Christopher Nuttall - The Trafalgar Gambit

“I would, sir,” Cadet Blake Raistlin said.

Roman rolled his eyes inwardly. Cadet Raistlin was from one of the wealthiest families on Old Earth, with ties that led all the way up to the Grand Senate, and when they’d first met, Raistlin had tried to put the RockRat in his place. He had been astonished to discover that Roman was not only able, but willing to fight back.

But Raistlin had gone on. “How could any of the commanders have predicted that they would be faced with a threat outside their… accepted context ?”

Professor Kratman, unlike some of the other academic staff, showed no inclinations to play favorites. “Would you care to elaborate, cadet?”

Raistlin shot Roman a mischievous look. “The defenders of Zion expected to face human enemies, not aliens,” he said. “Compressed antimatter was only a theory, as was the continuous displacement drive. How could they have prepared to face a threat they didn’t even know existed?”

“Interesting point,” Professor Kratman mused. He turned and faced Raistlin. “Do you believe that the universe is fair , cadet?”

“No, sir,” Raistlin said. It was one thing that had been drummed into their heads since they had entered Luna Academy. The universe was not fair. It simply didn’t care about humans—or aliens. “But you cannot blame a commanding officer for doing everything by The Book and then being defeated by something outside of The Book.”

“The Board of Inquiry might disagree with you,” Kratman said dryly, referring to the inquiry held whenever a Federation starship was lost on active duty. “Let us consider the situation, just for a moment. Why did the defenders of Zion believe that aliens would be peaceful and friendly? Answer—the general belief at the time, encouraged by the discovery of Graveyard a few years prior to the First Interstellar War, was that a violent and aggressive race would not make it into space. Their logic was fundamentally flawed as humanity , a violent and aggressive race, had already made it into space. They thought of humans as being somehow…less than aliens. If we made it through the bottleneck and out into space, why couldn’t another violent race? Reasoning from a single example, like Graveyard, produces dubious results, not least because Graveyard might have been the result of an interstellar war.”

Roman shivered. A few years after the discovery of the network of Asimov Points—which allowed instant travel between star systems—human explorers had stumbled across a dead world, destroyed by nuclear war. The level of devastation had been so high that no one knew what the inhabitants had called themselves. Their records had been so badly damaged that no one would ever know what had taken place to cause the war, or why it had been fought to such a dark finish.

“The Battle of Spider Bite is also indicative of the dangers of stagnated thinking and unchallenged assumptions,” Kratman continued. “The loyalist commander knew that the rebels didn’t have the firepower to take on his entire fleet. It should have occurred to him that they would not have declared independence and started the war without being sure that they had something that could tip the balance in their favor. And they did—compressed antimatter. The resulting disaster could have been avoided, if only by holding a formation that was more than a premature victory parade.

“The Battle of Athens represents a third such example. After fighting the Inheritance Wars for so long, both sides were looking desperately for a silver bullet that would allow them to end the wars without further loss of life. The rebels were experimenting with automated missiles that would allow them to sweep the Asimov Point without risking ships and lives; it was not a great intellectual leap to wonder if the loyalists were doing the same. Indeed, the rebels had their own gravimetric research program that would have led to the stardrive if the Inheritance Wars hadn’t been terminated before they could put it into production. In short, the rebels allowed themselves to be pinned against the Asimov Point by a force that had entered the system from an unsuspected direction, and were obliterated.”

He grinned. “Let us consider another two battles, shall we? Cadet Raistlin: what do the pre-space Battle of Midway and the First Battle of Sapphire have in common?”

Roman had to smile as Raistlin blinked in shock. If the Inheritance Wars were still a sore subject, the far more recent Blue Star War was effectively forbidden territory. Cadets were rarely encouraged to study the war, even in the privacy of Luna Academy, while relatively little material on the war had made it out into the civilian sphere. The bare facts, of course, couldn’t be covered up, but the precise details? The Federation Navy had restricted the data and covered up the reports, if only to spare the embarrassment. He wondered, absently, how the well-connected Raistlin would answer.

“Sir,” Raistlin said. He had clearly decided to plunge for honesty, rather than dissimulation. “Both battles—both defeats—were the result of massive overconfidence.”

“A very good answer, cadet,” Kratman said sardonically. “An answer that is perfectly accurate, yet devoid of any actual detail. Please, would you elaborate for your fellow cadets?”

“Yes, sir,” Raistlin said. Somehow, he managed to regain his balance. “In the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had an overpowering advantage in almost every important category. They should have brushed their American opponents aside and taken Midway, smashing the remaining American carriers at the same time. Instead, their overall commander divided their force and the Americans caught four of their carriers and sank them. The result was the sudden cessation of the Japanese advance.

“The First Battle of Sapphire, likewise, should have been a Federation victory. The fleet sent to secure the blue giant had enough firepower to take on the entire enemy force and crush it, but the commanding officer chose to break his fleet into three smaller forces and launch a simultaneous assault through two Asimov Points, while the third crossed interstellar space. The result of this…ah, poorly devised plan was the destruction of two of the assault forces, because they couldn’t actually provide mutual support in their advance.”

“And why did that happen, cadet?”

“Because coordinating a battle across interstellar distances is impossible,” Raistlin said. “The three assault forces couldn’t communicate with one another, while their opponents could use the advantage of the interior position to reinforce their defending forces—effectively smashing the attacking forces one by one.”

“In other words, the commanding officer tried to be clever,” Kratman said. He smiled, a rather humorless expression. “Being too clever or too dumb can cost you victory, or worse.”

The Professor walked back to the front of the room and smiled at the cadets, this time with a hint of warmth. “There is actually a second point that both battles have in common. Both have been studied by military strategists—the latter battle with rather less enthusiasm, I should add—and extensively wargamed. Would you like to guess at the results?”

He paused, but no one took the bait. After a long moment, he went on.

“The conclusion, in both battles, was that the side that lost should have won. Overconfidence led to disaster—or, as Admiral Vane put it during the First Interstellar War, war is a democracy. The enemy has a vote.”

He paused. “You have a question, Cadet Goldsmith?”

“Yes, sir,” Cadet Karen Goldsmith said, and nodded.

Roman listened with interest. She rarely spoke, but when she did, she was always worth listening to. Besides, with long red hair and a remarkable smile, she was easy on the eyes as well.