Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (16 page)

Drake
smiled and shook his head. “Not if those ships are all controlled remotely by
an Oracle-type computer.”

After
a few seconds of silence, she said, “You know…that just might work, but it’s
going to be tough to convince the CSO, SecDef and the Chancellor to sacrifice
our existing fleet.”

“I
hope so. If they tell us we’re crazy, then I’ll be a lot more reassured that
Majestic won’t consider that strategy, because it’s too irrational. But before
we jump to conclusions, we should have P2 game it out.”

“Yes,
you’re right. One Queen sacrifice gambit simulation coming up.”

Seventeen
hours later, Drake and Foster were seated in Janicot’s office.

“Are
you people crazy?” asked Janicot. Drake and Foster looked at each other with
barely concealed grins.

“I
don’t think so, Admiral. P2 has confirmed our suspicions that if the FED fleet
wins the battle for Earth with only minor losses, then there’ll be a lot of
pressure on General Trojan to launch an immediate attack on Sparta, even if
Majestic doesn’t come to the same conclusion, although P2 thinks it will,” said
Foster.

“I
know but…those 16 ships represent a lot of resources, credits and effort. It
goes against the grain to throw them away like that. What if we only send 10 or
12 ships?”

Both
Drake and Foster shook their heads. Drake responded. “We tested that scenario.
The FEDs know we have a minimum of 16 ships. If we send less, Majestic will
assume we’re holding a strategic reserve back, and the odds of an immediate
retaliatory strike on Sparta drop to less than even money. Majestic has to
believe that we risked everything on a roll-of-the-dice gamble. In poker
parlance, they have to think that we went all in.”

“Even
though I see the logic of it, or rather the illogic of it, I still have trouble
accepting the concept on a gut level. Convincing the Secretary of Defense is
going to be hard enough, but convincing the Chancellor…” Janicot noticed that
Drake and Foster were smiling again. “What’s so damned funny?”

Drake
told him, and Janicot managed to smile too. “I see your point, Commander. If
the idea was less bizarre, Majestic would be more likely to anticipate it, but
what if that goddamned machine does anticipate it?”

Drake
let Foster field that one. “It may not matter, Admiral. Majestic can’t know for
certain that we’re setting them up. It might suspect that as a possibility, and
if so, it’ll calculate a probability. But P2’s assessment is that Majestic will
also calculate a relatively high probability that we really did roll the dice
and lost. Regardless of what Majestic comes up with, it’s going to be very hard
for General Trojan and his superiors to resist the natural military inclination
to sound the charge when it looks like we’ve made a fatal miscalculation and
are vulnerable.”

“I
know you talked about the equivalent of sacrificing our Queen, but I had no
idea it would be this painful. This plan is going to make me lose a lot of
sleep. But as much as I hate to admit it, this looks like our best shot of
actually winning this war. I’ll set up a briefing for both SecDef and the
Chancellor at the same time.” Janicot pointed his finger at Foster. “You’re the
one who’s going to have to sell them on this plan, Major, and I want you there
too, Commander.”

After
both acknowledged his order, they briefly chatted about less important things,
and then Janicot dismissed them. Drake and Foster spent the rest of the day
polishing her presentation.

The
meeting with Secretary of Defense Sorensen and Chancellor Belloc plus CSO
Janicot didn’t take place until mid-afternoon of the next day. It was held in
the conference room next to the Chancellor’s office. Belloc sat at the end of
the oval table, with Janicot on his left and Sorensen on his right. Foster and
Drake sat at the opposite end of the table.

“I’m
anxious to hear about this radical new strategic plan that Admiral Janicot
refuses to give any hints about, Major Foster. You may begin,” said Belloc.

“Thank
you, Chancellor. I will sum up this new strategic plan in one sentence, after
which I’ll go into the details. If this plan succeeds the way that our Phase II
Oracle predicts, it will reset the entire strategic situation back to what the
original expectation was on the day that the SSU took over FED assets. You’ll
recall that, at that point in time, it was hoped that the FEDs wouldn’t find
out about the SSU for at least six and perhaps as many as nine months, which
would give the Union a head start in building ships and other military assets.
Unfortunately, the FEDs learned about the SSU much sooner, and they were able
to identify and start work on their Makassar shipbuilding initiative long
before we were able to start our own backup shipbuilding project.

“In
order to engineer this strategic reset, Majestic, General Trojan and the FED
military leadership have to be enticed to commit all or virtually all of their
available fleet to an attack on Sparta, which we will be ready for. Once we
have destroyed their fleet AND all their industry on Makassar, which I will
describe in more detail shortly, we will have the upper hand in terms of
shipbuilding, both in the short term and also in the long term, because our
backup shipbuilding complex will start producing ships long before the FEDs can
finish rebuilding Makassar and making it operational.

“So
the question is how do we convince the FEDs to attack us prematurely? As long
as their numerical superiority in ships is less than three to one, it would be
foolish of them to leave Earth vulnerable by committing all their ships to an
attack on Sparta. We don’t need Oracle to tell us that when their fleet is big
enough to successfully defend Earth AND beat us here at the same time, then and
only then will they make that move.

“This
is why we have to adopt what the planning group is calling the Queen’s Gambit.
Phase One of the plan will involve modification of all our currently
commissioned warships so that one of them carries an Oracle-type computer which
has been carefully programmed with the necessary tactical skills, and the other
ships will be modified so that they can be operated remotely by the Oracle
flagship.

