Tales from the Service: A Lifeline’s Shadows

2953-06-25 – Tales from the Service: A Lifeline’s Shadows 

There was a momentary silence in the room as Haversham settled back into his chair. All eyes were on Markward, who was looking down at his slate, making a note, as if what had been said was simply a supplementary note to add to his report.  Perhaps he thought this is what it was, but nobody else seemed to interpret it that way. 

“I concur with Captain Haversham.” Commander Dinah Weir finally spoke up. “We need data to prove to Command that this escort is insufficient. Even if we are forced to retire, our mission becomes one of gathering as much data as possible about the enemy force as we do.” 

“You concur-” Markward glanced up, eyes flashing in annoyance. Now, he seemed to understand what it was that had just been said, and he shot a glance at his flag captain. “We have enough data to show that this route has been blocked. Command needs nothing further.” 

“Orrie..." Weir shot Conrad Molnar a momentary sly look that, for a moment, he didn’t quite comprehend. "Can you give us the starmap and highlight all enemy activity?” 

The air over the table filled with glowing holographic motes. A loose net of about thirty of the represented stars soon glowed red, and tiny insets showed that more information was available on each one. The convoy’s position, just outside the jump limit of an anonymous dwarf-star system, appeared to the left of the red net, at the end of a meandering course through anonymous nowhere. The rendezvous location appeared far off to the right. It certainly looked, at first glance, like enemy forces had blocked the convoy’s advance, and were positioned to intercept any attempt to punch through to Force 73. 

Perhaps the map would have been convincing if Conrad were commanding one of the haulers, but his Bonaven Kovo, as the largest fast unit available to the convoy, had spent much of the operation supporting light forward scouting assets. He knew fairly well where vessels of Convoy 7380 had scouted for a path forward, and where they had not, and most of the red systems were places none of the ships under Markward’s command had gone. The only nearby system along the net’s expanse where scouts had actually been, another nameless dwarf system, didn’t have a red glow, because the scouting force had found it empty. 

“As I have been saying, we are at quite a disadvantage.” Markward gestured to the plot dismissively. “Most of these positions lack significant forces; they are picket stations trying to make contact with us for a fast pursuit force to intercept.” 

Conrad realized then what Weir’s sly look meant, and cleared his throat. It was time to play his part. “Admiral, this map shows an enemy force in the Urbrecht system. You ordered the  scout mission to Urbrecht suspended. Where is this data coming from?” 

“I scrapped the Urbrecht sweep because the chances of being detected were too high, Captain Molnar.” Markward glared at Conrad. “It is an ideal location for an enemy listening post. Based on other enemy locations, I don’t need it scouted to know we’ll find enemies there.” 

Conrad nodded. “So may I refine our data further?” 

Markward gestured toward the plot vaguely and made a show of reading something on his slate. 

Conrad glanced over at Weir with a slight shrug, then looked up at the overheads. “Orrie, can you show us just the positions confirmed through any sort of direct data?” 

“I’m sorry, Captain.” The perky voice assistant sounded crestfallen. “That request violates a high level data restriction.” 

Conrad raised his eyebrows theatrically, for the benefit of the hauler skippers and other more junior officers present. “Admiral?” 

Markward shrugged without looking up. “Problem, Captain?” 

Conrad stared at the rear admiral for several seconds, but evidently this was all he was going to get out of the man. Clearly, he was not going to lift his asinine data restrictions, even if it was to conduct a proper council of war.  

A few muttered voices broke the brief silence, but none of them spoke up.  

Conrad knew he needed to push the matter further, if this council was going to overrule Markward’s paranoia. He keyed his earpiece to transmit back to Kovo. “Bonnie, can you build a star plot of the locations of all data this force has identified as possible or positive enemy activity?” 

“On it... Done.” Bonnie’s sharp, crisp voice came back with only a slight delay due to the distance between the two ships. “Orrie has made your nearest holo-projector available to me. Would you like to see it now?” 

Markward looked up at this, scowling. For a moment, it looked like he was going to jump up and belay the order, but evidently even he knew that would sink his cause in the eyes of all his subordinates. 

“Please.” Conrad nodded, though obviously Bonnie couldn’t see the gesture. 

A moment later the star plot changed. Instead of a neat net of red indicators, there now were only two bright orange motes and a single red one far back along the convoy’s track, indicating the site of the enemy comms traffic that hard started their whole mad flight and the two ambiguous signal intercepts from shortly afterward. There was nothing now between Convoy 7380 and its intended rendezvous except a field of largely nameless stars. 

“Well then.” Weir jumped in before Markward found his voice. She probably knew almost as well as Conrad himself how little the admiral’s assumptions were based on, but she pretended to be surprised all the same. “May I ask, Admiral, what exactly we’re running from?” 

