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Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2

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Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by runsforcelery   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 11:07 am

runsforcelery
First Space Lord

Posts: 2425
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:39 am
Location: South Carolina

SLNS Québec
Dzung System
Solarian League


“Well, Sir, all I can say is that it’s about frigging time,” Captain Gabriella Timberlake growled, standing at Admiral Vincent Capriotti’s shoulder as they gazed at the latest dispatch on Capriotti’s display. The fact that the Dzung System was just under seventy light-years from Sol meant Task Force 783 had gotten the new general order sooner than most of the rest of the Solarian League Navy, and Capriotti wondered how the Navy’s other flag officers were going to react to them.

For that matter, he wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about them.

“I can’t say I disagree, Gabby,” he said finally. “On the other hand, if the stories about what happened to Eleventh Fleet and Admiral Crandall are anything to go by, this could get . . . interesting.”

“One way to put it, Sir,” Timberlake agreed. “On the other hand, I think I like the thinking behind this. The bastards can’t have those killer missile pods and their damned superdreadnoughts everywhere!”

“They don’t need to have them ‘everywhere’ to ruin our whole day,” Capriotti pointed out dryly. “They only have to have them wherever we turn up.”

“I know, Sir.” The admiral’s flag captain shrugged. “Sooner or later, though, we’ve got to take it to them. And given what they did to Admiral Filareta, it looks like fleet engagements are going to be a really bad idea until our tech people can figure out how to match their damned missiles.”

Capriotti nodded soberly. The Solarian League did need to “take it to” the Manties after the series of massive black eyes the Star Empire and its allies had handed the SLN. Despite any misgivings he might feel, he agreed with the captain about that. He just wished to hell he was more confident those in charge of the taking in question had at least a vague notion of what they were doing.

He wasn’t prepared to wholeheartedly accept the Solarian news reports’ version of what had happened to Massimo Filareta. According to the Manties, Eleventh Fleet had opened fire after being summoned to surrender. According to the “usually reliable sources” talking to the newsies “speaking off the record” because they weren’t “authorized to disclose classified information,” Filareta had accepted their surrender terms, then been blown out of space in an act of cold-blooded mass murder. And according to any official ONI analyses, no one in Old Chicago could find his arse with both hands and approach radar well enough to give one Vincent Capriotti a single damned clue which of those diametrically opposed analyses the Navy shared.

Not a good sign, he thought again. Of course, Intelligence has been caught with its trousers around its ankles every step of the way this far. Maybe the real bad sign would be for the idiots to actually think they did know what happened!

Vincent Capriotti was Battle Fleet from the ground up, and he’d known dozens – scores — of men and women in the ships Crandall and Filareta had lost. Like Timberlake, he wanted payback, and not just out of bloody-minded vengeance, although he was honest enough to admit that was a great deal of his motivation. In addition to that, however, Capriotti had a rather better idea than many of his Battle Fleet compatriots of just how critical the Office of Frontier Security’s unofficial empire of “client star systems” truly was. And along with that, he recognized that OFS’s arrangements were far more fragile than they might appear. The Solarian League literally couldn’t afford what would happen to the federal government’s cash flow if Frontier Security started shedding clients, and unless they demonstrated that they could stand up to the Manties, that was precisely what was going to happen.

On the other hand, the one thing of which Capriotti was certain was that if the Battle — or massacre, or whatever — of Manticore had been as short as both sets of reports suggested, he did not want to tangle with the sort of defenses Manties seemed to think were appropriate for major star systems.

Fortunately, judging from the synopsis of “Operation Buccaneer,” that wasn’t what Admiral Kingsford had in mind. So maybe someone in Old Chicago did have a clue what he was doing.

Maybe.

“All right,” he said finally, turning away from the dispatch to gaze at SLNS Québec’s main astrogation plot. “I need to get Admiral Helland and Admiral Rutgers up to speed on this. I’m sure they’ll both have useful input. Once Rutgers stops warning us not to be overly optimistic, of course.”

His lips twitched and Timberlake actually chuckled. Rear Admiral Lyang-tau Rutgers, Task Force 783’s operations officer, had started out in Frontier Fleet and transferred to Battle Fleet barely twenty years ago. That hadn’t been long enough to completely free him of the basic Frontier Fleet attitude that Battle Fleet would have made an excellent paperweight, especially if that got it out of the way of the people doing the Navy’s real work. Along the way, he’d been known to offer pithy analyses of just how out of date Battle Fleet’s strategic and tactical thinking might have become and he’d argued strenuously that training simulations and fleet problems should be restructured to match the Navy against true peer competitors, despite the fact that “everyone knew” there were none in real life. When confronted with that fact, he’d suggested that it might be better to train against an opponent better than anyone one might actually have to fight. At least that error was unlikely to get anyone killed. Not, as his attitude had made evident, that he’d expected anyone in Battle Fleet to give much thought to that possibility.

The flag captain was pretty sure that attitude explained why an officer of Rutgers’s obvious competence and with the Rutgers family’s military and political connections was still only a rear admiral. But it was rather refreshing in a lot of ways, and she knew Capriotti both respected and genuinely appreciated his contrarian viewpoint.

