"I remember you telling me about that. I'm not under the CNO, so I didn't get one, but I remember that you did," Bill said.
"He said that ninety-five percent of them named me as one of their three, and twenty percent named only me. One name."
"Wow."
"And then the DM walked around Sigurdsen and stopped non-coms at random and asked them. And every one of them named me. No one else, from anyone. Just me," Jan said.
"That I find less surprising. So what do you think?"
"I asked you first."
"Well, there wouldn't be any more stupid orders from the NOC. Not unless you signed off on them," Bill said.
"I was thinking more about how I pull it off. With Peggy. With maybe having another child. With you. Lots going on."
"Yeah, but CNO is a policy and personnel job. You need to set policy, set long-term direction. You need to make sure the right people are in the right positions, that they have the right resources.
"But it's not a hurly-burly job unless you want it to be, Hon. You delegate almost everything. If you need to know something, you delegate someone to find out. If you need something done, you delegate someone to do it.
"The most important part of the job is making the right decisions. And you only get the hard ones, as the easy decisions get made lower down the organization. It's the tough ones that float to the top.
"Still, I think it can be an eight to five job if you want it to be. There's a lot of staff for the house and the kids. You have a car and driver. You can have people come up to The Hill if you can't go into the office for some reason. Send the car around to pick them up.
"With all that, on the personal side, it's probably easier, even with kids. Even with pregnancy, for that matter."
"What about you?" Jan asked.
"I'm good. Personally? Well, it's a nice house. Peggy will have great in-home daycare. You'll have a lot of help with everything. I don't see a downside. Professionally? I think it's great. Operations needs someone who knows what they're doing over there. And you've always been good working with Intelligence and the other research divisions.
"Mostly, I think it's tremendous for the Navy. Smart move."
Jan stopped into the CNO's office after another day of letting her decision settle in. She was shown into Leahy's office. They shook hands, sat down. Jan took a deep breath, let it out.
"I'll take the position."
"Excellent. Let me tell you how it works from this point."
Two days later, the Defense Minister made his announcement. It was during the lunch hour, and it was carried on the big displays in the mess rooms on Sigurdsen.
When he announced that Admiral Thomas Leahy was retiring, again, as Chief of Naval Operations, the tension ratcheted up in all the mess rooms. The typical noisy bustle of the messes dissipated into absolute silence. When he announced that Admiral Jan Childers had been named the new Chief of Naval Operations, everyone in the officer's messes stood and applauded. In the enlisted messes, they cheered wildly.
The Commonwealth Space Force, across its length and breadth, breathed a sigh of relief.
The Problem With Earth
The first two weeks after Jan was named CNO were a tremendous bustle of activity. Leahy introduced her around to staff, most importantly the chief of staff, Rear Admiral Megan Ming. She and Jan hit it off right away, and she was a lot of help in getting settled in.
Jan met with two of her division heads every day, just to say hello and ask what issues they were most concerned about with respect to their own responsibilities. It took the whole first week to get through them all.
And there was paperwork. Lots of paperwork. Jan had people to write most of it, but she read a lot, and signed off on lots of items big and small. Some she thought were incomplete or ill-formed, and she sent them back. Most reappeared later, much improved.
There was also the move. Leahy had not moved completely into the house on The Hill, knowing, and hoping, that he was CNO once again on only a temporary basis. Jan and Bill, meanwhile, had never really set up permanent housekeeping in the way a vice admiral normally would. Bill had been a rear admiral, and Jan on administrative leave and then maternity leave on their return from two years on Kodu. Until recently, their status had been in flux, and they had not wanted to make more permanent arrangements with everything up in the air. They had been content to have help in, and have most meals delivered in to Flag Row from the officers mess down the road.
Moving into the house on The Hill was something of a shock.
The house had a major domo who ran the house and directed all the staff. The staff included the major domo, two butlers, two maids, four day staff and one night staff for the kitchen, a gardener, a driver, and personal assistants for both Jan and Bill. All of them were senior non-coms in the CSF. When they moved in, the major domo also brought on four child-care professionals, so there was twenty-four-hour assistance with Peggy. They were also senior non-coms. All the staff had high-level security clearances.
The house itself was a Class 3 secure facility.
Going from some part-time help to a full-time staff of eighteen took some getting used to. Jan asked the major domo about it.
"George, do we really need eighteen people to run this house?"
"Ma'am, anything we can do for you gives you that much more time to do your job. And most of us cut our teeth below decks, Ma'am. We couldn't be happier that you are the CNO, or to help you any way we can."
In addition to the household staff, there was also around-the-clock security on The Hill. They were unobtrusive, and did not report through the major domo. But they were always there, and Jan and Bill both carried a radio call button as a security alarm. So did the major domo, and there was a call button in the kitchen and the upstairs hallway as well.
Jan started a tradition in her first week as CNO. One day every week, usually Wednesday, she would change into a plain unmarked shipsuit and walk to one of the four large enlisted mess rooms on Sigurdsen for lunch. She would sit at a table by herself and eat her lunch, the same lunch they had. She let it be known through the grapevine that she was approachable by anyone who needed or wanted to talk to her.
