Looking for some C&C, preferably from folks with some military background or
those who have an enthusiastic interest in military affairs.  Public,
private, it's all good.  This is an excerpt from the sixth episode of
Odysseus, my Robotech fanfic.  Ultimately, I'm looking for comments on style
and characterization, not plot--it would be a lot to expect someone to
review the storyline without having seen the whole work.

-The Reverend Prez

***




Episode Six
"Trial By Fire"

robotech IV- The Odysseus Epic
Act One: Superdimensional Starforce Orion
by Presley H. Cannady (cannady@magiccarpet.com)
and Lou Barnes (lbj@magiccarpet.com)
_________________________________

Chapter Twelve
Morning Has Broken

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

-excerpted from "The Light Brigade," by Alfred Lord Tennyson

*  *  *

"THIRD ONE THIS WEEK, MA'AM," THE AIDE HANDED A LOADED FIVE-BY-SEVEN PAD TO
her boss, who currently was enjoying a brief recess from the commotion of
the Situation Room.  Another woman, wearing distinct civilian attire, drew
near; looking carefully over the admiral's shoulder.  Lana Trevayne led the
civilian to her command chair; gently tossing back the datapad as soon as
she completed browsing it.
    Lana Trevayne's features tore through aesthetic standards; her sharp,
severe expression that seemed cut from blackened iron was only enhanced by
the longevity treatments colonial Terrans like herself had been subjected
to.  Her language maintained the musical quality that her Caribbean
ancestors had brought with them out to the stars, but the Aristidean accent
had harshened over the years; and hers would continue to gain an accented
raspiness as the years went by.  Although quickly approaching forty-three
Earth years, she might have even passed for a young thing on the sunny side
of thirty.  Her companion, on the other hand, was sixty-seven and already
showing it.  Of course, humans naturally lived far longer than they used to;
whereas at the end of the twentieth century, longevity peaked at roughly
eighty Earth years, Homo sapiens now enjoyed a life spanned that averaged
over one-hundred and twenty.  With life-prolonging treatments, Terran
colonials lived for nearly two centuries, and the next generation of
anti-aging treatments promised to extend the human lifespand by nearly fifty
years more.
    The age difference, coupled with the physiological difference still
bothered Admiral Trevayne, despite more than twenty years serving as an
officer of the Defense Forces, where she had associated with thousands of
peoples, from various races and with equally miscellaneous longevity
averages.  Her chief of staff was a Mutan, who would still be able to sire
children half-a-century after she was long gone.  Her communications, a
Delgerian amphiboid, had a lifespan that cut out after exactly twenty-three
years--barring any untoward circumstances.  At the age of seventeen,
Lieutenant Mel-chin (a Standard approximation of her staff communication
officer's name, minus nearly twenty-eight seconds of clicks and whistles)
would never make it more than one or two more grades--no Delgerian had ever
lived long enough to reach the naval rank of commander, let alone captain
and flag rank.  Beyond her own personal and retroactive misgivings regarding
prolonging treatments, there were the practical considerations of extended
lifespands.  For one, the Confederation had only a limited amount of
real-estate, and although it had rapidly grown through peaceful means for
the past century, widespread introduction of Vicon 7 or any other anti-aging
regimen would lead to a surge in the population that would make the current
one--already bordering worrisome--seem insignificant.  Current legislation
limited Vicon and other such treatments to colonists on four-hundred worlds
without significant populations, or to individuals who signed legal
affidavits affirming their infertility--whether due to natural or voluntary
causes.  Then, to Trevayne's more immediate concern, was the effect of
prolonging drugs on the military.  Many officers and ratings, like herself,
were colonials of some sort; many of those not already subject to a
naturally lengthy lifespan had undergone Vicon  and antigerone mediations
prior to their commissioning or enlistment.  As a consequence, the older
generation of officers was living longer, and serving proportionally.  A
lack of legal voice in this matter lead to a series of confusing regulations
intermittently enforced.  One was the retirement clause, which supposedly
held officers and ratings to terms of service not exceeding fifty years.  Of
course, most high-ranking officers managed to squeeze past that clause in
their contracts, citing "special cases" that permitted them to serve well
beyond their terms.  That meant that eventually, career advancement would
come to a grinding halt, as would the recruitment of new blood into the
command structure.  A military organization needed fresh minds and a
youthful element to maintain its vigor; too much broad
experience--specialization wasn't something the prolonged generations even
thought of anymore, an individual could master two or more fields of
expertise in a lifetime nowadays--lent to a far too conservative mindset
