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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!)
Chapter 8 - Mechanisms[]
"...identify the central..
…problem we're dealing with?" The Basileus asked.
Cecil Halford scowled. "I think you already have an answer in mind, Your Majesty, given that we have a new Lord Marshall and half the Lord Commanders in the Naval branch are under arrest pending charges for Dereliction."
"Very pointed, but why?"
He rolled his eyes, "Neglecting their duties, incompetence, sloth, some are…less sharp than they should be? Take your pick. Half the Royal Military Fleet were broken down from improper maintenance, only the support group's ships even run."
"And your solution?" she asked.
He shook his head, "Majesty, even I know a trap when it clamps my feet, and I'm considered particularly dim in contrast with my parents. Maintenance schedules have not been kept up on the Navy's warships, training standards have not been upheld, The reason is because we've had centuries to get complacent at having the biggest stick and the best security through obscurity-the closest thing we got to a straight confrontation with a military power was the brief brush with the Thazi people, and they had Federated Suns backing sufficient that your grandfather chose withdrawal from the Blommstein Province over risking a conflict with potentially superior foes."
She Leaned lazily and poured tea from a fine bone-china service, "Indulge me, Lord Commander." she said, "What would you fix first, if I gave you leave?"
"Discipline." he said, "It must be enforced equally within the ranks of the Lord Officers, and standards must be maintained."
"Like you have?"
"I do what I can, Majesty. The Biringer goes to the Royal Shipyard once every five years for inspection and maintenance, I keep her fueled on schedule and we use solar chargers to run her in mothball with a custodial crew-everything in the decrees your ancestor laid down and the regulations inherited from our ancestors."
"And you claim not everyone does that?"
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Riga II Class Destoryer-Carrier
"Results. Speak." he asserted. "The Winstons spend more time wrangling their serfs and trading for slaves than they spend maintaining the Belleau Wood or training for proficiency. The Carnegies family chronically ignore service schedules for SLS Lynnwood, in favor of leisure time games and the pursuit of political favor. The Mellons are proficient with equipment they use regularly, which doesn't include the SLS Andersonville, but does include the fighters it was designed, as a Riga class, to carry. The Innslees can be counted on to maintain their DropShips, but they neglect the SLS Ferndale because an Essex class isn't a good platform for tithing operations."
"And?"
He sighed more heavily, "AND, we have a new competitor and this one has warships. Which hasn't been a problem we've had to face since the collapse of Outworlds Authority out here during the Uprising. We're in great shape regarding our Battlemech forces and ground forces, aside from problems because serf-farmed land barely produces enough food, and even MY manufactures produce goods that are…not the best, or the fastest-and that's with allowing freemen to run them instead of wrangling Serfs and slaves."
"You have the highest manumission rate of all the Lord Commanders, Halford. Your attrition rates for workers is the lowest in the entire organization…and your Royal Vessel is in better shape than the Flagship, I'm inclined to put you up a rank."
"Promotion?" he was stunned, "Majesty…that could be detrimental as hell. I'm only a Lord Commander and it means displacing Lord Captains who've held the rank for centuries!"
"So it would seem. We do not have the 'slack' to retreat further into the deep periphery, Lord Commodore Halford-uprooting what was built here would take long enough that when, not IF, this new, navally competent, intruder finds us, they will find us. I have no intention of being unable to resist." she reached into a box under the table, and handed him a Baton.
"Get my Navy up to speed, Lord Commodore, this is your Commission and Duty. Whatever you do to make it…cease to be a humiliating collection of incompetence and neglect, I will support. WE are under a time limit."
Then she gestured to her bookshelf, "Do not fail in this or you'll be joining poor Sir Alban. Do whatever you must, I will support you, but if you flinch or fail, you know the penalty."
"Yes your, Majesty." He accepted the Baton.