Well, here's a sneak preview at what we're doing for Act IV
* * *
Indecision Factor
"Make that four, Admiral," The operations officer looked up from her plot.
Sabrina Brown clasped a lock of her long, cherry-brown hair between two
fingers as Ronald Tsu briskly strode to her station. The forty-eight year
old vice admiral no longer wore the hat of a battlegroup commander, although
he still ran his lights on BatRon 1056's flagship. The command of the
entire Third Fleet fell on his lap early last year; cobbled back together
from the few battlecruiser squadrons and carrier battlegroups that survived
Fourth Fleet's destruction at Fagan and Athela. A long and weary process,
Third Fleet's rapid reactivation had only brought it up to half strength.
Understandably, the admiral's hair had taken a premature turn to gray; the
silver streak, however, contributed to the vague, distinguished air that
surrounded him.
"Is that so?" Admiral Tsu whistled. "My compliments to Plotting. And
just under..."
"Eight hours, Sir," Brown smiled, her fingers completing the downfeed
routine to Operations with automaton precision. "Took the squadron OWPE
record, I believe."
Brown nodded agreeably and turned to the operations center; his S-3
finished tweaking the main dis-play just as an ethereal holographic
projection cycled up. "What's it look like to you, Stace?"
The intelligence officer stepped up from behind Tsu. By far, he was the
tallest member of the staff, tow-ering over the admiral by a healthy four
inches. After all, it followed that being the only Mutan on a pri-marily
human staff elicited a certain degree of visibility. Commander Kyar G'hke
cleared his throat before keying his memo pad. "I'm not quite sure what to
make of it, sir. The picture's definitely clear, but with all due respect
to Plotting, it shouldn't be this clear. Whatever the contact is doing, he's
not going about it discreetly."
That much was obvious; the holotank Admiral Tsu, G'hke, and Brown had
gathered around ran a time-compressed simulation of the enemy redeployment
around Rastaban. It had been two years since the Con-federation had been
pushed back to Impressio, driving the Giovanni Front into Confederation
territory by nearly fifty-three lightyears. The Empire had taken losses of
its own--Ogasho was now back under Con-federation control, and the UPDF Navy
had forced a massive depression into the Arm--retaking Muscida and Tau
Aurigae. Even during the brief cease-fire, however, those victories had
been contested by the Empire. Rastaban's fall had been a bit more
permanent. Tsu had come out of Second Rastaban as the senior surviving
officer of the Seventh Fleet; seven levels of command had been wiped
out--admirals, staffs, ships and all--before the responsibility fell on his
lap. If survivor's guilt failed to grip him com-pletely, knowing he was
responsible for abandoning Rastaban's thirty-million citizens--men, woman,
and children--to the Empire's brutal shock-troops and occupation forces
nearly paralyzed him. However, thirty years of service had impressed a deep
sense of professionalism and duty that pierced through his understandable
despair. He defended the Impressio system, weak on both planetary defenses
and space-borne assets, from a full-scale Western Fleet attack with a
battlecruiser squadron, four carriers and a dev-astated superdreadnought
division. First Impressio had been the miracle that gave the Spacy enough
time to move up heavier assets that would stop the Corron advance at Second
Impressio.
The war's far from over, Ron, the admiral reminded himself. The enemy's
strategic doctrine had un-dergone several obvious revisions--no longer was
he concentrating on Rubia or Jarao. Indications sug-gested the enemy's
Western Fleet intended to shift the conflict's intensity to the Arm and the
rest of the Eastern Giovanni Stretch.
Plotting, however, suggested an entirely different scenario.
"Admiral," G'khe spoke up. "What really worries me is we have no
depth-scanner intelligence beyond fifty to sixty lightyears beyond the
stretch. Historically, the enemy's maintained an appreciable Reserve to
serve as an interstellar police for in their territory. They've never
employed a strategical doctrine that involved moving those units to their
northern territorial boundaries. If they're doing that now, then we
wouldn't even have the assets in place to pick up on it."
"Can they effectively reinforce their Jarao force while concurrently
turning the heat on Tital and the Arm?"
"They can reinforce, although I can't see how they can do that without
spreading themselves ridicu-lously thin. There's a heavy force scenario to
consider, moving in their entire--I should underscore entire--Reserve and
Home Fleet. In that case, current deployment patterns suggests they wouldn't
be able to con-duct operations for more than three months."
"A distraction?" Brown raised an eyebrow quizically.