“Phase
II will start with a massive attack by our fleet on Makassar. The objective
there will be nothing less than destroying every industrial site completely. Our
Oracle is convinced that the bulk of the FED fleet will remain in Earth orbit
in order to continue countering our previous strategy of using an attack on
Earth to apply political pressure for a premature attack on Sparta. Once
Makassar has been blasted back to square one, our fleet, which will have a
minimal crew, will jump to Sol and Phase III will begin.

“In
Phase III, our crews will transfer to a freighter, and the flagship Oracle
computer will take the fleet to Earth orbit via a micro-jump. At that point,
our fleet will attempt to overpower the defending ships, and it’ll be done in
such a way that the FED fleet will achieve a decisive and overwhelming victory.
Our fleet will be completely destroyed, but since none of our crews will still
be on board, there’ll be no human casualties.” Foster saw both Belloc and
Sorensen react with surprise. She continued before they had a chance to
interrupt.

“Our
flagship Oracle will make sure that the FED fleet will have suffered only minor
damage. At that point, it will appear to Navy Chief of Staff Chenko that the
FED’s numerical superiority in terms of warships has just jumped to at least 10
or 20 to 1, if not more, and that the SSU will appear to be so vulnerable to
attack that it will be very difficult to resist the temptation to order General
Trojan to send the fleet to Sparta. I should point out here that Admiral Chenko
will also understand the geometry of the situation. If he decides to wait until
Majestic has been informed of the battle results and recommends to General
Trojan to initiate the attack on Sparta, then it will take another five months
to send orders back to their fleet still at Earth and then have their fleet
start their trip to Sparta. I can tell you from personal observation of Admiral
Chenko that he would not accept that delay. He would understand that we could
do a lot with an extra five months of preparation. If they were going to try to
inflict a serious setback on the SSU by attacking Sparta, then Chenko would
override Trojan’s orders and order the fleet back to Hadley with instructions
for General Trojan to immediately send it to Sparta, regardless of what
Majestic thought of the idea.

“It
will interest you to know that our Phase II Oracle has calculated that Majestic
would come up with a high probability that our attack on Earth was a serious
attempt to follow through with our politically-driven strategy and that we
really are vulnerable to a quick retaliatory strike on Sparta. The key to
convincing the FED leadership that we rolled the dice and lost will be the
battle itself. It has to look like a human fleet commander screwed up. If they
suspect that the fleet was controlled by a computer, it might arouse suspicion.

“In
terms of the Battle of Sparta, we have some ideas on that too. By the time the
FED fleet could get here, we’ll have over 55 missile boats, each of which will
carry second generation anti-missile missiles externally, so that their
internal missile load can be entirely offensive in nature. Our Phase II Oracle
has already calculated that 55 missile boats will have an excellent chance of
defeating the 20-25 FED warships that we can expect to see. Even if they
somehow managed to send 30 warships, the odds are that we’ll still win because
our missile boats will be under the overall tactical control of our Phase II
Oracle computer. Recent simulations have conclusively demonstrated that our
Oracle can tactically outthink any of our human strategists, and the FED fleet
commander should be no different.

“After
the Battle of Sparta, we’ll go to Phase IV where the short term output of the
shipyards on our 15 core member planets will be used to suppress construction
on Makassar and overpower whatever Earth’s shipyards send against us. At some
point, especially when our backup shipyard starts to kick in, Majestic will
calculate that the FEDs can’t win the war militarily and will recommend that
Earth seek a negotiated peace. All that would be left for us to do would be to
respond to any peace overture from the FEDs with a reasonable counter-offer,
one which would be hard for the politicians to refuse, and the war would be
over.” Foster paused, and Belloc took advantage of it.

“Before
I comment on the rest of the plan, and I now understand why Admiral Janicot
stayed silent about it, I want to ask about this last point, Major. What kind
of counter-offer does our Oracle friend think would be reasonable?”

“The
basic approach would be one where the Federation government and Earth-based
chartered companies are compensated for lost property and revenues. If we also
couch our offer in such a way that it appears that we’re recognizing Federation
authority over SSU planets, but in an entirely meaningless way, then the Earth
politicians can claim to have ‘out negotiated’ us, and they’ll have saved their
own political careers by accepting our offer. We’ll still have de facto
independence where it really counts. Over time, the Federation will wither
away.”

Belloc
sighed. “When you put it that way, it all sounds very reasonable and obvious,
but after dealing with the other SSU planetary Heads of State for the past six
years, I can tell you that we may have difficulty getting that kind of deal
ratified by a majority of our member planets. However, that’s a political
problem, not a military problem. Considering how grim the outlook is, I’d
gladly trade our current situation for that kind of problem. So putting that
aside for now, I’d like to get back to the key part of this plan, which is the
so-called Queen’s Gambit. What are the risks that we sacrifice our fleet and
the FEDs DON’T launch a premature attack on Sparta?”

Foster
and Drake exchanged a quick glance. They had discussed that possibility too.
“Our Oracle calculates only a 2% chance of that happening, Chancellor, and
that’s about as low a probability as anything is likely to get. Oracle would
never assign a zero probability to any possible outcome, if only because humans
sometimes do stupid and bizarre things. For General Trojan to ignore what to
him would appear to be a stroke of luck, the kind of unlikely event that
military officers dream of, would require that he have a very different agenda 
from the one he was given. Off hand, I can’t even think of what type of agenda
that could be.”

Belloc
nodded but said nothing. He looked over to Sorensen and gestured for her to
speak. “I have to confess that I’m a bit confused, Major,” she said. “Last week
you were telling us that their Majestic computer could outthink our Oracle no
matter what we did, and now you’re saying that we can fool Majestic into recommending
this premature attack. Do you see why I’m confused, Major?”