project, the Defense
Force involvement amounted to a relatively small part, earning the Navy and
her sister branches a miniscule percentage of the station's usable volume.
Technically, Koreh commanded only the military operations centered around
Farreach, although he secured the sphere station's most advanced control
stations. As Farreach 38's "commander," Koreh also assisted in the
implementation of Confederation policies in the Rubia sector, currently
devoid of the presence of a sector flag. Rear Admiral Mike Smith and a
large por-tion of the Seventh Fleet had set off for the Jarao sectors two
months ago, spreading out amongst three major star-systems along the
instable Buffer Zone. If anything, Koreh and Smith were cut from the same
cloth; the extreme differences between their species paled in comparison.
Both were, for example, highly enthusiastic in respect to their assignments.
Moreover, both flag commands expressed an extreme distaste in Admiral
Francois Messeur's intelligence; neither was willing to rely on the abstract
and often obvious data the current NavInt director threw their way.
Instead, Koreh and Smith formulated their own intelli-gence network out of
local people and intelligence gurus on their own staffs. The informal
coordination proved to be quite successful, and a source of private
embarrassment to Admiral Dawson on behalf of Messeur. Of course, if the
admiral had actually disliked Koreh and Smith, and actually tolerated
Admiral Messeur, then that embarressment might have cut both the Muroc's and
the Terran task force com-mander's careers rather short. Fortunately, such
was not the case; Dawson knew he could rely on his op-erational ends out in
the boonies, and that was the major reason he had elected to call Koreh in
today. The Chief of Naval Operations needed advice.
"I see," the admiral breathed slowly.
"It's not that it can't be pulled off," the Muroc officer explained, his
large, fluttery lips surprisingly well adapted to enunciating Standard
Terran English. For the past three hours, he had elaborated on largely the
fallacies in the operational simulation plan presented to him. The
operation's parameters called for a Buffer Zone brushfire exchange between
Confederation and Corron units--the latter party de-fending--in a small,
limited engagement. Not incredibly detailed, Koreh made it a priority to
inform the Chief of Naval Operations not only of its flaws, but of the
correct way to go about it. "Sir, when I first arrived at Farreach, we
looked over this sort of thing--something really damn similar. In general,
it's possible. That's what this thing is: a huge generalization."
"I think I know what you mean," Dawson folded his hands over his lap.
The operation they were cur-rently discussing had come to the table during
the March Bravo Eight conference; a meeting which re-capped theater
situations, the status of the forces, and the general state of the military.
While the proposal itself was not discussed on the general floor, enough
powerful people in the backroom had managed to include the Military
Oversight Committee while reviewing the suggested course of action. The
Depart-ment of Defense's G2 General Intelligence and Espianoge directorate,
under Major General Ghers, pro-duced breaking intelligence on Corron
military activity across the Buffer Zone from the Rubia and Jarao sectors.
Furthermore, in an even more exclusive meeting, the Chairman of the United
Planetary Defense Council and the Commander of the ASF, the Chief of Naval
Operations, the Marine Commandant, and G2's briefing contingent discussed a
related, more specific matter. Admiral Dawson had the pleasure of meeting
with a rapidly rising brigadier colonel in the intelligence service,
Westphal Green, who presented the general operational solutions G2 had
devised. Commodore Koreh, who was obviously excluded from this inner
circle, had just finished listening to the "hypothetical" operational
briefing. As far as the Muroc was concerned, the operation was entirely
simulated.
"It's just that there is no stealthy way to sneak a carrier group--even
a converted destroyer--across not only their sensor frontier, but ours as
well," Koreh stated. Apparently, someone wanted such a crossing to be
extremely hush-hush. "I'm not sure what the hell G2 was thinking when they
came up with this, but it looks like a great deal of hocus-pocus to me. In
fact, it looks more like an abstract--an unrevised one at that--than a plan.
Reads like a gosh-darn press-release, too. In anycase, the political
dimension--I'm sure you'ved considered that--is a little hazy in the
abstract. We are, last time I checked, in what the civvies like to call a
state of peace. Despite the justification of such an operation--like I've
said, we've been talkin' about this for years in the field--it still
presupposes a major shift in current foreign policy. I'm not only talking
about a hardline crackdown on the raids, but a complete shift in the current
political demo-graphic. We both know that as long as Terra maintains a
minority Council status, and as long as Mu-tanak holds the House and Senate,
you're not going to get even this much leeway. This operation--er,
abstract--doesn't consider that at all. What about the Secretary of
Defense? Has this gone past him yet?"
