For Honor We Stand (Man of War Book 2)

by H. Paul Honsinger

  “I think you’ve hit the cartridge on the primer with that one, Doctor. I sent a signal to the admiral as soon as I got back from the meeting. You know how he is about things like that. We’re likely to get an answer—a very clear, specific, and emphatic one—in about a tenth the time it would take anyone else to make up his mind.” He smiled as a thought occurred to him. “You know, I’ve never seen anyone so decisive. I think the man was born with all the decisions he is ever going to have to make already loaded into his brain. They’re all sitting in there, just waiting for the right occasion to arise so he can announce them.”

  Max enjoyed the general laughter the remark triggered. He could not begin to understand how a man without a sense of humor could ever successfully command a warship.

  He let everyone settle down a bit, take a few more sips of their coffee, take a few bites of the truly outstanding cinnamon coffee cake that the galley had prepared for the captain’s table, and restore themselves a bit. It was not even mid-morning, but it had already been a long day, a day that included a desperate life-or-death fleet engagement before breakfast.

  “You should be aware, Doctor, that I had a very interesting discussion with the Romanovan admiral right after I persuaded the King to give us repair priority in the same shipyard that maintains the royal yacht, which, it seems, is actually a bit larger than the Cumberland.”

  “Indeed? And what might that have to do with me?”

  “Once we had finished the substantive meetings, we had what you would call a social gathering on the Romanovan flagship, to start building some bridges—you know how that works. We sat around very amiably drinking their version of espresso. Poo yai, let me tell you, that stuff will put stains on your teeth and grow hair on your chest—sort of like coffee with an antimatter chaser. No wonder they serve it in such tiny cups.

  “Anyway, Admiral Catalus mentioned to me that he’d heard a rumor that a Union warship officer was impersonating a Romanovan cutter captain for the purpose of boarding purportedly neutral freighters to verify their neutral status and search for contraband.”

  The doctor had, on two previous occasions, done that very thing, down to wearing the comically ornate uniform associated with that post and speaking the slightly mutated Latin, the language of the Romanovan Imperium. Sahin blanched.

  “Don’t worry, Doctor, I told him that it was my pleasure to deny the rumor categorically. I told him, ‘I can assure you, Admiral, on my honor, that neither I nor, to my knowledge, any command officer of any Union warship has ever impersonated the commander of any Romanovan vessel.’ ”

  In response to the accusatory look Sahin gave him, a look that practically screamed “liar,” Max pointed to the silver star, embossed with the Rod of Asclepius, on the left breast of Sahin’s uniform.

  “Doctor, the star you bear is silver, not gold. Meaning, my friend, you are assigned to one of the Navy’s noncombat branches and are not now and never will be a command officer, irrespective of your rank. My statement to the admiral was perfectly true.”

  The doctor shook his head. “Literally true, I suppose, but practically misleading. You deliberately led him to a conclusion about the facts that you knew to be untrue. Irrespective of whether a literal parsing of the words does not result in a precise semantic falsehood, it is a dirty lawyer’s trick.”

  Sahin expected Max to take offense at the accusation and to reply sharply. He did not. Instead, he shrugged.

  “And a perfectly acceptable expedient according to the centuries-old customs of my profession,” Max said. “It was up to the admiral to pay careful attention to my exact words. Even if we are all fighting the Krag, he is still a foreign officer, and we were talking about the tactics employed in a classified military operation. Tactics that, by the way, I might want to use again sometime.

  “Custom, which in this case is as binding as any law, holds that as an officer and a gentleman, I had a duty to refrain from telling him a literal falsehood unless required to do so by a direct order or other military necessity. Otherwise, I’m under no duty not to mislead him unless we are on the same side and I am providing him with information material to an upcoming military operation in which lives will be at stake.

  “Like it or not, Doctor, lying is a part of warfare: lies to your enemy, lies to your allies, lies to your subordinates, lies to the people back on their homeworlds. You can’t fight a war without telling lies, my friend, and telling them by the bushel basket at that. Falsehood is as much a part of war as is killing the enemy. Anyway, my statement had the desired effect. Admiral Catalus was mollified, and goodwill was maintained between allies.”