amongst its commanders.
    Of course, the military instituted several other, more effective
measures against the danger of prolong.  Both the Spacy and the Marine Corps
provided incentives to career officers and ratings who belated prolonging
treatments until after their terms of service.  For example, the service
would actually pay for the Vicon 7 therapy--free only to colonials on
underpopulated worlds.  On a similar track, land incentives were also
provided by the Homesteading Office, Confederation Department of Interior.
Veterans who had already received prolonging treatments were offered free
land and a development stipend provided by privatized colonizing department
and managed by the DOI; so long as they adhered to the retirement clause in
their service agreement without contest.  At one point, the DeForce General
Accounting Bureau had suggested a graduated cut in benefits for every five
years of service following a servciceman's retirement date; but both the
Administration and Congress refused to back the DFGAB on that issue.
Higher-ranking officers were rotated (rather than forcibly retired) to try
and maintain their personal vigor; however, this solution met with only
limited success (in particular, Admiral Mashikawa completely abolished this
practice during his term as Chairman of the UPDC).  By far, the most
successful solution to the longevity problem lay in the DeForce's agreements
with its member-nation's militaries.  A direct transfer of commission into
these local services, along with retirement benefits, chased out more than
sixty percent of the higher-ranking officers upon retirement.  Only Mars
(which had no armed forces of its own), and Adama VI (her government refused
to ratify the agreement) were exempted from this agreement; however, their
contributions to the service were sufficiently limited to ignore (despite
the DeForce's Academies on both worlds, very few locals attended them).
    Ultimately, the military still had yet to develop its own answer to the
drastic increase in longevity weighed upon it.  While the bureaucrats argued
back and forth on what to do about their respected elders, people like
Admiral Lana Trevayne would worry about more important matters.  Like the
datapad she had just handed over to her civilian guest.
    Dynacruiser Battlegroup 3 hovered over the emerald-yellow world of Jarao
III (old Earth maps called her host star Rastaban), the most important
planet along the Central Periphery.  To the Galactic East was Zeta
Tauri--more popularly known by the name of its huge Terran colony, Tital;
the star-system marked the southernmost edge of the Confederation, as it
occupied a small cul-de-sac, barely ten-thousand cubic lightyears, that
shared a border with both the Corron and H'than Empires.  Within the
immediate area was the Arm, and Jarao drifted along the westernmost vertex
of the border's wedge-like form; from its northernmost vertex, General Mika
and his forces had thrust their way into the heart of the Confederation.  To
the west lay Rubia, the far right flank of the Confederation, the terminus
of the Hegerman hyperlane, and a cause for concern for a dangerously spread
out and and monetarily-exhausted UPDF.  However, Vice Admiral Lana Trevayne
was paid to concentrate on her current theater of operations; and CINCGIOV
expected nothing less than an absolute attention to the duties that came
with the position of Commander, UPDF Spacy Seventh Fleet; especially one
tasked with the second largest dynacruiser formation in the Spacy.  Still,
even Admiral Trevayne understood Command's slack in this area; facing a
disagreable reaction to increases in defense spending at home.  Crazy,
that's how she'd call it.  Did the civvies really prefer an all-out invasion
to a three-percent tax hike?  Shaking her head and rebuking herself for
pondering over such trifle matters, she turned to the civilian.
    High Congresswoman Gina DeToro's reaction was predictable; Lana
suspected all DemUnies acted the same way.  Her nose curled up in disgust
and she proceeded off on a trivial point, "I still don't understand why you
insist on permiting your task group commanders to operate in this way."
    Gina DeToro was a senior member of the Armed Forces Council, Committees
House, out on a fact-finding mission for her constituents (she was
DDEC-Hastings Colonial Star Cluster); which meant she new enough about the
military to draw a chart of the Secretariat, ranking officers, and maybe
even the regional commanders.  However, she had no idea she was onboard the
flagship of the Seventh Fleet until Admiral Trevayne politely corrected her
at the receiving bay--as the corrections in her chamber announcement of the
fact-finding trip had been appended by her press corps officer prior to her
arrival, she suspected that very few outside of actual military service
fully understood the depth of High Congresswoman DeToro's ignorance.  Still,
Admiral Trevayne couldn't deny she was a fast learner--after all, she had
picked up enough on deciphering the military jargon in various intelligence,
force appreciation and table of organization reports to offer her
oft-ignored input.  She was a congresswoman, the admiral reminded herself,