"Not yet," the CNO replied. "We're not bringing it to the secretariat
yet--the Chairman wants to keep this inhouse for now. As for the vague
character of the report, Commodore, you are looking at the ab-stract. I'm
afraid that's all we could show you without violating operational security?"
"Understood, Sir." The Muroc nodded understandingly. He expected
better of G2, and knowing that this wasn't a final plan permited him to sigh
in relief. "In any case, it's a change of doctrine in our simulations, and
I'm sure as hell the Corron are going to shout about it. Remember '66?
Fourteen House respresentatives hounded into resignation for calling for a
renewal of hostilities and the immediate can-cellation of what people are
actually calling diplomatic ties. It's almost as if they think that Druse
is the Corron embassy to the Confederation!" The truth was that the Corron
Empire, through the Druse Star Kingdom, did have diplomatics ties with the
UPC; the single tour de force for the ousted Achelle admini-stration.
However, there presence--located on a small artificial colony orbiting
Betelegeuse's outermost planet--was a pitiful reminder of the
Hwi-zhemal'orra's romp through Confederation territory thirty years earlier.
The colony itself had been the last outpost the Confederation negotiated out
of Corron hands at the end of the Fourth Corron-Confederation War.
"Not that I expect the politicos to think rationally, Sir," Koreh
rhetorically mused. "The political dy-namic plays an important part
thought, especially if the government's suffered a real recent shocker. If
you don't lose wars every once and awhile, you get so used to winning that a
single, major defeat is enough to throw dampen any political will and throw
foreign policy in a detrimental state of indecisive-ness. Terra's
different, and so is Karth and maybe even Tyndale IV. Nevertheless,
survival hasn't be-come an intrinsic enough issue to the rest of the UPC.
The Confederation will respond with force when it's left with no choice, but
by the time that comes around, the time to strike back will have already
passed We'll be fighting a defensive war, Sir. That's why I like this
proposal, from an abstractive perspective. Still, the Democratic
Unificationists, the Liberal Progressives, and every other party and their
so-called 'military experts' are going to be up in a titty if we start
changing our operational posture. Exercises like this are just fuel for the
Corron intelligence agencies--they'll pounce on it with all sorts of
diplomatic threats and carrying on. The LibProgs are more liable to listen
to them than they are to us, and they've got the DUs in their camp right now."
"No argument here," Dawson nodded in agreement. The truth was that
Green's operation proposal was just that--a proposal. Stealth-preferable,
rapid transaction and retreat--it sounded more like a poorly written sci-fi
shoot-'em-up flick than an actual operation. However, Dawson understood
that the colonel's priority wasn't to actually devise the operational
standpoint--from his record, the CNO clearly understood that Green was
capable of something far more elaborate and plausible. Instead, G2 only
sought to get the ball rolling; with the politicians in the "grey," less
attention to detail in the abstract was necessary. "That's why we wanted
your input on this."
"If I may ask--I'd think I'd field your questions better if I did--but
who else are you talking to about this, and what did they say?"
"Chandler said the same thing," Admiral Dawson answered, "and he pretty
much speaks for Mike Smith. I haven't spoken to S'tan'yi or Satie as of
yet, and the Marines are only too happy with the idea. However, we have the
same problem with them as well: the operation's specifics. Other than that,
the situation parameters and mission goals are do-able."
"Chandler's pretty up on the mark. I noticed you didn't mention Admiral
Cannady, but I'm sure he heard it at the Bravo-Eight briefing. What did
they say about political aspect?"
"We're not worried about that at the moment," the CNO explained. "G2
was serious when they wanted to run the simulation as a black op. That's
all I can say about that."
"You're kidding, right?" Koreh turned up his eyebrow. He might've
served as a quaterdeck-breed skipper for his entire career, but that didn't
mean he wasn't street-smart. G2 never ran anything without a reason, and
sending the CNO to interview him about--
"Are you sure this isn't for real, admiral?"
"As far as you're concerned, commodore: Yes, I'm quite sure."
Dawson dismissed Koreh, closing the briefing packet. Tilting his head
over his shoulder, his gaze shifted beyond the transparency to his rear as
his as traced the Earth's curvature.
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|