Notes: Another new perspective, because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment and complication. Enjoy seeing Miles from a different direction.
Title: Reformation: Chapter Eighteen
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Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t understand this man’s love of in-person meetings,”
Captain Rianna Kylal muttered to her fellow captain, Blake Obede, as they made
their way from the Academy fleet flagship’s dock to General Caractacus’s ready
room. “We’re barely three days out from Olympus and he wants to speak to us
again? All together? What’s so important that it has to be said in person as
opposed to over a private comm?”
“He’s old-fashioned, I suppose,” Blake replied easily.
They’d come without their aides—not a requirement, the general’s personal
secretary had stressed, but as said aides wouldn’t be allowed into the
briefing, it didn’t make much sense for them to tag along. After all, they had
their orders from the admiralty. Nothing Miles Caractacus could do would change
those, at this point. “Or perhaps he’s just reinforcing his position as the head
of our little armada.”
Rianna snorted. “Please. This is a milk run, we all know it.
Why the admiralty bothered to pull in a marine general, of all people, instead
of giving it to an active duty captain I have no idea. Maybe Garrett Helms made
them.”
“You think Helms has that kind of pull in the senate?”
“There’s no telling what that snake is capable of. His own
kid’s not on the roster here, did you know that?” Rianna shook her head.
“Coddling him won’t do him any favors.”
“Or maybe he knows something we don’t.”
“Conspiracy theories, Blake?” She nudged him. “Don’t get
buzzy on me. I need someone around who knows how to keep a level head.” They
were coming up on the general’s ready room. His secretary, Shen Lin, was
waiting at the door, immaculate in a space-black suit, her hands crossed in
front of her.
“Thank you both for coming,” she said. “You’re the last to
be accounted for, so if you would please enter and be seated?”
“Last in and first out,” Rianna whispered as they walked in.
Blake just eyed her sidelong before taking his seat. Fifteen other captains
were already there, and she flushed a little at the sudden attention. Whatever,
they weren’t that late. At the head
of the table was General Caractacus, and Rianna made a show of leaning forward
and focusing on him. The sooner they’d sopped his ego, the sooner she could get
back to her ship.
The general smiled. “Thanks for coming so promptly. Now that
you’re all here, I’ll get right to the point.” Digital data sheets suddenly
displayed on the tables in front of each of them. “These are your new crew
rosters. I want you to inspect them, bring any potential issues you have with
them to me by the end of the day, and be prepared to implement them by
tomorrow.”
Captain Uris asked the question that was on everybody’s
mind. “Why are we making changes to our crews? Our current rosters were
designated by the admiralty themselves.”
“Indeed they were,” the general said mildly. “By the
admiralty: not by the instructors at the Academy, not by Admiral Liang, not by
anyone who would be in a place to better understand the strengths and
weaknesses of the cadets under your command. Several of you were given helmsmen
who have less than a hundred hours of simulation time—only helmsmen with low preparedness, for all shifts—as opposed to
here of you who were given senior cadets with over a thousand hours on the sim,
and actual flight time in crafts ranging from shuttles to Destroyers.”
“Surely that was based on potential proximity to combat,”
another captain protested. “A fifty-crew puddlejumper is far less likely to
encounter armed resistance than the destroyers we’re putting to the front of
the line.”
Rianna bristled slightly—she
was captaining one of those smaller ships, and she didn’t appreciate it being
referred to as a puddlejumper—but the general was quick with a response. “The
original crew orientation is included in the data. Feel free to flip back and
take a look, and I think you’ll find that there was very little combat strategy
applied to the placement of crew. Four destroyers were given fewer than ten
percent upper classmen, whereas our communications ship—which is certainly
meant to be at the back, and I’m not suggesting otherwise—is entirely staffed
with juniors and seniors. Cadets, in fact, that all have a direct connection to
members of Parliament.”
A strange silence descended over the group. Blake eventually
ventured to speak. “You’re saying that the admiralty cherry-picked which cadet
would be placed on which ship, regardless of capacity.”
“I am.”
“That’s a bold claim to make, sir.”
The general waved toward the table. “It’s not bold if it’s
true. The evidence is there. You can peruse it on your own and get back to me
as to whether you agree or not, I don’t care. I don’t have to care, even though I do. But the fact of the matter is, this
fleet was put under my command. No matter what we’re heading into, whether it’s
a skirmish with pirates that’ll be over before we know it or something bigger,
I am the final arbiter of who serves where now that we’re underway.”
