The two sat together in silence. Then it clicked. That is what Max had been seeing. That’s what was wrong. As the proficiency demands became higher and higher, the crew was responding by relying more and more on the small number of men who either had a high level of proficiency and expertise to begin with or who are very fast learners. And, as the supposed proficiency level of the section or department got higher and higher, and the exercises and the work took that higher level into account, they got further and further above the heads of most of the rest of the crew, who had to rely ever more heavily on that same small number of highly proficient men.
The weak arm was letting the strong do all the work. And the work was now so hard that the strong arm was breaking. The strong needed the help of the weak. How do you strengthen the weak arm?
Or the weak eye.
“Doctor, isn’t there a disease called ‘lazy eye’ that children get sometimes?”
“There are several conditions that receive that imprecise layman’s label. I presume that you are referring to Strabismic amblyopia, a condition in which there is a misalignment of the eyes that results in the highly neuroplastic brain of the child essentially learning to not see or to reject the image from one of the eyes. It is often treated by realigning the eyes with surgery and then taking some sort of action to teach the brain to accept and process the signals from the disfavored eye.”
“Exactly. Didn’t they used to put a patch over the strong eye to force the child to see through the weak one?”
“A crude way to say it, but yes. That was the treatment. When the brain was presented with only one image, the child’s highly adaptable brain quickly learns to accept the only visual input that is available. As soon as the brain is favoring both eyes with rough equality, the patch comes off and the problem is cured. But that is not the modern treatment.”
“Why not?”
“Children don’t like wearing the eye patch. The other children tease them. So, we pharmacologically penalize the good eye.”
“You what?”
“Pharmacologically penalize. Essentially, we put in eye drops that make the vision in the good eye blurry so that the brain will start relying on the weak eye.”
“Then, that is what we are going to have to do. In order to make the weak eye strong we are going to have to make the strong eye weak.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“First, I’m going to have to trouble you for those seventeen names.”
“I understand.” He reached into a pocket of his tunic and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Here they are. I thought something like this might be necessary. And, next? Are you going to tell the men that they have become too dependent upon these seventeen individuals and take them off duty, requiring the other men to shoulder the weight?”
Max recoiled in abject horror. “Oh, no, doctor. That would never do. If I take those seventeen men out of service completely, the ship would go to pieces. We can’t do without them entirely, or even most of the time. Plus, the reaction of the men to something like that would be a disaster. The seventeen would feel as though they were being punished for performing their jobs too well, which they would resent, and the remainder of the men would interpret the action as an implication that they are incompetent, which they would resent. And, we mustn’t foster resentment when we can avoid it. We are going to have to do something else entirely.”
“Captain, I very much fear that you are about to unveil one of your ruses.”
“Doctor, I very much fear that you are right.”
***
USS Cumberland DPA-0004: Ship’s Standing Order #15-14
20 March 2315
Effective immediately:
1. Starting tomorrow and on every third day thereafter (Day 2 of every Watch Cycle) the persons listed on Attachment A will attend Special Leadership Development Training from 08:00 to 16:00 hours, with appropriate breaks for coffee, lunch, etc., as determined by the person(s) conducting said training.
2. So that the listed personnel may devote full attention to their studies and be appropriately rested, they are not to be disturbed by any person for any reason without the explicit permission of the CO or XO for the entire 24 hour period of the training day.
3. As this training program imposes substantial out of class work requirements, the listed personnel are to be exempt from any duty-related requirements on Days 1 and 3 of the Watch Cycle except when they are on watch. They are not to be disturbed by any person for any reason when they are off watch without the explicit permission of the CO or XO.
4. The listed personnel are similarly prohibited from engaging in any activities related to their regular duties on Day 2 of the Watch Cycle or when they are off watch without explicit permission of the CO or XO.
