Kaiser-class Battleship SMS Prinzregent Luitpold
Admiral's Quarters
July 2, 3400
That insufferable brat!
At the previous meeting, on the first of the month, Admiral Gregor von Mückenberger had been able to keep the upstart young battlecruiser commander under control. Today had been much worse. The boy had been polite, but his questions had been incessant and irritating; it was worse than talking to a Umerian naval attaché on a sugar rush... "So, in light of the tanker schedule, can we perhaps spare a cruiser force for this target?" "Do we not need to stage reconnaissance-in-force operations against nearby systems, to ensure there are no reinforcements lurking there?"
Worst of all: "Perhaps we could detach light-ship only forces..." Did young von Musel have no common sense? The admiral growled. It would be another week or more before the operation kicked off, and the prospect of having to deal with the upstart at future conferences was already exhausting him.
Perhaps we can deal with him in some other way...
Mückenberger pivoted his chair slightly to face the computer terminal, and called his chief of staff, who nodded in respect. The staffer's greeting was thickly accented; the man had never overcome the strange New Austrian dialect spoken on the minor moonlet he'd grown up on. But from long practice, Mückenberger had learned to interpret his words.
"What is it, sir?"
"What do you think of young Reinhard?"
"...He is an irritating little girly-man, who talks big but will break like a twig in real confrontation."
That was the thing about Arnold. The Neu Steiermarker could always be counted on to be direct and forceful, striking to the heart of the matter with commendable determination. A very stout fellow to have planning military operations.
"I am trying to think of a way to keep him from becoming too much of a nuisance over the next week, but I must be careful. He has... influence in high places." That was understating matters. It was
damned awkward dealing with someone so arrogant under the circumstances. If he'd had a questionable performance record he could be slapped down easily enough. Even with Reinhard's record, his out of line behavior would have been easily controlled normally...
but how do you control a man whose sister is privy to the Kaiser's pillow talk?
That relationship was a discreet secret among high social circles in the League, and Reinhard himself did not make a point of it so far as Mückenberger could tell, but it was still
there, lurking in the background. August Wilhelm II was no absolute monarch or tyrant, but he took an almost excessive interest in the Navy, constantly poking about in the Admiralty Staff's affairs... and to keep him from asking awkward questions, Mückenberger would have to handle young Reinhard carefully.
Still, though, the boy was not invulnerable.
"I think I have the germ of an idea, Arnold. Perhaps the best thing would be to give him what he wants, stand back, and let him choke."
"I don't understand, sir."
"He makes trouble because he wants minor offensives with a fraction of our total force, and doesn't care if he draws away from the decisive blow. Personally, I think he just wants the credit for a battlefield success of his own from this campaign. He's risen too far, too fast, to be explained by anything but an Alexander complex. So if we give him what
looks like a chance at glory..."
"But really we give him a chance to get his ass kicked?"
"What? God in Heaven no, we don't want risk getting him killed or the like; we
certainly don't want to risk losing capital ships this close to the operation. I'm thinking of just getting him out from underfoot, under circumstances that will keep him from pulling off an easy victory. After all, we do need to husband our supplies carefully; I wonder what the Golden Boy will do if he is told he can go a-raiding if he wants, but is offered only, say, seven hundred fuel canisters for the operation?"
"Uh, sir? He could barely reach half the targets on the list with that much."
"Exactly. He'd need more fuel in hand to fight effectively when he gets there. So what will he do? Will he hit an inconsequential target, when he wants a victory he can take real credit for? I think not. Will he take a smaller force to the target and risk a humiliating stalemate or defeat at the hands of pirates? Again, I think not. Or will he demonstrate that his desire for military glory trumps his common sense, try to bring his full force... and then be reined in by senior officers who recognize the risk he's taking? Perhaps- I hope so; that would be best."
"I don't know, sir. He might not fall for it."
"Oh, possibly. But in that case, what's he going to do? Turn around and say that raids against secondary targets aren't such a good plan after all? That will make him look like a fool and a coward, and he knows it. No, this will get him out of my hair. Either he'll be off raiding, he'll be too busy trying to figure out how to fight a battle on minimal resources to bother anyone, or he'll decline and his credibility will be shot through."
"As a plan to shut him up, it might work, sir. Shall I put together a list of supplies for your plan?"
"Please do, Arnold."
Valkyrie-class Battlecruiser SMS Brunhild
Admiral's Quarters
July 2, 3400
Siegfried Kircheis had known the news wouldn't go over well with Reinhard. He was still taken aback a bit when the admiral snarled and slammed his fist down on his desk.
"With one breath he gives me permission to stage a raid. With the next, he refuses to release the fuel to get there and back! Intolerable!"
How to get him over this and back to battle plans? "Ah, I haven't done any detailed calculations, but I believe we could still reach Targets Two, Four, and Seven... in reduced force."