"They're making it obvious enough, although that seems like a lot of
firepower to allocate for a diver-sion. I'm inclined to say no in this
case--it's simply too fancy." Even the Basic Strategy courses taught at the
Academies looked down on overly complex operations as flamboyant and
extremely risky; in an envi-ronment where timing constituted about
ninety-percent of a Fleet's operational concentration, coordinat-ing massive
operations over interstellar distances fell in the realm of the
nigh-impossible. Of course, there were very rare occasions where a
particularly briliant commander managed to pull off such opera-tions. The
Confederation still reeled from the impact of Mika Hw'italni's Blue Corridor
campaign.
"It wouldn't be the first time, Commander." Sabrina Brown noted dryly,
speaking aloud Admiral Tsu's very thoughts. "Admiral, they clearly think
this makes sense--there's no suggestion of hesitation over the redeployment.
If Intelligence is right, then they don't even have the reserve elements
necessary to pull off a full reinforcement of Jarao while pursuing
operations near Tital and Rubia. That means they have other plans for this
force--designate Red Bravo One; possibly a diversion. We should have
sufficient forces to deal with any incursion of this type--they haven't move
forward their heavy battle-line units yet, and they haven't positioned any
carrier assets within fifty lightyears of front."
"We should also consider the possibility that Intelligence is simply
wrong." Somone drew in a sharp breath of air, just short of a gasp. Brown
paused momentarily before continuing. "Our estimations on their reserve
capabilities is purely based on our experience with what they've been
willing to commit. Over-whelming numbers, yes, but nothing that our
tech-advantage couldn't offset. That estimation, however, never figured in
the political dynamic of the Empire. I'd like to talk this over with G'khe
first, but I be-lieve that the Reserve deployment system the Empire employs
figures in heavily with the intrafamily rela-tionships that define the
Imperial government. The size of the Reserve, in that case, would depend on
the commitment of 'family military assets' that each clan would be compelled
to commit to the Imperial forces."
"Admiral, I partially concur with Commander Brown," G'khe spoke up. "CIN
and NAVINT have both been less than enthusiastic about sharing some of its
conclusions regarding the enemy's reserve, largely because very few people
considered the factor of intrafamily military politics played in an
unlimited war. In lieu of the events at Rubia and Fagan, they've been even
more reluctant to consider the possibility that the enemy's reserve may in
fact be massive enough to conduct operations of this magnitude while
simul-taneously difficult to call up."
"I'm afraid I'm not following you, Kyar," Tsu presented a puzzled expression.
"My apologies, Admiral," G'khe scratched the side of his jaw. "This is a
rather obscure way of looking at the situation, but I am starting to
consider the possibility that the Empire may have sufficient reserve
strength to conduct operations we never dreamed possible. If some estimates
concurring with this belief are correct, they may have over 350% the reserve
we estimated."
"That's almost...my God...ten-times larger than their active force!" Tsu
exclaimed
"A full magnitude of order greater, at least," Sabrina Brown whistled.
"Which means they have more than seven times our combined reserve and active
tonnage which they can commit to operations. How-ever, we're forgetting
that the raw numbers aren't the only element in the force appreciation
calculation. Their deployment patterns, under the most ideal circumstances,
suggests they have to begin active duty deployments no less than three weeks
before launching operations. This is a historical fact, with--of
course--notable exceptions." Once again, the late General Mika was the
exception--the frightening wild-card in an otherwise uniform deck. "Given
the nature of civilian control over their reserve--namely, an intra-family
confederacy constructed over a self-contradicting code of obligations--they
can't activate more than thirty-percent of that reserve in under a year."
"That's still a frightening large number of additional units,
Commander," Tsu noted.
"Yes, Sir," Brown nodded in agreement. "However, there are two
mitigating factors. First, simple industrial capacity suggests that this
twenty-percent can only reinforce their light screening units. Their
disposable tonnage will only increase by seventeen percent, and that assumes
they wait for the activation of their reserve before they
consider...revising their position towards the Confederation." Like many
mili-tary officers, she took perverse pleasure of semantically trivializing
the surmounting crisis. "Second, we still have a distinct edge with our tech
base, and we can inflict sufficient losses to minimize the impact those
light reinforcements may have for the first few months. Afterwards, we'll
have to rely on building slips and wartime industry to match their juggernaut."
"G'khe?"
"I concur with Commander Brown's assessment," the intelligence officer
crossed his arms across his chest.
Ronald Tsu ran a finger across his thin mustache. He turned to his
communcations officer, who had remained silent up to now. "Very well, then.
Webb, send a dispatch to Theater Command. Get with G'khe and Brown and
prepare the briefing packet. Also, attach a hype-state request for urgent
comm pri-ority with CINCWESTGIOV. I suspect he'll want to speak to us
directly."
Lieutenant Webb Kelvin belted a quick "aye, sir!" and Tsu's staff went to
work.
* * *
* * *
+-----------------+-<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"|_|