  Max’s reference to the Romanovans as “allies” failed virtually every test of linguistic precision. Although there were four powers at war with the Krag—the Union, Rashid, Romanova, and Pfelung—the precise legal relationship of those four powers was anything but simple. As a result of a Krag attack that, but for the Cumberland, would have had genocidal results, the Pfelung had entered the war months ago as an Associated Power of the Union. Rashid had also just entered the war as an Associated Power with the Union. Rashid’s entry and the resulting Krag attack, under the terms of its long-standing mutual defense treaty with the Rashidians, had brought the Romanovan Imperium into the conflict as “an equal and coordinate ally, partner, and cobelligerent” of the Rashidians. Meanwhile, there was no formal military relationship between the Union and Romanova, and virtual no relationship of any kind—even diplomatic relations—between Pfelung and the Rashidians or the Romanovans.

  Obviously, if these four independent and, in some cases, scarcely acquainted, powers were going to conduct coordinated military operations against the Krag, something would have to happen to get them all singing out of the same hymnal. And it would have to happen soon or the Krag would take advantage of the absence of coordination. If they didn’t hang together, the Krag would be sure to hang them separately.

  The comm buzzed. “Chin here. Signal from Admiral Hornmeyer, sir. It’s in your box.” Max opened it from his workstation. True to form, Admiral Hornmeyer provided responses to both issues—whether the Cumberland would participate in the raid on the Krag and the joint command problem—in a single communiqué.

  Max got up from the meeting/dining table at which everyone was seated and stepped over to his workstation. As the message was not coded EYES ONLY, Max keyed it for wall display so that everyone in the room could read it. Not only did all of these officers have Top Secret or higher clearance, but he’d need their active help to implement the orders. They might as well see them now.

  09:13Z 20 March 2315

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT: FOR IMMEDIATE IMPLEMENTATION

  FROM: HORNMEYER, L.G. VADM USN CDR TF TD

  TO: ROBICHAUX MAXIME T., LCDR USN

  1. YOUR REQUEST TO PARTICIPATE IN JOINT OPERATION WITH RASHID AND ROMANOVA IS DENIED. CUMBERLAND IS NEEDED FOR OTHER DUTIES.

  2. IN RESPONSE TO THIS COMMAND’S URGENT REQUEST FOR A SENIOR NEGOTIATOR TO BE DISPATCHED TO THIS THEATER, BE ADVISED THAT CMRE JOSEPH A. DOLAND IS EN ROUTE TO RASHID TO REPRESENT UNION IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH RASHID, ROMANOVA, AND PFELUNG RE MULTILATERAL THEATER FORCES OPERATIONS ACCORD. AS PER ORDERS OF COMTRANROUT IN NORFOLK CMRE DOLAND IS BEING TRANSPORTED BY USS WILLIAM GORGAS, FLE 0476, CMDR GERARD DUFLOT COMMANDING.

  3. AFTER COMPLETING NECESSARY REPAIRS AT RASHID, USS CUMBERLAND, DPA 0004, UNDER YOUR COMMAND, IS ORDERED TO PROCEED AT BEST PRUDENT SPEED TO COORDINATES 1198753.5116254.0085324, THERE TO RENDEZVOUS WITH FRIGATE-DESTROYER GROUP TD-2008 NOW CONSISTING OF WILLIAM GORGAS AND USS BROADSWORD, DGG 0585. GROUP IS UNDER DUFLOT’S COMMAND. CUMBERLAND IS HEREBY ATTACHED TO FRIGDESGRU TD-2008 FOR DURATION OF PASSAGE TO RASHID OR UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS.

  4. DEUTERIUM TANKER/REPAIR TENDER USS PATTILLO HIGGINS, TXA 1912, WILL BE AVAILABLE AT RENDEZVOUS POINT TO REFUEL YOUR VESSEL. ACCORDINGLY, CONSERVATION OF FUEL EN ROUTE TO RENDEZVOUS NOT A FACTOR. />
  5. N2 EXPECTS KRAG ATTACK ON THIS FRIGDESGRU IN ATTEMPT TO PREVENT DOLAND FROM REACHING DESTINATION. DELIVERY OF ENVOY TO DESTINATION IS VITAL TO CONDUCT OF THE WAR AND IS TO BE GIVEN HIGHEST POSSIBLE PRIORITY. ADDITION OF YOUR VESSEL TO THIS GROUP NECESSARY TO INCREASE STRENGTH OF ESCORT TO MEET PROBABLE ATTACK. YOUR ORDERS AND THOSE OF CMDR DUFLOT ARE THAT IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION YOUR VESSEL AND ITS COMPLEMENT ARE TO BE CONSIDERED EXPENDABLE.

