The conference room was elegantly appointed with a long mahogany table and ceiling-hung lamps that cast their light carefully to make it easy to see both the table and those around it. At each place was a notepad, a pencil and a glass of water. On a side table was a silver urn and coffee mugs. At one end was a single door, guarded on the outside by more marines in armor, and at the other end was an oilcloth-covered easel. A commander in dress uniform was standing at attention by the easel as the admirals and generals filed in, followed by their aides.
The UFS had a uniform rank structure for officers. The bottom three ranks were ensign, lieutenant and captain. These were referred to as "company" grade officers. Their rank insignia were circular pips, one for ensign, two for lieutenant and three for captain. The second three ranks were major, commander and colonel, "command" grade, each marked by a vertical silver bar. The next three were brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general, "flag" grade, marked by silver stars. The highest rank was general, four stars.
Admirals were, by definition, generals that were in command of task forces or fleets just as the term for the commander of a ship was "skipper." Brigadier generals in command of small task forces were called commodore. Full generals in command -positions were supposed to be called "Marshals." Edmund refused, point blank, to use the term. And since, so far, he was the only one, it was likely the term was going to fade into history.
Herzer took up his position behind Edmund's chair, the one at the end of the room farthest from the easel. Edmund looked at the setup and reached into a pocket, pulled out a set of spectacles and settled them on his nose.
"Commander, you may begin," Brigadier General Kabadda said as soon as everyone was seated. His position was on the left side of the table at the end nearest the easel, directly across from the fleet commander.
"Sirs," the commander said, pulling the oilcloth off the easel to reveal a marked map of the North Atlantis. "At 0500 this date, local time, First Fleet, composed of five task forces formed around the carriers Bonhomme Richard, Washuka, Corvallis Line, Norland and Reagan, along with the light forces task force 7-1, was four hundred klicks west of the Onay Islands." He pointed to a point on the map. "The enemy was just passing the Onay Islands, making good time with northeasterly winds. According to plan, the fleet will begin to launch dragons at about 1100 hours, not long after dawn local time, depending upon when the scouts indicate the enemy is at the optimal range. Engagement should begin approximately 1200 hours local. Given the disparity of force, the fleet commander estimates that only a single strike will be necessary to take out the enemy's carriers and a later strike is planned to engage his light units.
"A revictualling convoy is approximately two hundred klicks southeast of the fleet's current position. It was held pending the battle, but should be able to complete its mission in no more than two days. Two scout forces are near the Asur Islands and are screening the actions of orcas in that area. Task force 3-2 is just north of Blackbeard Base completing work-ups of the carrier Hazhir. Sirs, this is all current deployments and plans of the North Atlantis fleet."
"Good brief, Commander," General Kabadda said. "Questions? General Piet? General Hanour? General Babak?" He looked around the room to a series of shaking heads.
"I have one," Talbot drawled. "What is the guard on the -convoy?"
"Excuse, me, sir?" the commander asked.
"Who is guarding the convoy? According to my information, the fleet was supposed to be revictualled last week. What is guarding the convoy?"
"There is a ballista frigate and an armed sloop," General Kabadda replied, his mouth pursed. "We had to wait for special supplies for the dragons so the convoy left late."
"Thank you," Edmund replied. "What is the status of the Hazhir?"
"I'm . . . not sure," the commander said, riffling through some notes. "It is fully manned but it has only seven dragons. It's been being used as a test-bed by the local commander and is about to be refitted to standard configuration. Refit will take no more than one week."
"Very good," Edmund said. "What is the status of foodstuffs for the wyverns in the fleet?" Edmund asked, calmly.
"General, we can get you all that information," General Kabadda said.
"Great," Edmund replied. "I generally expect to get it at my briefings, but as long as it's available somewhere we can access it before, oh, twelve hundred hours, that will be fine."
"Admiral?" the chief of staff asked, tightly.
"Good brief," he said to the commander, standing up. "I think you can look forward to a better one this evening."
Edmund got to his feet and headed for the door, stepping to the side to let the other generals past. Herzer noted some sharp looks in their direction but he'd been stared at by worse. Most of the generals just looked like they had to pee.
