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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 2
Chapter 17 - A conversation[]
"I'm not going to…
…ask how you knew, because neither half of ME knew." Amanda lowered the knife, and released Fleet Captain Foster. "But I might have asked, when were you going to tell ME."
"Would it matter?" his tone was firm, confident, and serious. "Are you any different right at this moment-other than ambushing me in my quarters-than you were before you found out?"
"We all change, all the time…but…" she shook her head. "No."
"No sudden desires to rule the human galaxy? No yearning for old Terra?" he pressed.
"Nope."
"Still want to be the Greatest Pirate of all time?"
"A little bit." she confessed sheepishly, and held her fingers apart, "Less than I did when I didn't know what Pirates really do."
"Then I'm going to suggest what Nichols probably already suggested." he told her, "Redefine it, redefine either yourself, or 'pirate' or 'privateer' into something you are going to be proud of-the you that you want to be."
"Not what your Khan wants?"
He chuckled. "No, not what he wants, not what Alberto Crowe wants, not what Acton Howe wants." Foster strode over to a fixed cabinet on the wall, and brought out two glasses and a bottle of something green. "I served a long time, Amanda Roberts. I served the Clan, for a while, I thought I was a Warden, or that I could rise through the ranks with politics and being what my superiors told me I should be." he poured her two fingers, and did the same for himself. "Do you know what it got me?"
"Uh, promotions? Prestige?"
"A list of regrets taller than Mister Seron." he told her, "Duties I should have done, tasks I should not have done...and an on-again, off-again relationship with Billie Siegel. Do you know how I got this job?"
"Not really, Larry handled-"
"No, Crowe and Lankeneau handled that part-they are the ones who recommended this, I was not going to be a good fit with the Solahma units. I'm too independent, but I'm also too politically unreliable for a regular Fleet Command…and I did not want a Regular Fleet Command. I did not want to sit in an office in the shipyard, or doing safe patrols along a secured border, I did not want to sit in a testing cubicle three times a year, fighting simulated battles as 'trials of position', and while I had friends in the Council? I had just as many enemies. I was never going to get an independent command…and then, they needed someone willing to abandon the chase for the Khanship, and there I was."
She stared at him, puzzled. "Why?"
"Because you're the best thing that's happened to my career since I tested out of Sibko." he told her, "I get to be the man I should have been this whole time, thanks to you, thanks to your crazy reports to President Avellar, thanks to you're upsetting rationalizations and long term plans." his eyes glittered bitterly, "That's thanks to you, Amanda Roberts, I get to have the dignity and the dreams I buried out of political necessity. Not some Cameron, not a Khanship, not awards and extra ranks and privileges that only matter when you're in garrison, waiting for the next chance to sit in a simulator and play warrior in some ritual. I'm not sitting as someone's unlikeable Executive Officer while they wage the war-badly. Thanks to you, I am a proper combat commander in a Just War that is not Just another war or trial."
"So you're not sore about the knife thing?"
"Smoothest move you've pulled in my sight." he chuckled, "No, just don't do it again unless you mean it."
"Yes sir."
"How do you rate your personnel replacements?"
She mused for a moment, "The reports Mister Nichols forwarded show a few gaps in their skillsets, they're learning alright from the old hands, it's hard to really gauge them though…"
"Get the people you have as ready as you can then." Dave told her, "We've got most of a month before we jump off for Grankum." He nodded to her glass, "Drink up."
She did so, "eugh!! What is this?"
"Licorice whiskey, it's horrible." David told her, "Almost by intent, but it does build up and eventually starts tasting good, if you drink it enough." he nodded to his door, "You are free to return to your duties, Director."
"Aye sir." she ambled out the hatch, and Dave poured another one, then set about with the evening's work with his terminal and the day's reports.
The position of Fleet Captain has all the headaches of a Galaxy Command, with the prestige of a single ship. At some point, we will need an actual Admiralty to handle this stuff. he mused silently.
He began penning the fiftieth or so request for senior administrative officers to fill the role, knowing that it would be rejected, because Clan doctrine obsesses over field command, and the Outworlders just didn't have the money or infrastructure to develop the role.
But the role is needed, necessary. Had been during Revival, and was left unfilled, had been during the Blake War, and left unfilled, had been during the Retreat from the Homeworlds-and if they'd had it then, thousands would have escaped instead of dying as slaves of the stay-behinds or worse… and had been neglected during the brief Reaving conflicts the Wolves and Hell's Horses kicked off here in the Inner Sphere.
we need professional administrators, people who can spend the time doing the accounting, with enough backbone to hit seepage, leaks, and fraud.
He sighed, and set to work on his proposal. It will be rejected, just like it was every other time since I was a Point Commander...
But it needed to be done-because eventually, reality will have to catch up with the idealists in the Clan Council.
Around four hours in, Johnson showed up.
"Johnny, put it on the bureau." Dave said without looking up. "You're not on a date tonight?"
"She's working, Sir."
"I guess I need to remind Captain Roberts that she needs to take a few hours off at least once a week while we're in port then…pass me the chit-box marked 'SLN Organizational Doctrine, Volume Eleven'."
"Logistics?"
"Navies live and die on Logistics, it's why they were developed in the first place." Foster told him, "So, it's a good idea to examine logistical strategies since we're acting as a Navy." He looked up, "Not popular, mind you, necessary, insert the blue series of chits in the reader and take the seat opposite me, you need to learn this stuff."
"Aye sir."