“You are vicious,” Van Krief grinned.
“So, you getting anywhere with Herzer, yet?” Tao asked. “Speaking of vicious.”
“Bite your tongue,” the ensign growled. “He’s my boss. No-go time.”
“Well, maybe somebody will get smart and separate you enough that you can get a leg over.” Tao grinned, ducking out the door as a boot hit it.
“Don’t I just wish,” Van Krief said as she belted her tunic. “Don’t I just wish.”
“It is wishful thinking to believe we can win a decisive battle on present terms, Admiral,” General Babak said. The operations officer was looking particularly pale this morning. “The correlation of forces…”
“Correlation of forces is often a term for either cowardice or lack of imagination,” Edmund replied, bluntly. “I’ll agree that we’re holding the shitty end of the stick at present. But the way to fix that is to turn the stick around.”
“We’re outmanned,” General Piet pointed out. “They took relatively few casualties in the battle and we’re short on personnel. Among other things, even though we’ve gotten dragons sufficient to fill out the fleet, many of the dragon-riders are unwilling to perform sea duty.”
“Then they can be grounded until there are more dragons,” Edmund said. “And we’ll find recruits to fly the dragons. Yes, training them is going to be a bear. That’s G-3’s job to figure out.”
“We don’t have the trainers,” Babak snapped. “Or the facilities. We’re going full out working up the dragons with trained Naval riders and one carrier!”
“General, in a few weeks time, minimum, New Destiny is going to punch their fleet again,” Edmund replied, mildly. “What would you have us do? Sit on our asses in harbor and let the dragons that we have cover us? There are other harbors, other seaside towns. And the point to all of this is to stop their invasion force. We cannot do that from the harbor.” He looked around at them and shook his head.
“You gentlemen are starting to learn why being a general is not all it’s cracked up to be. The enemy is called the enemy for a reason. They don’t stand up to be shot. They are working just as hard to make sure we cannot fight as we are working to figure out a way to fight. Or supposed to be working. General Babak, has your department been working on battle plans?”
“There are, at most, three carriers against six,” Babak said, pointedly. “And they have those damned anti-dragon frigates. We’ve been looking at any number of scenarios. None of them bear any hope of success.”
Edmund closed his eyes and shook his head, solemnly.
“General, let me ask you something. Have you ever read any military histories?”
“Well…” the general said, inhaling. “No. But the point isÑ”
“The point, General, is that military history is replete with examples of inferior forces defeating, or at least stopping, superior forces.” Edmund steepled his fingers and rested them on his chin, his eyes closed. “General, you and your plans people come over to my quarters this evening. We’re going to have a little chat.” He opened his eyes again and shrugged. “If I have to learn you all one by one I will. General Hanour, your estimate on the point at which New Destiny will be ready to sail again.”
“Well, technically, they could sail at any moment,” the intelligence officer said. “But we estimate they won’t do so for at least another two weeks. That is when all their ships will be done with storm repairs.”
“Mr. Ennesby, when will the carriers be completed with their refit?”
The shipyard engineer had not previously been invited to staff meetings. But since the staff did not have a representative from Buships, to Edmund’s secret delight, he’d pressed Ennesby into service.
“Six days at present rate,” Ennesby said, looking at his notes. “But there’s another day to load the stores that had to be removed.”
“And the dreadnoughts?”
“More like nine days,” Ennesby said with a shrug. “More work to do and there’s a shortage of materials and trained personnel to work with what we’ve got. But since we’re not refitting their holds, just surface work, they can crew and load while we’re doing the final work.”
“Those ships don’t even have crews,” the G-1 almost wailed. “Or captains. Or petty officers.”
“Find them,” Edmund said. “Strip the merchant ships if necessary. I don’t care if you use a press-gang. Find them. We’re going to sail shorthanded. That’s a given. We’re still going to come out of the battle with at least a draw, probably a win. I know that because I don’t lose battles. Ever. And get it through your heads that you’re not going to lose them either.”
As the staff filed out Edmund continued looking at his briefing papers, only looking up when General Babak cleared his throat.
“Yes, General?” Edmund said, mildly.
“Admiral, I don’t think I can do this job,” Babak said, bluntly. “I didn’t want it in the first place. I’m a sailor. I can command a ship, but you were right, I don’t know the first damned thing about running a war. I want to demote to captain. The Corvallis’ XO is green as they come and there’s nobody else around that knows ships as well as I do.”
Edmund leaned back and rubbed his head with his hand, sighing.
“Request denied,” he said and raised his hand to forestall the immediate response. “Can you command a ship? Sure. You’re a good sailor. Okay. But I’ve met your deputy. And he’s no more trained for this than you are. I don’t put that on your shoulders, I put it on Bob Houser’s and to an extent Sheida’s. You guys should have been being trained in the theory at least before now. But the bottom line is that there’s nobody to replace you where you are. And you have at least gotten a grasp of what your job is. If I replaced you, your replacement would have to be told what operations are. You think you’re the lone ranger? I want a field command again. Not this… ‘North Atlantis Command’ nightmare. I want a regiment, maybe a battalion. I want to interact with soldiers and deal with their problems and train them up. And then use them in battle. It’s what I really love, not this…” He gestured at the paperwork in front of him. “Not this crap. But we go where we have to go and do what we have to do because that is what being in the military is about. And I said, ‘if I have to learn you one by one’ and I meant it. One of the things is, there used to be a term called ‘thinking outside the box.’ You know what I mean?”
“No,” Babak said, sitting down.
“Okay, in brief, what’s your current plan for a battle?”
“We locate the enemy fleet, move in range, launch dragons and hope we can keep their dragons off of ours.”
“Have you been looking at Vickie Toweeoo’s Silverdrake plan?”
“Quite a bit,” Babak said. “The problem is, if we put Silverdrake on the carriers, we lose space for Powells and our total bomb-load will drop by a huge fraction.”
“Why are you basing them on the carriers?” Edmund asked.
Babak shrugged and smiled.
“Dragon. Carrier,” he said, gesturing with one hand and then the other then putting both together. “Dragon-carrier. That’s what they’re for.”
“Uh, huh,” Edmund grunted. “Been talking to Vickie?”
“No, sir,” Babak admitted. “I didn’t know you knew her.”