5. The provisions of this Standing Order are automatically suspended when the ship is at General Quarters.
***
Having written and posted the General Order, Max spent a few hours at his workstation slogging through the endless bureaucratic minutia that seemed to be one of the primary burdens of command. He had his supper brought to him. It was outstanding. The Cumberland was still eating high on the hog with provisions purchased on Rashid IV and given to the ship by Mr. Wortham-Biggs in exchange for information that he had been unknowingly selling supplies to the Krag through intermediaries. Max dined on fruit cocktail, shrimp and crab gumbo (alas, the Rashidians did not cultivate oysters which would have been a delightful addition), Cajun potato salad (simply potatoes, eggs, mayonnaise and some mild seasonings, without all the chopped vegetables that usually go into potato salad), fresh French bread, and strawberry pie. Between the Rashidian supplies and having a couple of Cajuns and a few more men of Southern descent in the galley, Max was starting to worry about gaining weight and being assigned mandatory workouts with the Chub Club, crew members found to be overweight and under medical orders for exercise over and above normal requirements. He hadn’t eaten so well since the four months he had attended the Navy’s Covert Operations and Unconventional Warfare School on his home world of Nouvelle Acadiana five years ago. Max ate at the keyboard, reading a series of newly issued intelligence estimates on Krag intentions and capabilities in the Cumberland’s current operational area. According to Intel, the Krag were about to begin a major push in this sector.
Unless, of course, they decided to consolidate their previous conquests and adopt a defensive stance for the time being before initiating a major push sometime in the future.
Unless, of course, this sector had been indefinitely downgraded to a secondary theater in favor of major operations to take place against Task Force Sierra Bravo (Admiral Middleton’s force).
Take your pick.
Intel. Useless. No, that wasn’t true. When you got an Intel guy in the same room with you, you could usually get some decent answers out of him, and if you could get your hands on the intermediate level reports prepared by the Intel officers attached to the task forces, you could learn a lot. But the top level reports out of Norfolk were so full of caveats and weasel words that they meant virtually nothing. If the top Intel brass put as much effort into being right as they did into not saying anything that could later turn out to be wrong, they might get somewhere. If those guys played poker, they would try to raise, call, and fold at the same time.
Older, more tired, but not more wise, Max turned his attention to a series of projections from NAVSUP, more fully known as the Naval Supply Systems Command, estimating the quantities of fuel, foodstuffs, ordinance, replacement parts, and other supplies that would be delivered to Task Force Tango Delta and other forces under Admiral Hornmeyer’s command over the next 45 days. The Pfelung contribution to the war effort was starting to make itself felt. As an Associated Power, the Pfelung brought one major asset to the table in addition to their not inconsiderable Navy: deuterium. Not only were they a major producer, they were a major producer located close to where the fighting was going on, meaning that the fleet now had a signif
icant source of fuel that didn’t have to be hauled almost a thousand light years from the Core Systems or produced in newly-constructed separation plants or portable units. As a result, total tonnage was up by almost 25% as shipping capacity freed up by the Pfelung’s fuel production was used for other transport. NAVSUP estimated that the increase would eventually reach 40%, when production from the Pfelung system’s Europa-like ice moon Pfelung VII C, known locally as Strulp, was fully ramped up. The logistics bean counters hadn’t even begun to put together figures on how much difference Rashid’s contribution was going to make, particularly given that Rashid also had a major deuterium production facility as well as industrial capacity on Rashid V A that came close to matching some of the second or upper third tier of industrial worlds in the Core Systems.
Then there were the Romanovans. Were they even going to be allies? Their enormous potential contributions weren’t even a gleam in NAVSUP’s eyes.
The shipping increase resulting from in-sector fuel production meant fewer ships sitting idly in rear areas waiting for repair and replacement parts to arrive, fewer ships being sent into combat without a complete load out of missiles in their racks, more and better food on the men’s plates, better inventories in the ships’ Spare Equipment Bays, more rapid issuance and installation of improved and upgraded sensors, computers, fire control systems, point defense batteries, and weapons, and a subtle but measurable increase in the fleet’s combat effectiveness and ability to inflict death and destruction upon the enemy.
Good news for everyone. Except the Krag.
As hopeful as this news was in terms of the impact on the war (even so, Max’s rough calculations told him that it was not enough to overcome Krag advantages in production capacity and population, but it did narrow the margin), the reports themselves were deadly dull, even in comparison to other naval reports. Max had several hours’ worth of material through which he had to wade, much of which consisted of tables listing the tonnage of various commodities projected to be made available in the sector month by month. There was no way that his brain was going to assimilate any of that stuff unless he gave it a break.