and that meant Trevayne had to be nice to her; at sometimes, she wished she
could throw that damned protocol book out the nearest airlock.
    "Really, Lana," she impudently used the admiral's first name.  The first
time she had taken such a liberty had halted the activity on the flag bridge
for nearly a full two seconds.  The professionalism of Admiral Trevayne and
her officers had snapped to the fore, and ever since the first occurrence,
she and her subordinates had conditioned themselves to such insolence.
Trevayne understood that it wasn't a calculated insult, despite Gina
DeToro's less estimable opinions on the military; instead, the congresswoman
had grown accustomed to treating the non-elected within the federal
government's employ as walking, talking (wouldn't go as far as to say
"thinking") furniture.  "I can't understand why you give your people such
free reign.  If I--"
    Trevayne cut her off, "Ma'am.  Consider this.  This fleet patrols a
major conflict region of nearly five-hundred twenty-five thousand cubic
lightyears.  That's a fifty light-year radius, and roughly eighty-two
significant star-systems.  Extend that by one-hundred lightyears, and we
have a maximum radius of reponsibility that reaches as far back as Impressio
Fleet Base.  That's close to two-hundred significant star-systems within our
operational perimeter.  Fourteen of those, including this one, are along the
Giovanni Stretch, which places them on a high-priority amongst our patrol
assets.  I can't effectively command each one of our seven hundred vessels
without subordinate commanders to delegate responsibilities to.  They can't
function unless I give them some room to show initiative.  You have a
significantly large staff, correct Ma'am?"
    "I do," Gina said tiredly.  She had already heard this line before, and
it frustrated Trevayne that such a simple analogy wouldn't sink into the
congresswoman's head.  Well, it looked like she'd have to say it again; the
admiral could almost swear she heard her chief of staff groaning behind her.
    "Then obviously," Lana replied sharply, "you delegate authority to make
your job easier--that's basic management, Ma'am." 
    Lana Trevayne smiled broadly as Gina DeToro's expression screwed itself
into a damning scowl.
    "Admiral Smith is an extremely valuable asset, and I will continue to
allow him as much 'free reign'--as you so quaintly put it--as I see fit.  As
you know, I have the authority to make such decisions."  That was as close
as she could come to reminding the Congresswoman who was in charge here.
This was the bridge of a Confederation warship, not some Hastings diplomatic
courier with a easily-intimidated lieutenant in command.  DeToro was a guest
on a dynacruiser--a flagship at that--commanded by the Commander of the
entire goddamned Seventh Fleet.  On this ship, DeToro was a guest of the
Admiral--her High Holy Honorableness would do better to remember that.
    "Finally, if I didn't permit him to do as he does, then we would never
know what we do now," Trevayne concluded, leaving Gina stumped--she clearly
had dwelt far too long on the reports headers, ignoring the substance
completely.  Her loss.  The admiral turned to her staff intelligence
officer?  "What do you make of it, Jei?"
    Lieutenant Commander Jei Watanabe finished reading the datapacket,
looked briefly in the direction of the admiral's congressional guest, and
then turned towards Trevayne to proffer his assessment.  "We've seen nothing
as of yet to match this, but I'd find Admiral Smith's assessment entirely
plausible."  It pained Admiral Trevayne to see Watanabe, a decent
intelligence officer who worked as hard as he could with as little as he
had, admit to something like that.  Messeur had shortchanged the entire
Spacy in intelligence assets, and Watanabe could only focus on one
particular area at a time.  However, he had taken the time, through purely
unofficial channels, to prep his officers with Task Force 77, constructed
around Rear Admiral Mike Smith's BatRon 59 and Rear Admiral Drusella
McKorn's Carrier Battlegroup 7 (the latter's flagship had yet to arrive from
shakedown exercises in the Sirius System), to train additional staff members
in intelligence gathering and analysis.  The results were off the record,
but astounding nonetheless.  So, while Jei Watanabe couldn't rely on his
official resources, he had sufficient contacts within his reach to provide
Admiral Trevayne sufficient advice on intelligence matters.
    "If Admiral Smith is correct, this means that we have at least fifteen
heavy cruiser divisions--close to four squadrons--missing from their Fleet
Base on the other side of the Arm.  They're moving out as units; that's for
sure.  This info seems to support my earlier assertions regarding their
superdreadnought assets there; they don't have enough screening elements
either in service or on building slips to cover themselves.  Figuring that
in, there's only one thing I can see that would make them cut out that quickly."
    Lana Trevayne nodded in understanding, turning only briefly away as she
watched Gina DeToro remove herself from the SitRoom.  "That leaves Muscida