"Hah. 'Reduced.' I could get half my forces to Two and back, at most, given that they need fuel in hand to fight once they get there. No more than seven ships to Four or Seven, unless I keep
all my cruisers here... Tempting, but no. That's not a raiding force, that's a reconnaissance."
"Will you be calling off the operation, then?"
That will not look good on the record.
"That would be playing into Mückenberger's hands. Nor can I simply appeal for more resources- I don't want him to be able to say that I refused to work with what I was given. Not when he controls the fleet's inventory management... ah. Kircheis, from what you said he will release adequate amounts of ammunition, so that the main operational constraint is fuel."
"We'll be short on guided railgun rounds, but he has 'generously' released plenty of extra dumb rounds and shrapnel shells to compensate."
"Such generosity; remind me to stay off his Christmas gift list. Still, we can make do with proper target selection. Three or Five would be ideal, but we can't reach either of them and fight a battle on this fuel budget. It all comes back to the matter of fuel."
"You have something devious in mind, don't you?"
"I might, my friend, I might. I imagine our valiant allies have grown quite frustrated with Mückenberger's delays and the fleet's logistics problems."
Too true. Siegfried shook his head. "Many of the Second Fleet personnel complain that the other Coalition personnel are showing contempt. I suspect we could extrapolate that up the chain to the top ranks."
"Perhaps, then, they might be willing to cooperate. Kircheis, I want you to try to contact our allies' frontline logistics people. Try and sweet-talk them into extending us some fuel for combat operations. I'll have an estimate to aim for in a few minutes."
"I doubt they'll make promises in a few minutes over the visiplate."
"No, but they will inform their superiors of our situation. We don't actually need that much: the margin between a viable operation and an impractical one can be very slim."
"Yes, sir. I'll look into it."
Reinhard smiled- he looked tired, but happier now. "Thank you, Kircheis."
Patriot-class Heavy Cruiser USS Layla Daniels
Flagship Second Intervention Task Force
July 3, 3400
Vice Admiral Wenli Yang rubbed the back of his neck. "So what do you think, Alex?"
The chief of logistics shrugged. "Sir, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of a Prussian with initiative, let alone one going outside official channels to make an operation work."
"They're not all that bad, you know."
Dustin Attenborough, Yang's screen commander and (not coincidentally) one of his oldest friends, was in attendance at the staff meeting this time. He chuckled. "But you must admit, Wenli, that such an active strain of Prussian is a rare specimen, even an endangered one. Perhaps we should be thinking about conservation efforts."
Alex's eyes were distant. "...Maybe. From what his aide sent out, they're being set up to fail, expected to operate on a shoestring in fuel and ammunition. I don't know what they've got planned to keep ammo under control, but fuel is one area where we could help them if we wanted to. Wastage has been lower than expected; we
could spare about three hundred units of fuel, and while our antimatter containers aren't fully compatible with their systems, it's easy enough to field-improvise a way around. There's a technical note from Fourth Battlecruiser Division on that recently- looking at running fuel from their canisters into our tanks and not the other way round, but I think it's doable."
Wenli nodded. "Fyodor, can you pull up some figures on their fuel usage? How much good would three hundred units do them?"
The bulky intelligence officer nodded slowly and smiled. "I think it's on here already..." He tapped through file directories for a moment. "Ha! Best-guess consumption figures for the
Valkyrie-class, the
Z-1240 series, and the
F-2515 series. Hmm. Three hundred units is..." Fyodor's lips moved slightly as he did a rough calculation. "Not too amazingly much, but it's the difference between being worryingly short on fuel for a major combat operation and having a reasonable margin of error."
"Thanks."
"Just doing my job, sir."
"In that case, if a Prussian cruiser commander wants to attack a mutual enemy, I think we can afford to encourage him this time. Alex, can you write off the surplus fuel without making trouble for us down the line?"
"I'll think of something."
"All right, then. Next order of business..."
SMS Brunhild
Operations Room
July 3, 3400
Konteradmiral Reinhard von Musel's eyes flicked up from the enemy ship profiles he'd been looking over when the door chime announced his aide's arrival.
Perhaps now he has news of the fuel project?
"So tell me, Kircheis, how goes the scrounging?"
"I haven't been able to get in touch with the Atlanteans. The Umerians are willing to pass on some fuel to us; the Centralists likewise from their own large fuel depots. Appealing to Tianguo for antimatter would be a waste of time. From Naval Intelligence, the Eoghan don't even
use fuel for starship-scale operations- they have some kind of perpetual motion machine that no one's been able to reverse-engineer."
"I find that hard to believe."
"So do I, but there are too many converging lines of evidence. No mistake. In any case, between the Centralists and the Umerians, our fuel reserves increase to within ten percent of the level you were aiming for."
"Good enough. We'll go after Target Three, the extraction facility. Call our new friends in; I need to make sure of them."