Vice Admiral Angelica Helland, TF 783’s chief of staff, on the other hand, reminded a lot of people of a smarter Sandra Crandall. Of course, she could hardly have been a stupider Sandra Crandall, now that Timberlake thought about it. The contrast between her aggressive near-arrogance and Rutgers’s voice of caution made for occasionally fractious staff meetings, but it also offered Capriotti a robust debate between differing viewpoints. That was something he’d valued even before anyone started shooting at the SLN, which had been rare, to say the least, among Battle Fleet four-star admirals.

At the moment, Helland and Rutgers were in transit back to Québec from observing a training simulation aboard the battlecruiser Bavaria, the flagship of TG 783.12. Thanks to the classification level of the dispatch, they had no idea why they’d been summoned home so abruptly.

Be interesting to watch their reactions, the flag captain thought.

“Just between you and me, I’m all in favor of our not being ‘overly optimistic,’ Sir,” she said aloud, and Capriotti nodded.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by cthia   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 11:57 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

So is this the force headed to Hypatia, or will this force do the dirty to Beowulf? Beowulf shouldn't be heavily defended, in their minds.

The implication is a brain level a cut above Crandall's, so no shit for brains. Yet, it's starting out in a system named Dzung? If the z is silent then "Operation Buccaneer" was conceived on toilet paper and is going to end up in the crapper, but fast.

.
Last edited by cthia on Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by ksandgren   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:00 pm

ksandgren
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 342
Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:54 pm
Location: Los Angeles, California

Thank you, rfc. The snippets are feeding the starving wolves and it is fantastic to have your input on the site after a year in limbo. Can't wait for an earc to be released.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by Direwolf18   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:01 pm

Direwolf18
Captain of the List

Posts: 506
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:39 pm

This appears to be part of the "commerce raiding" force that Admiral Kingsford was suggesting. Its not a bad idea, if the Manticorian light units hadn't proven they can take out SLN heavies. That being said I have trouble thinking of any good ideas the SLN can do at this point.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by isaac_newton   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:03 pm

isaac_newton
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1182
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:37 am
Location: Brighton, UK

runsforcelery wrote:SLNS Québec
Dzung System
Solarian League


“Well, Sir, all I can say is that it’s about frigging time,” Captain Gabriella Timberlake growled, standing at Admiral Vincent Capriotti’s shoulder as they gazed at the latest dispatch on Capriotti’s display. The fact that the Dzung System was just under seventy light-years from Sol meant snip
“Just between you and me, I’m all in favor of our not being ‘overly optimistic,’ Sir,” she said aloud, and Capriotti nodded.



OOOOOO - thank you, thank you. what a nice way to end my friday :-)

I supect that we are going to see several instances of the new policy in action...
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by Gun Boat Diplomacy   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:29 pm

Gun Boat Diplomacy
Lieutenant (Senior Grade)

Posts: 76
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Location: Sanger, Ca.

Manna from Heaven, Thank You Rfc! (Michael does the happy dance)
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by cthia   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:33 pm

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Direwolf18 wrote:This appears to be part of the "commerce raiding" force that Admiral Kingsford was suggesting. Its not a bad idea, if the Manticorian light units hadn't proven they can take out SLN heavies. That being said I have trouble thinking of any good ideas the SLN can do at this point.

I suppose you are right. "Operation Buccaneer." Steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by kzt   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:34 pm

kzt
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 11337
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:18 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Direwolf18 wrote:This appears to be part of the "commerce raiding" force that Admiral Kingsford was suggesting. Its not a bad idea, if the Manticorian light units hadn't proven they can take out SLN heavies. That being said I have trouble thinking of any good ideas the SLN can do at this point.

There are two - They can convince the SL to fight a hugely destructive long war, or they can settle this on the best terms they can get, which are not going to get any better.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 2:00 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

cthia wrote:
Direwolf18 wrote:This appears to be part of the "commerce raiding" force that Admiral Kingsford was suggesting. Its not a bad idea, if the Manticorian light units hadn't proven they can take out SLN heavies. That being said I have trouble thinking of any good ideas the SLN can do at this point.

I suppose you are right. "Operation Buccaneer." Steal from the poor and give to the rich.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that Battle Fleet's orders are called "Operation Buccaneer" when Frontier Fleet has a contingency plan called "Case Buccanneer"; to go play pirate.
Mission of Honor wrote:Or “Case Buccaneer,” which actually authorized Frontier Security to use Frontier Fleet units—suitably disguised, of course—as “pirates,” complete with vanished merchant ships whose crews were never seen again, to provoke crises in targeted Verge systems in order to justify OFS intervention “to preserve order and public safety.”


Might mean something, or it might just be unimaginative people in charge of naming things.
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Re: Uncompromising Honor, Snippet #2
Post by n7axw   » Fri Sep 08, 2017 2:45 pm

n7axw
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 5997
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 8:54 pm
Location: Viborg, SD

This is only a guess. But I suspect that an op against Beowulf is not being referred to here. For one thing if there if one place where those hellacious missiles and SDS are going to be close at hand, it is Beowulf.

I will go further out on the limb and suggest that operation buccaneer is the initiation of the Commerce raiding strategy suggested be Kingsford earlier.

Don

-
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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