  6. AS YOU WILL SEE FROM REVIEW OF HIS BIOSUM, CMDR DUFLOT IS NOT FAMILIAR WITH CONDITIONS THIS AREA. I EXPECT YOU TO PROVIDE THIS EXPERTISE WITHOUT CHALLENGING HIS AUTHORITY. IT IS CALLED BEING DIPLOMATIC, ROBICHAUX—A HANDY SKILL THAT IT IS ABOUT TIME YOU LEARN.

  7. GO TO THE RENDEZVOUS. GO DIRECTLY TO THE RENDEZVOUS. DO NOT PASS ‘GO’ AND DO NOT DETOUR FOR ANY OF YOUR ‘ADVENTURES.’

  “These orders came from the admiral himself,” said DeCosta with awe. To him, Admiral Hornmeyer was more like a deity from Mount Olympus than a human being. “There’s no way some staff drone wrote that.”

  “It is so reassuring to know that the admiral takes a personal interest in us,” Brown said with no more than the usual healthy helping of sarcasm.

  “Well, men, we might as well look at that homework the admiral just assigned to us,” Max said resignedly.

  “Homework?” The doctor looked perplexed.

  “Sure, Doctor, homework,” said DeCosta. “One thing everyone knows about old Hit ’em Hard is that he never wastes a single word in a signal. Ever. Every word means something. If you think that something is just thrown in as filler or to sound good, you’re not reading it right. Here, if the admiral wanted only for us to know that this Duflot guy wasn’t familiar with conditions in the area, he would have just said so and not a word more.”

  “But that’s just what he did.”

  “No, it’s not,” said the XO. “He led in by saying, ‘As you will see from review of his Biosum.’ With most admirals, that might just be an offhand remark meaning that you can confirm his lack of relevant experience by looking him up.”

  “But with Vice Admiral Louis G. Hornmeyer,” Max continued, “it’s a subtle but direct order that we do so because there is something in there that he wants us to see. And we are to do it with celerity.” Everyone smiled at the reference to the word that Hornmeyer had used when giving his first standing orders upon taking command of the task force back in January, a word that had become a favorite among the officers and crew that served under him.

  Max worked his way through some menus on his workstation to get to the right section of the database. Because no one else in the room was officially cleared for this information, Max called it up on the workstation display instead of on the wall.

  “Okay, here we go.” Just because they weren’t cleared for it didn’t mean he couldn’t share with them what he thought pertinent, right? “Duflot, Gerard Michel, Commander, USN. Assignment: Commanding Officer, USS William Gorgas, registry number blah, blah, blah. Usual time as midshipman and greenie, standard list of assignments as an ensign and junior officer. Basic Qualifications in Combat Logistics, Space Warfare, and Escort Vessel Command.” Long pause. “Only…just those three. Date of posting: 5 October 2309.” Dr. Sahin immediately felt a heavy cloak of dismay settle over the compartment.

  “Why this sudden gloom? Is 2309 a famously bad year for commanders in much the same way that 2303 was for wine on Terroir?”

  Max laughed, “No, Doctor. It’s not the vintage. It’s that no one wants to drink the wine. You see, Duflot has been commanding the same frigate for six years. That’s a bad sign. Think about it. The Navy has suffered millions of casualties. Thousands of officers are killed every year, sometimes every month. And we have thirty shipyards devoted 100 percent to building warships and another forty or so that have at least some warship production. They’re churning out ships by the hundreds every year. The demand for manpower is always critical, and competent skippers often go up the chain of command like rockets.

  Charles Middleton went from being a lieutenant commander skippering a broken-down old Picket destroyer to a rear admiral commanding one of the two primary attack groups at the Battle of Mullinex V in just six years. Until they get to the top of the ladder where there isn’t much elsewhere to go, officers with ability don’t stay in the same command doing the same thing for more than two or two and a half years at most. If they prove themselves at one level of responsibility, they are left there only long enough to get some seasoning and experience, produce results for a little while, and then are moved up to a higher rank, a posting of greater responsibility, or, more likely, both.