uncovered--Admiral Cannady will love that.  What about Rho Persei and Tau
Aurigae?"
    "News from home says they've been picked clean, too," CIN had come
through with that, although Messeur had taken nearly two months to get the
message to the front.  "Also, we have activity in the Buffer Zone, all
Chorymi at the moment.  They've moved four colonies down to the Arm; it's
quite possible they're looking to replace the units the Empire's shuttling
down the chain?"
    "Rubia?" Lana thought to ask.
    "It looks like that at the moment, Ma'am," Watanabe replied.  "We have
gravity ripples down the Haj'or and Salre hyperlanes; they aren't going
about this quietly."
    "All right," Lana said as she moved towards the strategical plot,
projected on the entirety of the rear wall.  "Thalun's back at Rubia, right?"
    "We're pretty sure of that, but he's not concentrating the bulk of his
forces there," Watanabe's finger followed the Giovanni Buffer Zone until it
reached Tital.  "We know something's up on Tital's, ever since that nasty
business with CruRon Division 14.6. "
    Lana frowned.  The circumstances surrounding the destruction of
Commodore Pux's cruiser division had drawn up enough suspicions to keep the
rumor mills alive for months on end; however, Intel was still foggy as to
what was going on.  Tital was close enough to the H'than border to worry the
Confederation; normally, the proximity to the H'than Empire made that
segment of the Confederation's boundaries generally safer than her more
fiery borders with hostiles.  Still, the H'than had taken up arms in league
with their Corron cousins.  Intelligence had yet to firm up any indications
of a potential military alliance between the two Empires, and Trevayne was
reluctant to pursue that point.
    "What else is going on in the Arm?"
    "We know Hergo's gone now, 'disposed of' a week or two after the Pollux
incursion," Commander Watanabe elaborated.  Earlier this year, Tulsos
warships had proceeded across the buffer at the Arm, carefully maneuvering
through the Blue Corridor towards the Pollux system.  The fact that it was a
Tulsos attack had stemmed off any renewal of open hostilities between the
two star-nations.  However, the Confederation reached a new stage of
intolerance towards incursions on its Periphery, and the Blue Corridor
assault invoked enough memories of CCW-4 to provoke enough support for the
military amongst the all-together docile Core.  "The new commander's
supposed to be fairly sharp--same class as Hergo, but we're still split on
who he is.  They know who you are, however; that's something to worry
about."  Once again, CIN work.  Trevayne thought of a dirty metaphor
describing Francois Messeur and beckoned Watanabe to continue.
    "I have to agree, Ma'am," her operations officer spoke up.  "We knew
Hergo's game--careful to a fault; this guy isn't like that.  At least Hergo
would have put a damper on their little tapdance down to Rubia.  We don't
even need human assets over there; they're just tossing it right in our faces."
    "Bottom line, people," Lana Trevayne turned back towards the center
table, featuring a tactical display of her squadron, "is that Hw'ith's up to
something big.  Jei, I want you to press SpacInt all you can; go to General
Two if you have to; I want to know exactly whose on the other side of the
Zone.  Get a flash out to your people with Mike.  Wait a minute, Mel-chin?
Raise Admiral Smith, priority realtime."
    "Aye aye, Sir," her Delgarian staff communications officer, the only
staff member seated at the moment, whirled back around to her station.  A
minute and fifty lightyears later, the tanned, rugged face of Rear Admiral
Mike Smith, CO, TF77, resolved on screen.
    "Glad you called, Admiral," Mike Smith acknowledged courteously.  "I
trust Lieutenant Delvin's report has been received, Ma'am?"
    "We just finished looking over it, Mike," Trevayne answered.  "Listen, I
want your communications team and mine working together to keep this link
open.  I wish we were closer together, but I don't dare move my squadron out
from here--not now, that is."
    "I understand, Admiral," Mike Smith nodded sympathetically.  "You know,
Lieutenant Devlin was just filling me in on another matter.  You might have
considered it as well."
    "Hergo?"
    "That's right; is Watanabe shitting us on this one?"
    "No, Sir," Trevayne's intelligence officer responded lightly.  "It took
two months, but SpacInt finally got a hold of the Empire's media releases.
It appears definite that Hergo's removal is permanant--in the worst possible
way.  On another point, we're not sure who his replacement will be; all we
know is that it's most likely temporary."
    "Ever hear of a guy named Moa Lanka Hillth?" Smith paused, as if he
deliberately expected Trevayne to pull a blank.  "I didn't think so.
Anyway, I can't tell you his story, but he's deft.  Arrogant, and a prick
when he's drunk, but he's on SpacInt's shortlist.  Devlin thinks it might be
one of two reasons.  The man really does know how to lead battlecruisers,
although he's not terribly inventive beyond that; screening elements and
heavy battle-walls are out of his league.  Still, if our conclusions are
