John Ringo - Against the Tide

“The fire destroyed most of our signals books, sir,” the chief said with a grimace. “And the press we used to run them off. Until we get a press up and running again we’re having to hand copy.”

“Is everything being done that is possible to get the press up and running again, Chief Greter?” Edmund asked.

Herzer wondered at the formality of the question until he realized Edmund was repeating the name to get it memorized.

“As far as I can tell, sir,” the CPO replied. “I checked with the machine shop and their guys had it as one of their top priorities. They already had the frame done but the letters had to be ordered.”

“Anything you need you think it’s reasonable to ask for?”

“I’ve got all the people I could find who can read and write with a fair hand organized on it, sir,” the chief shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

“Good,” Edmund nodded. “Who do you think I should go cheer up next?”

The duke worked his way around the room, informally chatting with at least the senior officer and senior NCO of each of the teams that directly supported him. As he did Herzer came to realize that he was subtly drawing them out. Not only learning their names but getting a feel for their capabilities. All of them were, naturally, nervous, facing the boss who had so abruptly replaced Admiral Draskovich. With the destruction of the headquarters all of them were facing problems and Herzer realized that the duke, while appearing on the surface to simply be chatting, was learning who in the headquarters could face a challenge and who couldn’t. Some people could take a break in routine and others could not. Both types were useful to the military, which had more than its share of boring jobs. But the most useful, by and large, were those who could respond to chaos and bring order from it. Unfortunately, the headquarters seemed to be severely lacking in the latter.

Operations, especially, seemed to be running around like headless chickens. They had multiple messages piling up giving locations of ships and in many cases requests for reinforcement. Edmund leafed through the messages, passing them on to Herzer as he was done.

Herzer, in turn, was surprised at the… tone of many of the messages. Most of the remaining carrier captains, as well as the captains of the ballista frigates that were attached to them, were simply asking what they should do. Not where they should go or where they should rendezvous, but what they should do about the battle damage on their ships. There were also requests for resupply, naturally, but Herzer had to wonder what they were doing sitting on the desk of the operations section. They should have been sent directly to G-4, the department in charge of logistics. There the requests would be assembled and collated so that if a resupply force could be put to sea, it would be loaded for what they needed.

After reading the messages and shaking hands with the harried captain who was trying to get some order in his section, Edmund strolled over to the logistics section where a very young female lieutenant was copying items off of one list and filling in another.

“How’s it going, Lieutenant?” the admiral said.

The young woman had been so absorbed in her task that she hadn’t even noticed the approach of the new boss.

“Not very damned good.” She sighed, not looking up. “Whatever it is, I don’t have it.”

“What a perfect answer from a supply person,” Edmund chuckled.

She looked up then and leapt to her feet, ashen.

“Sorry, sir,” she stammered, “it’s just that…”

“I understand,” Edmund replied. “Everyone wants something and they want it right now . The question is, are we going to be able to get it?”

“So far, so good, sir,” she replied. “What I was doing was taking the requests from the fleet and compiling ship packets, sir.” She glanced down at the lists and seemed to drift off for a moment.

“Betraying my total ignorance,” Edmund said after a moment. “What is a ship packet?”

“Sorry, sir,” the lieutenant said, shaking her head. “When we send resupply ships out, some of the stuff that’s requested is in bulk. Beans and ketchup for the wyverns, salt beef and pork. But some of the stuff is specific. For example the Henry Tachos needs a new set of steering rigging; the fire they had burned up most of the rear of the ship. We try, where possible, to assemble the specific needs for the ships in one place on the resupply ships and then load it according to the order in which the ships are going to be supplied.”

“And you are…?”

“Lieutenant Dierdre Miuki, sir,” the young woman replied.

“Does that need to be done in the headquarters, Lieutenant Miuki?” Edmund asked. “I’d think that would be passed on to a lower section to be assembled?”

“We sort of triage it here, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Then it gets gone over again by the G-4 staff.”

“I notice that while you were concentrating, you’re not terribly busy, Lieutenant… Miuki, was it?”

“Yes, sir, Miuki,” she replied. “I’m waiting on the rest of the signals from the fleet, sir.”

“Which are over at operations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?” the admiral inquired, mildly.

“They… go through ops first, sir,” the officer said, swallowing.

“Van Kr…” Edmund said then shook his head. “No… Destrang.”

“Sir?”

“Go over to operations. On my authority, pore through those messages. Pull out any that only pertain to material needs and move them over here. Now.”

“Yes, sir,” the ensign said languidly, then strolled back over to ops.

“You’ll have your messages shortly, Lieutenant,” the admiral said. “But all I want you to do is sort out who wants what and send it on. Let someone in the G-4 section make up the ship packets or whatever. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant Miuki.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Herzer and the ensigns followed the admiral to the far side of the room where he stood looking at the map for a long time, then turned around shaking his head.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy, Herzer.”

“No sir,” Herzer said, smiling faintly. “That’s why they call them the enemy, sir.”

Megan smiled as Paul rolled off of her and she rearranged her clothing as she cleaned up.

When she had first arrived in the harem the “standard” clothing was light silk robes that were presupplied. Some of the girls made clothing of their own; Mirta Krupansky for example was an accomplished seamstress. The simple rule, strictly enforced by Christel, was that the clothing had to be “nice to look at” by which she meant “skimpy.”

Megan had used a crisis with Paul, a time when he nearly killed himself from neglect, to effect several changes. One of them was to get Mirta to do more classes on sewing. The woman was clearly older than she looked or acted and had spent her time studiously avoiding any attention in the harem. Megan more or less forced her to take a more proactive role and over time all of the girls, even Megan, became competent at making “appropriate” outfits.

But another change that Megan effected was the robes. They had struck her from the beginning as being silly. And not having panties or bras was just idiocy. So, soon after the “crisis,” she had convinced Christel to “outsource” for standard clothing that, while alluring, was a bit more practical. Among other things, working out in the robes was a pain and doing so stark naked was a specific pain; Paul was eclectic in his taste in women, with the exception of breasts.