Edmund waited until Kabadda came through the door and held out his arm.
"I will need that data, General," he said, smiling.
"I'll have it gathered, General," the chief of staff answered. "But isn't your ensign looking at most of it right now?"
"Not all," Edmund replied with a tight grin. "And I'd like to see what you bring me."
"Why don't I find you an office?" the chief of staff said. "That way you can peruse the information in comfort."
Edmund smiled again and shrugged.
"Oh, I think flipping through it in your war-room would be just fine."
* * *Γ Γ Γ
"Fisking empire builders," Edmund muttered as they walked down a corridor.
"Excuse me, sir?" Herzer said. "And the war-room is the other way."
"I know," Edmund said, turning a corner. "But there has got to be a bathroom around here somewhere."
"I'm sure there is," Herzer replied, dryly. "And I'm sure that there's one reserved for generals, too."
"I'm not looking for more marble," Edmund growled. "I should have taken the offer of an office, but it was a blatant ploy to get me out of their hair. I don't want to be out of their hair."
"It's their first real battle, sir," Herzer said, spotting a bathroom and opening the door. It was a simple affair, Spartan in a way, with a long trough at one side into which water spurted out of pipes. There were holes on one side for defecation, with more water flowing through under the holes. But he had to admit that it was clean. Nearly as clean as the identical set-up at the Blood Lord barracks and the Academy.
"This must be for peons," Edmund growled, walking to the trough and unbuttoning his fly. "Anyone around?"
"No," Herzer said.
"The problem is, it is their first battle," Edmund snarled. "And none of them have the slightest fisking clue what they are doing."
"Sir?"
"Herzer, assume that you're briefing me on an army in, oh, Linwah. What are you going to cover?"
"Has it been in battle recently?" Herzer asked.
"No, it's getting ready to clash with a similar force."
"Intel abstracts with the raw data available," Herzer said then grabbed a mantra from his head. "Mission, enemy, time, terrain, signals, support. What they are going to do. What they have present to do it. What we estimate the enemy has in the way of materials and ability. What the area conditions are. What the means of communications are. What materials our units have present and estimate of the enemy's materials. What materials we have on the way and estimated arrival. He covered most of it, sir."
"Most," Edmund said, closing his fly. "Did you know there was a storm on the way down from the north? That it was estimated to arrive in a day and a half or so?"
"No, sir," Herzer said.
"I figured out how to read their maps in the war-room," Edmund growled. "That's damned vital information. It means that the fleet cannot revictual completely. Did you know that the dragons were down to two days' food? That the fleet was out of ketchup?"
The latter was the only thing that could get dragons to eat the mess of beans and oil that was their normal food away from fresh meat.
"Jesus, sir," Herzer blanched. "They're getting hungry."
"And a hungry dragon will eat anything, including the handlers and riders," Edmund snarled. "They're going up against an enemy that they don't know the capabilities of, with dragons that are hungry and balky. Why?"
"That I don't know," Herzer said.
"Because they've never fought a battle before," Edmund replied. "Or even trained, seriously, for one. They don't know about the fog of war, they don't know that no plan survives contact with the enemy. But, worst of all, it's because they have not fought before. The only one of their officers who has met the enemy in any sort of a pitched battle was Shar Chang, and he's 'not one of us.' The Yacht Club has yet to earn its spurs. And they had blithely pitched a forward battle, engagement at the earliest opportunity. Now they can't say: 'Wait; the fleet needs resupply and there's a storm coming that will ground our dragons.' Because they fear they'll lose face."
"What do we do, sir?" Herzer asked, his face pale. He had fought battles before and knew that things went wrong. And he'd handled hungry, seasick, dragons before. If the fleet couldn't get food in time, the dragons were going to starve.
"There's not a thing we can do," Edmund snarled. "That's what's making me so damned angry. The only thing we can do is hope for a miracle. That nothing goes wrong. That the New Destiny forces play dumb. Personally, I think that really is hoping for a miracle."
Major Jerry Riadou stood up as someone at the back of the low, crowded, room called "Attention on deck!" then sat back down as the XO called: "Seats."