  “If I am still commanding the Cumberland three years from now, it means that someone has made a decision that I am not worthy of promotion, and more than that, it probably means I’m not very good at the job I’ve got. It’s one of the most reliable principles in the whole Navy.

  “It gets worse. Apparently almost that whole time, this Duflot character has been on convoy duty, part of the escort package attached to those huge convoys that move supplies, personnel, and new ships up to Admiral Middleton’s primary staging area from the Core Systems. You know, those eighty and ninety ship monstrosities commanded by a rear admiral that take three months each way because of how long it takes to run all those ships through each jump?

  “Years ago, those convoys always got pounced on by Krag destroyers that would slip through the sensor nets along the frontier—they managed the range with huge drop tanks. But eventually, they got enough escort protection on those convoys that it’s become impossible for the Krag to hurt them. There hasn’t been a serious run at any of those convoys for four years now. So, not only is Duflot not in the promotion pool, but neither he nor his crew have seen any combat in years.

  “On top of that, he doesn’t have a qualification badge in weapons, sensors, tactics, or in multivessel command. I have all those qualifications—all the ones he has, and three others besides—and he is my senior. Either he doesn’t have the ambition to seek those credentials, or he has sought them and been denied because the brass think the training would be wasted on him.

  “He lacks the practical experience too. I don’t see anything in the summary that indicates that he has ever commanded a multiship force before, so he has no practice giving orders to other captains. None of that fills me with a rosy glow of confidence. Of course, you never know. He might be one of those guys who is completely squared away but just doesn’t get along with one of those convoy admirals or someone in Norfolk and is getting held back unfairly. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen before. It doesn’t happen that much any more, though—the human race doesn’t have the luxury of failing to make the best possible use of good officer material just because someone has a personality conflict.”

  “But Skipper, on the Hidalgo I worked with some guys in Tactical who came out of frigates and destroyers on convoy duty, and they seemed like they were on the way up,” the XO said.

  “They probably were,” replied Max. “But you need to remember, XO, all of these men were promoted out of escort duty and in to duty on a capital ship to get some departmental experience in a big, well-worked-up back room, so they could learn how things are done by a really proficient team. And once they have that, then they get moved up to someplace where they can get some command training. Someplace like…oh, I don’t know…a berth as XO of a destroyer.”

  DeCosta smiled and nodded his understanding.

  “But Duflot isn’t someone who has just come out of a frigate on escort duty. He’s still there, right where he has been for six years. He may surprise me, and I’m going to keep an open mind about him, but this isn’t giving me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Let’s just hope being stuck in a dead end hasn’t made this guy bitter or cynical or lazy.”

  “Although that might be a normal psychological reaction to those kinds of circumstances,” the doctor said in that airy tone of voice that he tended to use when he
was even more disconnected from reality than usual, “I would think that a naval officer would understand the military necessity of these kinds of decisions and understand his duty to acquiesce to them cheerfully and without negativity for the greater good not just of the service but also for the very survival of mankind.”

  Most of the men in the room tried to suppress snickers at the doctor’s comment, but Kraft burst into raucous laughter, a hearty effusion of mirth that filled the room. Soon everyone in the room, except for Sahin, was laughing uncontrollably. Initially, Bram scowled with irritation but, after a few seconds, began to smile, recognizing how naïve his statement was. The captain was the first to be able to speak.

  “Doctor, if you’re surprised that there are men in the Navy who can’t rein in their egos merely because something as trivial as the survival of the human race is at stake, then I am afraid you have a great many rude, hard lessons to learn about life in the fleet.”

  “I do suspect that I have many such lessons in my future, Captain.” He lifted his coffee mug in salute. “But I cannot imagine a better set of men in whose company to learn them.”

  The other men raised their mugs to return the gesture.

  DeCosta, however, had not taken his eyes off of Admiral Hornmeyer’s orders. “Skipper?” DeCosta said tentatively after a few minutes.

  “Yes, XO.”

  “You know how Hornmeyer’s orders never have any wasted words?”