correct, the Empire isn't looking to place its most prized officers out
here--they need someone with basic competence and political reliability."
    "What else do you have?" Trevayne noticed Mike's expression.  A shimmer
racing across his eyes indicated he had only taken a brief pause.
    "Of Moa Lanka is headed out here, it has to be temporary.  Whether or
not they'd like to move their BBs and SDs out to Rubia, they need this area
as well.  Lanka simply doesn't have the seniority, nor the firepower, to
deal with a single division of our battlecruisers, let alone a squadron or
fleet.  Once we realized that, Devlin says everything started to fit into
place.  Jei, you've got it down pat, so why don't you pick it up?  By the
way, I think your operations guy will like this one."
    The operations officer attention picked up as Commander Watanabe moved
to summarize.  "Note what you have on most of the guys on that list.  About
three-fourths of them are mediocre, and only five have some noteworthy
names.  It seems to me a list like this wouldn't have made it out of General
Accounting, let alone the Imperial Approval Board.  Hergo was pretty damned
good for what he had to do, and their Third Fleet CO basically shuffled all
his responsibilities onto him.  The Empire's not into the habit of making
the same mistakes twice--they wouldn't have lasted very long otherwise.  So,
what we think is that we have disposable officers to oversee the transit of
their materiel between the Empire's Eastern and Central Border Commands and
an increase in the amassment beyond the Rubia system."
    "Usually, that would be a little too much to bite off for me, Mr.
Watanabe," Smith took over, "but I think in this case you're right.  Lanka's
not here for the duration, and his formation suggests an operational period
of no more than one or two months.  That's nothing compared to what they're
stockpiling over near Rubia."
    "Are you feeling a bit uncovered out there?" Lana Trevayne brought up
another interesting point; Mike was pressing the Buffer Zone pretty closely
right now; he had only a single division of his task force with him at the
moment, all holding orbit within a light asteroid field; revolving about a
small, bright A5VI star.  The strategical plot showed wide gaping holes that
contrasted with Smith's assets out there enough to cause some concern.
    "We're fine for the moment, Ma'am."  The rear admiral hesitated
momentarily, checking with his own plots first.  "Still, I wouldn't mind if
you chased some battlecruisers out my way.  Nothing out here we can't
handle, but it might be a bit too easy for a small squadron of heavy
cruisers to detach themselves from that rat race over there; take some
liberties against us.  I'd prefer to be careful as possible, but that's your
call, Admiral."
    Lana nodded.  It shouldn't be this way, she knew.  They weren't at war,
and nations that intended to be taken seriously shouldn't tolerate
incursions like that.  However, the Empire had enjoyed far too much leeway
from the Confederation government; on at least three incidents she could
think of, the evidence for Imperial involvement was so compelling and so
extensive that a Declaration of War would have sailed through Congress less
than thirty years ago.  However, this generation of politicians were
shell-shocked cronies, looking to stick their collective heads into the
political dirt and shrug off the painful reality boiling around them.  Her
lips turned upward in disgust, but she refused to dwell on such a moot
point.  Her task was to carry out the decisions of her military
superiors--and those civilians in the proper chain of command.  On
occasions, it was her duty to advise.  However, she wasn't a policymaker,
and she knew that such a job was best left to the "wiser, more level-headed"
civilians above her.  They had their finger on the pulse of the people, who
ultimately decided for themselves, in national and local elections, what
they wished of their leaders and servicepersons.
    However, she had her fingers to the pulse of the enemy; and she knew
that above all else, her duty was to protect the Confederation by any means
within her lawful purview.  To that end she would do what was necessary to
ensure her nation's safety.  If that meant ignoring Gina DeToro's ignorant,
incessant nitpicking, so be it.  She'd show all due courtesy, and permit the
congresswoman to share her flag bridge.  However, she ran the Seventh Fleet;
a duty entrusted to her by DeToro's peers and her superiors.  The final call
rested on her shoulders.
    "I'll dispatch a division of BatRon 59; they should arrive to you by
Thursday.  Try and keep your nose clean until then, all right?"
    "I read you, Admiral.  Cohen out."
    Just as Mike Smith's image faded into the neutral gray flat screen,
Mel-chin's attention was sparked by an incoming Flash Traffic message.  The
header indicated its origins as the Subdepartment of Naval Intelligence.
Lana Trevayne made her way over to examine the incoming transmission process
as the message printed out onto her datapad.  One quick glimpse of the first
paragraph nearly turned her complexion a shade lighter.
    "Good Lord..."

*  *  *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|