The XO of the ship was wearing his hat, probably because he considered it de rigueur for a formal briefing. Ship uniform was dungarees for all personnel but hats were used to distinguish their ranks and position. Enlisted and petty officers wore brimmed "forage caps." Chief petty officers wore hats with a wide-flat brim called, for some reason, "campaign hats." Officers wore hats with a curved brim called Stetsons. The XO's Stetson was turned up on one side and pinned in place by the heraldic device of the ship. Often, as in the case with the XO of the Corvallis Line, there was also a feather for emphasis. The CO wore the same sort of hat with both sides turned up. The practical reason given for the hats was that anyone could tell at a distance who was giving an order.
As far as Jerry was concerned, the real reason was that the Navy was run by a bunch of bloody peacocks.
Jerry didn't look up from his notes as the XO strode to the lectern at the front of the room. His notes were simple. Of thirty-five wyvern on board, only twenty-eight were certified for flying by the ship's surgeon. The rest were so sick they probably wouldn't survive even if the ship was sailing into Newfell Harbor instead of into battle. He'd only been permitted two hours of flight per day, per dragon, for the last month. He had not been permitted to draw live napalm for training and had only been permitted one set of bombing practice runs. For most of the riders, it was the first time they had attempted to drop bombs, period.
The XO was briefing the mission, but Jerry knew the brief; he'd written it. When the XO gave him the task he came very close to telling the anal-retentive asshole where to stick his brief. And the jackass had sent it back three times, for corrections. Corrections on shit he didn't know jack about.
Riadou had been one of the first people ever to land a wyvern on a carrier deck. He'd been the first person to bomb a ship at sea and he sunk it. Admittedly, it took a few times to get the damned thing, but he'd sunk it.
The XO had been the mate on the skipper's racing yacht. He'd never even been on a dragon. And he was correcting stuff on a brief that Jerry could give in his sleep.
The XO and the skipper were pals, all right. They'd even forced the name of their damned yacht down the throats of the dragon-riders. What the hell kind of name was "Blue Destiny" for a wing of wyvern? After someone explained to him that he wasn't the first person to land on a carrier, Jerry had taken the time to cross the river and visit the museum that still occupied the far bank. There he had read about the old carriers, big, huge metal ships that landed aircraft damned near the size of a great dragon, aircraft that were going not much under the speed of sound for that matter.
And they'd had plaques on the wall, behind sealed glass otherwise they would have fallen apart over the millennia. Plaques from the squadrons of those ships.
Black Aces, Jolly Rogers, Viking Raiders, Death Dealers. Those were real names. Names that spoke of what the pilots believed. Bring death and destruction to the enemy.
Blue Destiny. Gimme a break.
He sensed that the XO had come to the end of his spiel and looked up, meeting the commander's eyes. He hoped he was showing the proper humility, instead of what he wanted to show, which was that the best use of the XO was dragon-feed.
Apparently not from the XO's expression. The commander looked away after a moment and around the room, clearing his throat.
"Any questions?"
"How do we get out of this chicken-shit outfit," a voice at the back of the room asked. In any other group, it would be grounds for chuckles. In this room it caused dead, and deadly, silence.
"If there are no other questions, move to your beasts," the XO said, coldly.
"Let's go, boys and girls," Jerry said, standing up when no one else had. "Time to go get it on."
"It's okay, boy," Jerry said to the piteously mewling wyvern as they reached assembly altitude. "It's okay. I'll give you a big feed when we get back." You could promise anything to a wyvern. They never listened.
He looked down at the dragons launching from the port-side catapult. Most of them were barely getting in the air, flapping listlessly as Tomak had. Jerry had ridden a wyvern named Shep, short for Hatshepsut, for years. But Shep, thank God, had been retired to stud at Blackbeard Base. He was well out of this goat fuck.
Tomak was having a hard time maintaining altitude. There weren't many thermals this early and the dragon was half-starved, low on energy and inclined to balk. But he kept him in the air as the other wyverns, slowly, assembled.
It was a dispirited group that flapped to the northeast. Going to a battle they didn't think they could win and wondering if their dragons would have enough energy to get them back to ships they weren't sure would be there.