The first two weeks, no one approached her. But gradually, in ones or twos, people would come and sit at her table with her. Sometimes they brought her problems that affected them personally, sometimes concerns about something they thought should be addressed. Sometimes she would wave at a small group at random as they came off the cafeteria line and ask them to sit with her. She asked them how things were going, and heard all the scuttlebutt running around.
And in their own mess, in her plain shipsuit, she told them to call her Jan.
It drove her security detail absolutely nuts that she waved them off at the door of the mess rooms. They waited outside, nervous as a pregnant cat. She spoke to the commander who headed her detail.
"Commander, no one is going to hurt me in one of those mess rooms. If they tried, the spacers would tear them limb from limb. I'm more vulnerable in the NOC. And besides, I'm not particularly a soft target."
She invited him to observe one of her twice weekly mid-morning sparring matches with Bill at the gym. They were both in their mid-thirties and had not slowed down. After watching the two of them go at it for half an hour, he dropped his objections.
In her third week on the job, Jan called the CNR, Kurt Wisniewski.
"Wisniewski."
"Kurt, Jan Childers."
"Hi, Jan. What can I do for you?"
"I want to meet with Admiral Durand, and he's your report. I don't want to step on your toes."
"No problem, Jan. Thanks for the consideration, but you can meet with Admiral Durand any time you'd like. No need for a heads up to me. Intelligence and operations need to work closely together."
"Thanks, Kurt."
"Don't mention it."
Jan met Durand in one of the Class 1 secure conference rooms in the basement of the Intelligence Building, at her req
uest. Bill, as his chief of staff, was also there.
"Admiral Childers. We meet again."
"Admiral Durand."
"And I believe you know my chief of staff."
"Indeed. Let's switch to first names. Call me Jan."
"I'm Jake."
Once they were all seated, Jan got right to the point.
"Jake, what is the military threat to the Commonwealth that you worry most about?"
"Earth."
"Earth?"
"No question. Interesting, though. That's the first time a CNO has asked Intelligence that question, oh, for as long as I've been in the leadership group, anyway."
"Really?" Jan asked.
"Really. We write intelligence assessments on threats, and hopefully someone reads them, but this is the first time a CNO has sat down and asked me that question."
"Huh. I would have thought it was an obvious question to ask. 'Hey, I got all these guns. Who am I going to be shooting at?'"
"Indeed. First time, though," Durand said.
"OK. So why Earth?"
"We can divide threats to the Commonwealth into three categories. First is internal. But people in the Commonwealth are well informed about what things are like in other places – pretty abysmal, on the whole – and they are, for the most part, content.
"Second is the Outer Colonies. There isn't any single outer colony that poses a serious threat to us, even to a single Commonwealth system. There hasn't been one for the last several years, since the Fleet Book of Maneuvers finished rolling out. Now there could be a time when the Outer Colonies, or some subset of them, unite against us. Collectively, they have more warships than we do, though weighted toward smaller classes. If they also implement our Fleet Book of Maneuvers and our ability to navigate in the inner and outer system envelopes, they would be a serious threat.
"As far as the Fleet Book of Maneuvers and our hyperspace navigation capabilities are concerned, we believe that some subset of the Outer Colonies have possession of those things already, through the foreign agents we rounded up over the last year. As to the Outer Colonies or some subset of them uniting, it's something we watch for. High-level delegations, joint military maneuvers, that sort of thing. We haven't seen anything of concern yet, but we expect it at some point. It's a logical step, just as the Commonwealth planets uniting against Earth was a logical step."
"OK. I get all that. And Earth?"
"Yes. Third is Earth. Earth already has a large, unified fighting force in the Earth Space Navy. Militarily, they are a credible threat. As far as their leadership, it is a self-sustaining, closed clique of very wealthy individuals that we have never been able to penetrate. The problem with a system like that is that they could make a decision among themselves to do something, like attack the Commonwealth, and we would have no way of seeing it coming in advance.
"As for why, Earth has some grievances with the Commonwealth, some legitimate and some not. We have been bleeding them of their brightest and boldest individuals for years, both through the Citizenship Exam and our immigration policy. It's worked well for us, and you are a shining example. I would much rather have you in command of our fleets than in command of theirs."
"Thank you."
Durand waved a hand and continued.
"There are other grievances less legitimate. We are outpacing them in commerce. Most of our people actually work for a living, and our population is outgrowing theirs. This makes us a target for plutocrats. Also, they do not acknowledge our independence, which gives them a legal leg to stand on if they were to, say, re-impose political control over the Commonwealth worlds. Not that there is a higher legal authority to appeal to, but they could make a serious PR case for it at home, for example."
"So. Earth."
"Yes. Absolutely. And I don't know to what extent your command has prepared for that, Jan. I have no visibility into that."