He decided to go to the Wardroom to see what the Galley had put out for midrats. Max had been serving as a Midshipman on warships for three years before he learned that “midrats” stood for “midnight rations” and not for “Midshipmen eat rats” or something to that effect. Starting at 00:00 and lasting until the culinary staff needed to clear for breakfast, the Galley crew set food out in the Wardroom and the Enlisted Mess. It wasn’t anything fancy, just dinner leftovers, sandwich makings, dinner rolls, sweet rolls, and a rotating variety of donuts, gelatin, fruit, cakes, pies, and cookies, and other simple but sustaining food on a self-serve, all you care to eat basis. There were a lot of things the Navy did that just made good sense and this was one of them. On a warship, there were men doing hard physical work and standing watches around the clock. The very least the Navy could do for these men was to make sure that they didn’t go hungry as they worked through the night and no man had to go to his rack with an empty stomach after a long day’s duty.
In the Wardroom, Max made for himself a salami and pastrami sandwich, and snagged a couple of kosher pickles, a handful of chips, three (or was it four) chocolate brownies, and two tall iced glassfuls of the reconstituted from powder artificially-flavored fruit beverage which, dating back to the days of the Salt Water Navies, has been known as “bug juice.” According to a rumor that Max had never verified, the powder from which bug juice was made also served the galley staff as an abrasive cleanser. Sometimes, Max wanted to know whether the rumor was true. Most of the time, he didn’t. There were things that men, even Captains, simply should not know.
Thus fortified, Max was ready to spend some more time trying to keep up to date in the larger picture of what was happening in the war. He was walking from the Wardroom to his quarters when Midshipman Hewlett overtook and passed him in the corridor, moving as fast as his little legs could carry him without running. Hewlett was the second smallest of the “squeakers,” “deck dodgers, “panel puppies,” or “hatch hangers,” the youngest group of Midshipmen, the boys taken on the ship to be inducted into the satisfactions, the adventure, the dangers, and the hardships of naval service.
As the cream of the Navy’s future, all 1003 millimeters of him, whizzed past, Max noticed that the young man had around his waist a web belt, the kind made for holding hand grenades, and that in the web belt were sixteen or seventeen ping pong balls painted in an altogether festive but distinctly non-naval array of pastels that looked as though they would be more at home at a bridal shower than on a Destroyer in a war zone. Max chuckled to himself. He hadn’t seen an Easter Egg Hunt in years.
Mr. Hewlett’s miniature legs could carry him only so fast, so Max didn’t have to exert much effort to fall in behind the diminutive hatch hanger who, according to the time-sanctified Rules of the Easter Egg Hunt, was prohibited from running. The Midshipman rounded a corner, and opened a hatch that admitted him to a room full of equipment storage lockers. Max peeked in the door and saw Hewlett pull a padcomp out of his web belt, consult it hurriedly, and then go straight to the fifth locker on the aft wall, deftly operate the latch, reach inside, and pull out another ping pong ball. This ball was a color that Max recognized as being called “seafoam,” a word which he knew only by virtue of having seen, on what was still called “movie night” although the last conventional motion picture was filmed in 2023, a tridvid comedy about the mayhem, hijinks, and hilarity that ensued when identical twin brides married identical twin husbands and insisted that all the bridesmaids and groomsmen also be twins. Max remembered not getting most of the jokes.
Hewlett stuck the ball in his web belt with the others, closed the locker, and engaged the latches. Max quickly ducked out of sight into an access crawlway alcove until the boy had emerged and was going down the corridor again. If this hunt held to form, the next “egg” would be on another deck, in an entirely different part of the ship. Max knew that the boy was nearly done with the hunt because it looked as though his web belt held close to eighteen of the ping pong balls. Easter Egg Hunts always contained eighteen “eggs.” Always. Never seventeen. Too easy. Never nineteen. Too hard. Eighteen was just right.
