John Ringo - Against the Tide

“I do not have to take that in my own headquarters,” Draskovich snarled, leaping to his feet.

“You’d better damned well take it, or you’re not going to live long enough to get up a real mad,” Edmund replied, calmly. “You made three critical errors in your battle. You insufficiently prepared in that the dragons were undertrained and poorly fed, you trusted limited and outdated intelligence that was laughable on its face and you failed to ensure your supply. These are cherry ensign mistakes. But that’s not too surprising, since what you all are is junior officers.” Edmund looked at the faces and laughed. “Oh, God, you thought you were real generals because you put on the uniform? You’ve never even been to school on how to be generals.”

“As I said, I do not have to take this,” Draskovich ground out. “Especially from someone that doesn’t know a head from a halyard.”

“The toilet and one of those ropes you run up sails and flags with,” Edmund said. “No, I don’t know how to run a ship. But you’re not running a ship, Admiral , you’re running a fleet. And running one in a war . And there’s not damned much I don’t know about war.”

“War at sea,” Kabadda said, as if explaining things to a child, “is different than war on the land.”

“Not in macro,” Edmund replied. “All the same things apply. The only difference is that you are supposed to have on-board logistics, and you couldn’t even keep that straight!”

“There was a storm,” Kabadda said.

“In the battle of Chattanooga, the supplies were maintained through several sleet and snowstorms,” Edmund replied. “In the war in Burma it was maintained through a monsoon. And the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic wars maintained itself in far worse conditions than you have been facing. But that requires prior planning. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance. And they didn’t assault until they had built up sufficient supplies to support it. For that matter, the English Channel fleet had a regulation that no ship would be lower than two weeks on water or any other critical commodity. Ketchup, whether you like it or not, is a critical commodity. I heard your order to the fleet asking a reason only eight of ten dragons could fly and couldn’t believe you’d asked . They hadn’t been eating . Your own records showed that and it was amply evident if you know the first thing about dragon care!”

“Those damned dragons…” Kabadda said. “Dragons this, dragons that. Dragons need fresh meat. Dragons need ketchup…”

“The enemy dragons just SANK YOUR FLEET!” Edmund shouted. “If you’d spent the time working up your dragons instead of starving them we wouldn’t be in this mess. Or if you’d even started to wonder whether there might be some reason that the New Destiny fleet was courting battle!”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Draskovich snarled. “You’re not bringing anything positive to this meeting. Leave this room.”

“You really don’t want to push this, Drask,” Edmund said.

“I don’t care who you know,” the admiral said. “Or who you’ve fucked. You don’t have any authority or reason for being present. Leave, or I’ll have the marines remove you.”

Edmund stood up and smiled.

“Well, it’s been a real pleasure,” he said. “Must do this again sometime soon.”

He walked out the door and went to the break room by the war-room. Besides the two ensigns there were a couple of seamen from the war-room, sitting at the table looking worn out and shell-shocked.

“How bad is it?” Edmund asked them.

“I don’t know, sir,” one of the seamen replied. “I’m just a runner from the mer at the docks. But the mer are… I’ve never seen them so pissed. The whale net is gone, sir. They think the orcas took out Merillo up in Granbas and that means we don’t know what’s what with the rest.”

“Okay,” Edmund said, sitting at the table covered with food stains. “Son, something to keep in mind. First reports are never as bad, or as good, as they seem. Herzer… no, Destrang. Go get Tao and a horse. Have Tao report to me. Van, gimme something to write with. Herzer, head down to the docks. Talk to the mer; they’re going to talk to you. Van, I’ve got another research assignment for you.”

“Yes, sir,” Herzer said, grimly. He realized that many friends had probably died today, not among the Navy but among the mer.

“Destrang, get back here with Tao as fast as you can,” Edmund said, picking up a pen and paper. “All of you: go.”

“Do Jason?” the delphino squealed.

The leader of the Bimi island mer contingent shook his head. Everything was coming apart and the orders they were getting from headquarters were making no sense at all.

“Can you hear Merillo?” Jason asked.

“No,” the delphino said. The human Changed to a dolphin shape had much better underwater hearing than the mer. “Orca squeal, hunting cry, no Merillo.”

“Are they still using the hunting cry?” Jason asked.

“Still.”

The mer looked up at the surface of the water above him and thought. If the orcas had caught the whalo to the north they wouldn’t still be doing the horrible ringing hunting cry. They’d be silent. Feeding.

“Which way are they going?”

The delphino seemed to contemplate the question, turning his head from side to side as if tasting the sounds from the beleaguered whale.

“South. Southeast?” He shrugged as only a delphino can.

“Smart whale,” Jason muttered. His underwater communications apparatus was a small bone in his forehead, located in his nasal passages. It was short-ranged and weak compared to the sonar of the delphinos, but it sufficed for communications. “Call all delphino, all mer, all whalo. Pass call. Fall back. Mer and delphino, move to nearest whalo, protect whalo.”

“Authority?” the delphino squealed.

“Mine,” Jason said. “Just mine .”

Tao had had some hard rides before in his life, but this was ridiculous.

The nearest Army base was over a hundred kilometers away, at the falls of the Gem River. It was a major logistics point, but what was more important at the moment was that it had a communications crystal.

The crystal had the ability to contact a wide range of people who still had access to full technology. They were used for critical messaging, only. And Tao was carrying a critical message.

There was no way that he could have made it in any decent time were it not for the fact that there were messenger stations all along the bad road up the river from the base. He changed horses five times, each time dropping off a blown horse and throwing himself into the next one that was saddled. And then kicking that horse into a trot until it was warmed up and then into a canter.

He hadn’t ridden much in a year. And his body was telling him that before he was a third of the way into the ride. What was that joke the cavalry troops told? Ah, “Forty Miles in the Saddle, by Major Assburns.” Well, he had major assburns, that’s for sure. Forty miles was…

By the time he reached the Army base, after ten hours of hard riding, he had figured out the conversion from the antiquated mile measurement and come to the conclusion that he had more than doubled it. Or something like that; arithmetic was not his strong suit. He dropped off another knackered out horse and got directions to the message center. He pounded up to the low stone building and climbed off the horse, nearly dropping to his knees with fatigue. But he was a Blood Lord, damnit, and he straightened up and tried to knock some of the dust off of his dress uniform, before opening the door and waddling bow-legged into the room.