"One more thing. How likely do you think it is that Earth will attack us in the next, oh, ten or twenty years?" Jan asked.
"Hard to say. We would expect that a separation like the Commonwealth declaring its independence would trigger a second war within a hundred years to set the matter to rest once and for all. It's been longer than that, but we still consider it better than a one-in-four probability, mostly because we don't have the kind of freindly relations with Earth that would make it less likely. Relations with Earth have continued to be pretty frosty."
"Understood. All right. On to another topic. Maybe ten years ago, I was a member of a card club that met here in the basement. You and I and Admiral Birken talked about it a couple years later."
"I recall."
"Jake, I need to know if they are ever going to hold the championship game we were talking about, and on what timeframe."
"What sort of timeframe are you worrying about?"
"Three years?"
"No. Certainly not."
"Six years?"
"A preliminary tournamet, I think. Almost certainly. You know, a limited number of participants."
"I understand. Nine years?"
"Absolutely. That would be the grand championship. All the participants will be involved in that one."
"Excellent. Thank you, gentlemen. This has been most helpful. We should meet periodically."
"It would be our pleasure, Jan."
"You asked me to find our strategic plan for a war with Earth, Ma'am," Ming said.
"Yes, Megan. What did you find?" Jan asked.
"Nothing, Ma'am."
"You didn't find the plans?"
"No, I found that there are no plans."
"No plans for a war with Earth."
"No, Ma'am."
Jan turned and stared out the window for a long minute.
"Can you find out what Tien Jessen is up to? He's probably a senior captain."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Ming left, and Jan thought, No plans for war with Earth. Well, if they show up in strength, what are we supposed to do? Just surrender? Or flail at them while going down with the ship? Amazing.
Tien Jessen had commanded the second division of her heavy cruiser squadron the second year on Kodu, and had been a student earlier on the Grand Tour. His ship had survived the Battle of Kodu, and been put back into service. He was extremely quick, and a natural tactician. He wasn't currently on her NOC staff.
Ming came back in.
"Captain Jessen just rotated back from deployment, Ma'am, and is pending assignment."
"Could you ask him to come see me, please?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Did you see how long he has been a senior captain, Megan?"
"Four years, Ma'am."
"One more thing. Do we have any open areas in the Class 1 secure basements in the NOC?"
"Yes, Ma'am. The Intelligence Division headquarters and the NOC were built at the same time. They have similar facilities in their basements. I believe some of that space is open currently."
"Find me a Class 1 secure space for about twenty people in the basements, would you, please?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Ma'am. Senior Captain Tien Jessen."
"Captain. Good to see you again."
"Good to see you, Ma'am."
"Megan, can you show us that space in the basement?"
Ming led them down into the basements, and to a conference room that was part of a large separate space segmented off from the rest of the basement.
"Perfect. Thanks, Megan. We'll find our own way back upstairs."
Ming left. Jan made sure the door was secured and then waved Jessen to a seat. She sat across from him.
"I asked Intelligence Division what the biggest military threat to the Commonwealth is, and what do you think they said?" Jan asked.
"Earth."
"Got it in one."
Jessen shrugged.
"Tien, I've just been reviewing our plans for a war with Earth, were they to attack us."
"Interesting. What are the plans?" Jessen asked.
"Nothin
g. There aren't any."
"That's more than a little terrifying."
"Exactly. I need you to fix that for me," Jan said.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to gather a staff, and run a black project down here to come up with a set of plans for fighting and winning a war with Earth. I want it black, because I think we still have agents from Earth on Sigurdsen, perhaps in the NOC. They didn't find any Earth agents in their last roundup, and I don't think it's credible that they don't have anyone here."
"I don't, either," Jessen said.
"So if they didn't find him or them, then they're still here. And I don't want them to know we're preparing or they might speed up any plans they have."
"Agreed."
"I'm going to promote you to rear admiral for this project. It's a little early, but not much. You have complete autonomy, reporting only to me. Recruit who you need. But there's no project name, because you don't exist. Got it?" Jan asked.
"Got it."
"I'll help out. Come down and plan with you and your staff. But I have a big hint for you."
"Yes?" Jessen asked.
"Ninety percent of the Earth population is addicted to VR. Does that give you any ideas?"
"It sure does."
"OK, prepare some staff requests, and give them to me. Get them to set you up down here. Use Admiral Ming to get you what you need. No work outside of these rooms," Jan said.
"All right, Ma'am. I'm on it."
"Thanks, Tien. And congratulations, Admiral."
At her next meeting with Admiral Durand and Bill in the basement of Intelligence Division, Jan had a request.
"I have a black intelligence request for you, Jake."
"Go ahead."
"I need a network map of the VR network on Earth. Network nodes, connectivity, equipment in place. That sort of thing. Can you do that?" Jan asked.
"I think so. Timeframe?"
"Eighteen months."
"Budget?" Durand asked.
"Open. Whatever it takes. Bill it against the NOC budget. But bundle it in somewhere so it's not a separate line item."
Childers Page 27