Admiral Markward submitted his retirement shortly after the ships of Convoy 7380 returned to Sagittarius Gate. He is, to my knowledge, no longer in Sagittarius or under Seventh Fleet command. I have no knowledge of his career save what little can be gleaned from public documents, but it seems that prior to the events described he was a competent and sensible officer; It seems the stress of a more forward command than previously given him overcame him. 

As I have hinted before, the convoy did eventually make contact with Force 73 and provide that squadron with a few much-needed supplies. 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Lifeline in the Balance

2953-06-18 – Tales from the Service: A Lifeline in the Balance 

Obviously, stress on field commanders is a constant problem in wartime, and in no place is it higher than in detached commands far outside easy communication range with their superiors. Battles, campaigns, even the course of the whole war might hinge on the decision of a junior admiral or even a captain on a forward mission, and most of the men and women in these postings know it. 

The pressure, I am sorry to say, gets the better of some of them, sometimes. Stress will make lunatics of us all, given enough time. 

At first, the ad-hoc council of war went slowly. Admiral Markward instructed one of his aides to lay out a quick summary of the convoy’s situation for the benefit of the hauler skippers and the few others who had been detached when various things had happened, and then the admiral himself laid out his proposed course of action and a few of the advantages and disadvantages as he saw it.  

There were few questions; most of the officers present were hesitant to speak up, even when the obvious result of this course – namely, the failure to deliver supplies to Force 73 – was not mentioned among the drawbacks. Markward’s analysis focused on getting his force back to port safely at all costs, just as Captain Conrad Molnar had expected it would.  

Commander Weir broke the uneasy silence that fell after Markward was done talking. “Isn’t this course against our orders, sir?” She gestured to the aide controlling the holo-projector, who nodded and called up the orders matrix. “Seventh Fleet told us to make every effort to link up with Bosch.” 

“Every effort does not mean suicide, Commander.” Markward emphasized the young officer’s rank to an extreme degree that made the bile rise in Conrad’s throat; only a rear-echelon careerist like the admiral would think a full captain at the helm of a large transport was higher on the Navy pecking order than the more junior skipper of a brand-new fast destroyer. Other than the flag captain and Conrad himself, Dinah Weir was likely the most militarily significant subordinate the admiral had. 

“Taking a random-walk until the second rendezvous window is hardly suicidal, Admiral.” Conrad looked up toward the overheads. “Is the asssitant active in this compartment?” 

A bright, feminine voice answered instantly. “Absolutely, Captain Molnar. You can call me Orrie.” 

Conrad rolled his eyes; he could already tell he disliked Gray Oriolus’s assistant personality configuration. Even the more reserved tone of Bonnie, the assistant on his own Bonaven Kovo, was sometimes too chatty for his tastes. “Can you estimate the odds of an encounter if we random-walk through deep space to the second rendezvous, making only the minimum number of harvesting stops in star systems?” 

“Only very loosely, if that’s all right.” 

“Take your best shot.” Conrad looked across the table at Admiral Markward. Asking the computer system to do this analysis should have been the job of the admiral and his staff, but if they’d done this, none of the results had been shared in their summary. Markward, for his part, looked unperturbed; perhaps he had done this already as he should have, and the results favored his perspective. 

“Based on the Admiral’s current op-for predictive map, the chance of an encounter is thirty-one percent.” Orrie took over the display to show a few charts. “Modeling suggests the most likely encounter profile is a skirmish with forward scouts, followed by a converging attack from multiple enemy squadrons if we can’t lose them.” Now the display became a fast-moving tactical plot, showing three groups of four Incarnation heavy cruisers converging on the huddled symbols representing Convoy 7380. Against that firepower, obviously, an escort force with only a single heavy cruiser and two light cruisers could do nothing. 

“So perhaps one chance in three of being found by scouts, one in six of being wiped out.” Conrad nodded. Markward had absolutely done this before, and the system was using some of his parameters, otherwise, the chance of interception couldn’t possibly be scored above five percent. There was, after all, still no conclusive proof the enemy was on the convoy’s tail at all. “That’s better odds than most of our ships would have of coming out of a full-scale battle intact.” 

“But this is a supply force, Captain Molnar.” Admiral Markward lowered his voice until it was almost a hiss. “A logistics operation. One in six convoys lost on this route would be unacceptable to the fleet.” 

“So would Force 73 being laid up for lack of supplies.” Weir chimed in. “The stores our haulers are carrying won’t do anyone any good back at Sagittarius Gate.” 

“The fleet will turn the supplies around and send them back with a proper escort.” Markward shrugged and folded his arms. “The sooner we get back, the sooner that will happen.” 

