The Star Carrier Series Books 1-3: Earth Strike, Centre of Gravity, Singularity. Ian Douglas
either.
He decided to risk telling the man the truth.
“My family.”
The man’s eyes widened slightly, then he nodded. “Oh. Sorry.” Gray couldn’t tell if he was apologizing for forcing the admission, or showing sympathy at Gray’s origins.
“Family … business …” the peaceforcer said, making an entry. “Palm me.”
“Pardon?”
“Give me your hand.”
He pressed the network of circuitry exposed against the heel of Gray’s right palm against a data feed. Gray felt the inner flag go up that told him he’d just received new data.
“What was that?”
“Your pass. If a monitor or an Authority ship or anybody else pings you, that’ll flash back your ID and my personal seal of approval on you bein’ there. You won’t be bothered.”
“Then I can go?”
“You got transport?”
“I’ve already lined up a broom.” There’d been a gravcycle rental shop outside the Authority Center.
“Then you can go.”
“Thanks.”
“Just one thing, though, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll be on your own in there. There’s no Net-Cloud in there, so you won’t be able to call for help. And things can get rough in the Ruins, know what I mean?”
“I lived there for most of my life, Captain. Remember?”
“Well, there’ve been some changes. They’ve been killing each other a lot more enthusiastically lately. Migrations. Political fighting. That sort of thing.”
“I think I can handle myself, Captain.”
“On your own head be it, then.” The peaceforcer went back to his console, effectively dismissing Gray.
But as he walked out, he distinctly heard the man mutter, “Damned squatties.”
Koenig’s Office
TC/USNA CVS America
Mars Synchorbital, Sol System
2148 hours, TFT
Koenig came to what passed for attention in his office chair as the inner commconnect came through. He’d been working on a request for two new fighter squadrons—replacements for the fighters and pilots lost at Eta Boötis—when his personal AI had announced a call from the Senate Military Directorate.
He’d half been expecting it.
“Sir.”
“Relax, Alex,” Rear Admiral Karyn Mendelson said, her image appearing on a newly opened in-head display window. “It’s just me.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Damn it, Karyn—”
She laughed. “Simmer down. The vote is in and you’re okay.”
“‘Okay.’ You mean …?”
“‘It has been determined by this Board of Inquiry that Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig has consistently and honorably served in the best traditions of the service,’” she quoted. “Or legal gobbledygook to that effect. You’re free and clear.”
“And still in command of the battlegroup?”
“Abso-damn-lutely.”
Koenig felt himself begin to relax. He’d been sure the board would clear him. And yet …
“I figured you would be getting an earful from Quintanilla.”
“That’s why things ran this late,” she told him. “Did you really throw him out of CIC?”
“Yes I did. You saw the command logs, didn’t you?” Everything that happened on the bridge and the CIC was recorded, optical and audio. Normally those records were kept sealed by the AI that collected them, but they could be retrieved for boards of inquiry, promotion boards, courts martial, and other legal proceedings.
She grinned in his mind. “Yes, but it still was a little hard to believe.” Her face grew more serious. “I’m afraid you’ve made some enemies in the Senate, Alex.”
“Already had ’em. A few more won’t hurt.”
“We were right about Noranaga. He was the one dissenting vote, by the way. He’s giving a deposition to a Senate probe tomorrow.”
“What probe?”
“Command attenuation.”
“I haven’t heard about that one.”
“It’s new. There was some agitation for hearings along those lines when we got kicked out of Arcturus last year. Your … um … independence at Eta Boötis kind of brought things to a head.”
While Koenig hadn’t heard of a specific Senate probe into the topic, he knew well what command attenuation was. The basic theory was taught at the Academy and accepted as holy writ throughout the hierarchy of naval command. It stated, essentially, that the limitations imposed on communications by the speed of light severely restricted the ability of the highest command levels—the Senate in Columbus and the Supreme Military Command Staff on Mars—to manage both strategy and diplomacy through the Fleet. It took three weeks under Alcubierre Drive to reach Eta Boötis, another three weeks to return. There were special high-velocity courier ships that could make the voyage faster—a week or two, perhaps—but the fact remained that by the time the Senate had learned of a threat at Eta Boötis and dispatched a carrier battlegroup to deal with it, the 1MEF had been pinned down and was under siege. Armchair strategists on Earth or Mars had no chance of managing a battle light years distant, and word of defeats or victories by Earth forces could take weeks or months to get back home.
The Navy had accepted command attenuation as a fact of life, and trained its command officers to operate with a high degree of autonomy, making both military and political decisions that could easily have a strong effect on life and politics back in the solar system. The problem was that, by long tradition, the military was supposed to be subservient to the civilian government. If the military became too independent in its thinking and operation, civilian oversight and control would be lost. The farther away a fleet or battlegroup was operating, the less control the Senate Military Directorate had over it—command attenuation in action.
Political liaisons like John Quintanilla were the Senate’s answer to the problem, an attempt to put someone into the fleet command structure who represented the political interests of the Senate. Deployed fleet commanders like Koenig despised the idea; political liaisons by their very nature complicated already complex missions, and that could translate as higher losses, quite possibly defeat. Political liaisons rarely had the military training that let them see a developing situation through the strategic and tactical training and experience of a command officer.
“You’re telling me I haven’t heard the last of this,” Koenig said after a moment’s thought.
“Good God! Of course you haven’t! As long as we’re saddled with PLs, there’s going to be friction. The PL insisting on doing things his way so the civilians stay in charge, the CO insisting that doing it that way will lose the battle.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
“Nothing for a long time. That’s the problem with political assemblies … or maybe it’s a blessing. They take forever to decide something. And by the time they do, their decision may no longer have anything to do with the problem.” She hesitated. “Quintanilla mentioned something in passing this afternoon. He said your deep-strike