Max had no desire to chase after the Midshipman to whatever far corner of the Cumberland held the final ping pong ball or two, particularly since the path to the last “egg” usually involved crawling through an air handling shaft, worming through one of the more circuitous of the cable conduits, or traversing a narrow catwalk over a crackling, snapping, fully-charged polaron differentiation grid. Instead, Max headed for where Easter Egg Hunts always end, the Junior Midshipmen’s Lounge.
Because Junior Midshipmen are subject to being given orders by almost everyone else on the ship, not to mention being the objects of a fair amount of good-natured teasing, mostly from the Senior Midshipmen, they were provided with a sanctuary from all that. The Junior Midshipman’s Lounge was off limits to all personnel except the Midshipmen’s Trainer, a few of the ship’s most senior officers (who, by tradition, entered rarely and only for a specific purpose), and the Junior Midshipmen themselves. Max keyed in his entry code, palmed the lock, and stepped through the hatch. As always, one Middie was posted just inside the door against just this contingency. When the boy saw that the man coming through the hatch was the Captain, his eyes went wide. But, to his credit, he did not freeze at all but performed his function without any appreciable delay. He sprang from a sitting position to ruler-straight attention so abruptly that Max swore he could hear joints cracking and barked out “Captain on deck” with as much authority as he could muster, doing a creditable job notwithstanding the pitch of his voice falling in the frequency range depicted by the treble rather than the bass clef. The other five deck dodgers all snapped to attention. Chief Petty Officer Tanaka, the Midshipmen’s Trainer who stepped into the position upon the death of the beloved “Mother Goose,” Chief Amborsky, gaz
ed pointedly at a line formed by the joinder of two deck plates, resulting in the boys’ quickly shuffling a few centimeters forward or back until the toes of their boots exactly met the line. He then walked down the line, directing the boys silently with his eyes, subtle gestures, and an occasional touch to nudge a shoulder a bit further back or a chin a bit higher.
When his charges had come to attention in a manner that met his truly exacting standards, Tanaka turned with precision that could be bested only by a mechanical device, snapped out a perfect drill manual salute, and announced, “Captain, Chief Petty Officer Tanaka reporting five squeakers, cords cut but still damp, plus one in the Casualty Station and one on an Easter Egg Hunt, sir.”
Max returned the salute. “Very well. Chief, I saw Mr. Hewlett retrieving one of your eggs from the Firefighting Equipment Lockers. I believe you will be seeing him very shortly. With your permission, I would like to stay for the Basket Lesson.” By custom, this was the Chief’s turf and the training of the Mids his responsibility. Even as august a person as the Captain entered, watched, or participated only at the Midshipmen’s Trainer’s invitation. Tanaka nodded his acceptance. “Thank you. Carry on, Chief.”
“Thank you, sir.” He turned to his charges. “Midshipmen, as you were.” The boys returned to the seats they had occupied before Max came in. The compartment was small, but comfortable, with a few couches, tables that could serve equally well as dining, studying, or game tables surrounded by chairs, plus a few lounge-type chairs, a tridvid unit, and—glaring down at the proceedings as they did in every Junior Midshipmen’s Lounge in every ship in the fleet—two icons of military virtue, presented to the boys as models worthy of emulation: Patton and Litvinoff.
As he always did when entering the Lounge, Max took a moment to examine the images. General George Smith Patton, Jr., old “Blood and Guts,” was shown in a photograph taken circa 1943 when he was a Lieutenant General commanding the United States Army’s Second Corps fighting Rommel’s forces in North Africa. Patton was in a field uniform, wearing a three-starred helmet with binoculars hanging from his neck, standing outside what looked to be a North African village, using his riding crop to indicate something in the distance to the men standing around him, his eyes and his mind clearly focused on that far-away objective and how to take or destroy it. From the set of his mouth, he was clearly saying something, perhaps giving an order, his words now lost to history. Here was Patton in his element—in the field with his troops, radiating confidence and authority, caught in the act of leading his men. It occurred to Max that, if Old Blood and Guts had been given an opportunity to select which of the thousands of photographs taken of him in World War II would be hanging on this wall in this time in this place, he might well have picked that very picture.
For Honor We Stand Page 22