“With all due respect, Admiral...” This was a new voice; Captain Haversham of Gray Oriolus, Markward’s flag captain, had finally chimed in. “We have no hard evidence that this escort force is insufficient. If we could at least sight our pursuers, it would help identify what the next convoy will be up against.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Frayed Lifeline

2953-06-11 – Tales from the Service: The Frayed Lifeline 

The operations of Force 73 were supposed to be free of any logistics tail. Obviously, this was optimistic. Even as the force was en route to its theater of operations, Fleet headquarters was planning how to best send critical supplies and reinforcements to Captain Bosch that Kyaroh systems are unable to provide. 

I have little information about how many times Force 73 has been resupplied in the months it has been on station, but apparently at least one convoy successfully made the trip and returned safely, and at least one attempt was made which failed, though without loss of the convoy. 

Convoy 7380, the most recent sent in that direction, just returned to Sagittarius Gate after a journey of nearly two months. Apparently, there was significant tension in its command structure. This account presents one side of that conflict, though I am sure the other side would present these events quite differently. 

Captain Conrad Molnar struggled to restrain the helpless anger burning in his breast. Rear Admiral Markward was still droning on about insurmountable difficulties, but Conrad heard none of it after the announcement in passing that Convoy 7380 was going to abandon its mission and turn back toward Sagittarius Gate. 

Conrad and some of the other captains had privately discussed their concerns early in the voyage. Markward, an old hand at Navy logistics operations with little frontline experience, had proven himself rather mismatched to the task he’d been assigned. Incarnation forces had so far failed to intercept his command, but that hadn’t stopped the admiral from sending the whole force on a random-walk escape pattern the moment forward scouts reported enemy signal traffic in the next system ahead. 

That had been nearly a week ago. Now, 7380 was behind schedule and off course, far from the planned route between Sagittarious Gate and Kyaroh space. There had never been any sign of pursuers, of course, but Markward remained convinced that he’d narrowly avoided a trap and that a fleet of enemy cruisers was hot on their heels. Conrad and the other escort captains had been trying to nudge their commander back toward the mission objective for most of that time, without success.  

Markward’s concerns were unfortunately not entirely unreasonable. Seventh Fleet headquarters had sent down intelligence reports just before their departure that suggested the enemy was aware of the best convoy routes which could be used to supply and reinforce Force 73 in Kyaroh space. Apparently, the admiral had spun these reports into dread certainty that he was leading a force into a trap long before the forward scouting element picked up enemy signals, and there was some possibility he was right about that. Clipping Force 73’s lifeline, tenuous as it was, would go a long way to shoring up the Incarnation’s failing prospects in this war. 

Dinah Weir, skipper of one of the new destroyers assigned to the convoy, evidently could hold her frustration no longer. She cleared her throat and raised one bronze-skinned hand. “Excuse me, Admiral. Did I hear correctly a moment ago that we are scrubbing the mission? Without a council of war?” 

Weir had a point; though it was not required by regulation, momentous command decisions made with little time pressure were traditionally discussed at a council of war attended by ship captains. Conrad, as skipper of the light cruiser Bonaven Kovo, would never have been omitted from such a council, as his ship was second only to the flagship in capability and had not been separated from the main body for the whole of the misbegotten escape run. 

Markward, knocked off his usual rambling procedural tone by the interruption, looked up from his slate, his thick eyebrows diving together into a momentary scowl. “We are too far behind schedule to make the first rendezvous window, Commander Weir.” He tapped the conference table. “If we loiter until the second, we risk being discovered and destroyed.” 

Conrad opened his mouth to observe that in all wartime operations, a convoy risked being discovered and destroyed, but shut it again. Rank insubordination would do no-one any good.  

Weir, though, was undeterred. “Which is why a council of war is warranted, Admiral, to be sure we do not have any safe means of making the second rendezvous.” 

They had those means, of course; the convoy could spend a few extra days zig-zagging unpredictably across the intervening space to avoid loitering too long in any one place, as was common practice for any force that had just broken off contact with the enemy and did not wish to re-engage. Everyone in the room knew that would be suggested at any council, Markward included. 

“Your concern is noted, Commander.” Markward gestured to his adjutant. “It will be duly recorded in the minutes and included in my report.” 

Conrad sighed and squared his shoulders; he’d seen one too many of Markward’s lengthy, unreadable reports to trust that higher command would understand this decision to be Markward’s alone. “Admiral, could we hold that council now? If only as a formality. All the necessary commanders are present.” 

Heads nodded all around the table. For once, Conrad was glad of Markward’s insistence on having every commander shuttle over to the flagship for the daily briefing. The objection would be so much easier to shrug off on a vid-call. 