“I don’t think the admiralty would appreciate your changes,
sir.” Captain Uris again. She, Brianna recalled, was married to a cousin of
President Alexander.
“I don’t feel the need to care about what they would
appreciate,” he replied easily. A few of the other captains looked to be
stifling smiles. “They’re on the ground, we’re in the air. Command may issue
guidelines at this point, but any orders go through me first. Unless you feel
that I’m asking you to do something that is immoral,” he added. “In which case,
it’s your prerogative to file a report with the admiralty in accordance with
the law. I imagine they’ll get around to reviewing it before we reach Pandora,
but until that time, you’ll obey my orders. Do you find reshuffling your crews
to be an immoral act, Captain Uris?”
Her hands were clenched, but she persisted. “I’m simply
stating that the admiralty must have had their reasons for doing what they did,
and for you to step in and rearrange something that is possibly beyond your
comprehension for reasons of—”
“You can stop right there.” General Caractacus sat forward
and fixed his pale eyes on Uris. Brianna felt the second-hand tension like it
was her own, quickening her heartbeat and tightening her muscles. “First off,
your insinuation that I’m ill-prepared for this command is a slap in the face
of the very admiralty whose intentions you purport to know better than myself.
I was pulled out of retirement, against my wishes, to take this post. I intend
to do my duty to the best of my abilities regardless, and the safety of my
people is of paramount importance to me. You don’t like it, take it up with my
record of service.
“Secondly, don’t talk to me about reasoning before you’ve
even so much as glanced at the data in front of you. If you’re here to shill
for the admiralty, you’d have better luck doing your research first and
attacking after instead of the other way around.” Captain Uris’s face was getting
redder and redder, but the general pressed on.
“Thirdly, if we’re going to be asking questions about the whys of crew placement, I invite all of
you to ask yourselves—in the quiet of your own ready rooms—why you were given
the cadets you were, and whether or not their placement was logical. If you
disagree with a move I’ve made, I want you to step forward with it. Feel free
to challenge me, but the information I’m giving you here is about more than
just your individual ships. I’ve shared the data for every ship’s personnel, so when you look through the rosters, I
want you to weigh the benefit of each orientation—the original, and the new one
I’m proposing. See if it doesn’t make more sense. And if it does make more
sense? Well.” He sat back in his chair.
“You can stop thinking as soon as you agree with me, if that’s
the way you prefer to work. Or you can consider the reasoning behind the
admiralty’s original decision, and ask yourself what in the hell they were
thinking when they divided our people up the way they did.”
“You’re asking us to commit an act of treason—”
“A thought is never treasonous, only an action is,” the
general snapped. “If we were tried on the basis of our thoughts, no one would
make it to adulthood. It’s not treason to question, but if you’re going to
question me you’d better back your claims up with hard facts and not expect me
to cower just because you’re tight with the admiralty. Otherwise, you do as I
say, or I replace you with someone more discerning. Do you understand me?”
Nods and murmured, “Yes sirs,” went around the room. Even
Uris nodded after a moment.
“Good. Then I expect to hear from you before the start of
third shift tonight if you disagree with any of my changes. Otherwise, I want
this done by second shift tomorrow.” He pushed back from the table and stood
up. “Dismissed.”
Uris left in a huff, and most of the other captains left
quickly, eager to get back to their ships and prepare. Rianna waited for Blake
to join her, glancing back once at General Caractacus as he conferred with his
secretary.
“Do you think he’s right?” she whispered as they walked. “About
the…cherry-picking?”
Blake looked grim. “All I know is that my own ship is ninety
percent full of freshmen and I didn’t even realize it until now. No wonder our
exercises have been going so slow. My new XO didn’t tell me any of this,
either.”
“You aren’t still working with Johnson?” They’d been a
command team ever since Rianna had first me Blake, almost twenty years ago.
“No. He was reassigned.” Blake’s lips tightened. “To Captain
Uris.”
“You think the general is on to something?”
“I think I’m going to obey my orders and get my ship’s crew
straightened out. And I think I’m going to be a lot more careful about how I go
about my business for the rest of this deployment.” He glanced at her. “I
suggest you do the same.”
Woohoo! Miles is a badass ;D
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