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.” 

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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. 

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