The admiral glanced around, eyes narrowing. He was cornered for the moment, but Conrad knew he and Weir would suffer later for their objections. "If there are no objections, we will table the usual agenda and proceed as suggested by Captain Molnar.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: Cowardice in Mourning

2953-06-04 – Tales from the Service: Cowardice in Mourning 

As several commentors have pointed out, I absolutely have toned down the profanity in this account before publishing it. As a Marine sergeant, our contributor is an artist with profanity, but this colorful and evocative language would not meet the Cosmic Background editorial standards. You will have to re-introduce it in your imagination, if you are familiar with the standard issue vocabulary of a Marine non-com. 

Sergeant Cole Morita scowled at the two men blocking his way. According to the regs, and according to the spirit of the Marines, what they were telling him didn’t change a thing, but in the world outside, people would expect a man in mourning to be given some lenity for an act which had, in the grand scheme of things, done little damage.  

The spirit of the Corps had, as was inevitable, been eroded somewhat as the Marines had expanded for wartime service. Physical and psychological standards for entry were theoretically as strong as ever, and Cole didn’t doubt that they remained high, but the wartime recruits were missing something else – the willingness to submit to the honored traditions of a service with a contiguous history going back almost a thousand years.  

Allscher and Stepanov, like most of the men in the unit, were wartime recruits. They weren’t devoting their lives to the Corps, they were doing a few years to protect the government and Admiralty which had existed for a fraction of the history of the Confederated Marines in a time of need.  

No doubt, this was a challenge the Marines had weathered before, and would again. Certainly Cole would have to put the Mark into the files of all three no matter what happened today. The existence of the Mark was no secret, even to recruits, and it served to tell the Corps who among the wartime surge was not fit to carry the traditions of the service into the conditions of peacetime. From a civilian perspective, what the men were doing to protect their comrade was admirable, so it would only make sense to send them out into the civilian world as soon as practical after the war ended. 

Allscher and Stepanov seemed to take Cole’s hesitation for a reconsideration of his anger based on this new data, and relaxed their posture somewhat. “Now that we’ve cleared the air, Sarge, we won’t keep you.” Allscher saluted once more and sidled away from the hatch. Stepanov followed suit a moment later. 

Cole nodded to both of them, then went in. Olivers was there, sitting on his bunk with his head in his hands, with a few other men standing protectively around him. Everyone saluted their sergeant, as they were expected to, but the tension was as thick as nutrient paste. Cole sized them up, noting their names off in his head. They would all need the Mark. 

After several seconds of tense silence, Cole cleared his throat. “Private Olivers, I am putting you in for emergency discharge.” He fixed his eyes on several of those standing between himself and the bereaved man. “Gather your things and report to the passenger berths on the double. The Fleet will get you home as soon as it can.” 

For a long moment, nobody moved, then Olivers himself shot upright as if yanked by invisible strings and saluted. “Yes, Sergeant.” His red-rimmed eyes met Cole’s, and he seemed to think this an act of mercy. From a civilian perspective, it certainly was, but Cole was only getting started.  

The man tottered around for a moment, gathering his slate and his kit bag, then he trotted out past Allscher and Stepanov. Nobody said another word until the hatch had closed behind him. 

Several Marines started to talk at that moment, but Cole held up a hand, and they all returned to attention in an instant. 

“As for the rest of you.” Cole turned on Olivers’s friends. “I could have you all court martialed and thrown out of the Corps.” He leveled a finger at Stepanov. “If you lot knew he was too damaged to have his hindquarters busted the same way he always did without blowing a valve, it was sheer cowardice to let him stay on duty. He needed to be on leave the minute after that damned message came in.” Cole turned to make eye contact with everyone, one by one. “Heaven help us if we’d had a combat op today. Or do I need to send you all to scrubbing plating until you remember your basic training?” 

“A unit is only as strong as its weakest component, Sarge.” There was a note in Allscher’s voice that might have been resignation, or even sorrow. “A company’s components are its troopers. And I am that weakest component.” 

“So you’re not all utterly irredeemable.” Cole turned to Allscher. “Today, you all thought Olivers was the weakest link. But he might have been the damned strongest one. Because he did something. You all just sat on your hands and waited to see what would happen.” 

Most of the troopers started studying the deck plating below their feet, wondering perhaps how long they’d be scrubbing it before they regained their sergeant’s trust. 

Cole let the silence drive the point into their heads for almost a minute before he continued, tapping the bandage on his arm. “If he’d gotten incredibly lucky and killed me or put me out of action, the Lieutenant would be well within his rights to throw you all out an airlock. As it is, I might still recommend it. If you can’t do the right thing for the unit when it’s damned uncomfortable, how can you call yourselves Marines?” 

With that question drifting in the air, Cole waved them all to at-ease and strode out of the barracks, still seething. As soon as he got to the lift, he sent a quick a message to the Navy accommodations liaison explaining Olivers’s situation, then pulled up the personnel files for the unit and started adding Marks. 

Details
  • You are here:  
  • Home