Not only would Reinhard have to brief the
Flottenkapitäne on his plan; he would have to be sure they were competent to carry out complex tasks while operating independently. He'd known too many officers who expected all initiative to come from above, making them useless on their own. It was a particular problem among the destroyers and frigates, where officers were normally discouraged from being too aggressive. Doctrine bound light starships close to the battleline, both tactically and strategically, and that taught many officers bad habits.
Reinhard hadn't yet had a chance to talk in depth with the commanders of the light-ship flotillas assigned to screen his own battlecruisers. From their records, he had some hopes for the two Second Fleet officers- their personnel files were laced with phrases like "aggressive almost beyond reason" and "prone to confrontation with Staff planners." Those were typically promising. But he would have to talk to them in person to be sure they had the flexibility and resourcefulness he needed. If they weren't up to his preferred plan, he would have to greatly simplify his tactics to avoid reliance on a weak tool.
He hoped he wouldn't be disappointed, but had no great confidence. Such hopes had been dashed before many times.
Kircheis escorted the flotilla-captains in. The two men walked into the room side by side, came to a stop a respectful distance from the admiral, and saluted. Returning the salute, Reinhard took a moment to size them up physically, without the distractions of a large-scale fleet meeting or the limitations of a remote conference.
Mittenmeyer of the 23rd Frigate Flotilla didn't give much of a first impression either way. Dark blond hair, ruddy complexion, on the stocky side but obviously in good physical condition: fairly typical Prussian stock. His personnel file made him out to be some kind of berserker, but it didn't show on his face. Instead, he seemed relatively cheerful, with a certain lively intelligence about him. Still, though, there was nothing about him to draw a second glance on the street.
Reuental of the 11th Destroyer Flotilla was more striking, particularly his eyes. Blue eyes were common enough in Prussia, as were brown, but one normally didn't see one of each on the same face. Past that, though, Reuental was several centimeters taller and rather slimmer than his fellow flotilla-captain, with a cold cast to his pale features that suggested deep personal bitterness. That was familiar enough to Reinhard; it reminded him of what he saw every day in the mirror, after his endless struggles with the ship-of-fools nonsense that passed for authority and doctrine among the Fleet.
"Greetings, captains. I have called you here to discuss my plan for the attack on Target Three."
Mittenmeyer nodded. "The extraction facility."
"Indeed." He thumbed a button on a small remote control, and the main display in the operations room lit up to show a zoomed out image of a small planetary system orbiting a minor red dwarf about fifteen light years from Zebes.
"The facility is here, in the trailing Trojan point of the third planet." The display zoomed in to center on the cloud of gravitationally bound rocks in question. "Located in the thickest part of the debris field, the surrounding volume contains numerous asteroids in the ten to hundred meter scale, and some close-packed slag piles ranging up to a kilometer in size. From signal interceptions, we infer that we're looking at much the same technical palette seen at Hawk's Nest."
Wait for it... Reinhard said nothing for a moment.
The frigate commander was first to speak. "So, we should watch for defense fighters in the debris field?" He glanced to Reuental, who nodded slightly.
"Or missile platforms. For a permanent installation, those would be better."
Good. It wasn't the deduction so much that made him mentally revise his estimate of the two
Flottenkapitäne upward from "guilty until proven competent" to "adequate until proven good." The inference was obvious, after all. The promising part was that they weren't just sitting there and expecting him to feed it the situation to them entirely: a common vice among screen officers who took their "duty to ward and follow the capital ships" a bit too much to heart.
Reinhard continued. "Yes. There might also be an enemy light-starship force operating out of the system. Difficult to say, as the Coalition has done fewer recon sweeps these past few weeks. Probably no more than half a dozen hulls."
This time it was Reuental who asked the question. "Which do you consider to be the main target of the operation?"
"The ships, the challenge being to isolate and destroy them separately from fixed defenses or fighters attached to the facility itself."
The corners of the tall man's mouth folded upwards slightly in a thin-lipped smile. "Thank you, sir."
Perhaps they are trying to evaluate me as I am judging them. It wasn't an uncommon problem in the Imperial Navy, after all, and the need to be sure of the competence of the men one worked with cut both ways.
"In any case, gentlemen, I believe my plan allows us to destroy both targets and escape the system before possible reinforcements arrive from Zebes,
if we stage the operation correctly..."
That was the start of thirty minutes of rapid-fire discussion between himself, Kircheis, and the two flotilla-captains. After the final stage was prepared, Mittermeyer nodded slowly. "I have one thing to say about this plan. Compared to all official doctrine, it is quite unorthodox."
What, he turns into a doctrinaire NOW? Reinhard suppressed the urge to grit his teeth. "And this is a problem?"
"Quite the opposite, sir. It is a pleasure watching you at work."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Kircheis let out an unobtrusive breath- a sigh of relief, most likely. "Thank you, captain. So long as we are on the subject of unorthodox activities, I have a specific task for each of you tomorrow, beyond the planning for the attack on Target Three proper. Allow me to explain..."