—Demosthenes, A History of the Formic Wars, Vol. 3
Mazer received a message on his wrist pad at breakfast to report to Colonel Vaganov’s office immediately.
The summons surprised Mazer. He had never met the colonel. Vaganov had come to WAMRED only a month ago to assume command, and so far he had taken a hands-off approach with the breach teams. What Mazer knew about Vaganov was impressive, however. Before joining the IF, Vaganov had served as a battle cruiser commander in the Russian navy and then with the Admiralty in Saint Petersburg. His most recent post as the director of the International Fleet’s Department of Acquisitions at CentCom on Luna was a high-profile position that had him rubbing shoulders with both the Hegemony and the private sector. His rise through the ranks meant real ability, either as a commander or as an upsucking bureaucrat. Mazer was hoping he could figure out which before Vaganov led them into combat.
The flight from the cafeteria to the colonel’s office was a series of twists and turns through the labyrinth of the space station. WAMRED was actually five space stations cobbled together, each one donated from a different country when the International Fleet first formed. Linked together, with sturdy docking tubes between them, the stations formed an asymmetrical, odd-shaped structure, like something a child would assemble with a stack of random pipes.
Mazer initiated his boot magnets as he approached the colonel’s office, and the door slid open automatically.
Colonel Vaganov was anchored to the floor behind his holotable. He was young for his rank, and unlike the other Russian officers Mazer had known—who always maintained a rather austere disposition—Vaganov actually smiled when Mazer entered.
“Captain Mazer Rackham,” he said. “Come in, come in. I was just reviewing your record here.”
It was then that Mazer noticed the military file hovering in the air above Vaganov’s holotable.
Here it comes, thought Mazer. He’ll see the complaints of insubordination and peg me as a troublemaker.
But Vaganov’s mood didn’t change after reviewing the file in silence for a moment. “I see here that you’ve been in the IF since it formed,” said Vaganov.
“Yes, sir,” said Mazer. “I spent one year at CentCom, and two years here.”
Vaganov nodded. “Our paths didn’t cross at CentCom, but that doesn’t surprise me. That place is practically a city. Your wife is still on Luna, I take it?”
“Yes, sir,” Mazer said. “She’s an ER doctor at Imbrium Memorial.”
Vaganov smiled. “A doctor? Well, someone has to earn the bread for the family. We certainly don’t get it in the IF.”
Mazer was impressed with Vaganov’s command of Common. There was only the slightest hint of a Russian accent.
“Do you communicate with your wife at least weekly, Mazer? E-mails perhaps? Holos? Whatever?”
The question struck Mazer as odd. What business was it of the colonel’s how often he spoke with Kim?
As if registering his thoughts, Vaganov smiled. “I ask, Mazer, not to pry but because I believe you are a husband first and a soldier second. I suspect I’d get a wrist slap from CentCom for saying so. They couldn’t care less about your personal life. In their minds you are a blunt object to be thrown at the enemy and nothing more. But I disagree. I have little patience for a man who doesn’t keep his commitments to his wife and family. It is a sign of weak character and usually indicative of how he will keep his commitments to his fellow soldiers in the field. That’s not the type of officer I want in command of my troops.”
In all his years of service, Mazer had never heard any commander express that opinion. Most seemed to believe the opposite. You were a soldier and only a soldier, subject to the commander and only the commander. Family obligations were an inconvenient distraction.
Mazer’s surprise must have registered on his face, because Vaganov laughed.
“My opinions unsettle you, I see,” Vaganov said.
“No, sir,” said Mazer. “On the contrary. I agree with you. I’ve just never heard a commanding officer hold that opinion.”
Vaganov laughed again. “I am a rare bird. Some people hear a melody. Most people hear squawking.”
It was a strange metaphor, but it amused Vaganov. Mazer doubted it was true. You didn’t become the director of acquisitions or of WAMRED by squawking your way to the top.
“To answer your original question,” said Mazer. “Yes, my wife and I communicate often.”
Vaganov nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ve noticed however that you have not been attending the officer socials.”
Is that what this was about? thought Mazer. Copernicus is destroyed, the IF is unstable, and Vaganov is concerned about attendance at his silly parties?
The socials were weekly get-togethers held in the officers’ lounge. Vaganov had organized the events shortly after taking command. Mazer had attended the first one out of obligation, but he had left as soon as it became apparent that the event was nothing more than an informal brown-nosing affair, wherein junior officers fawned over Vaganov and his senior aides in the hope of getting in their good graces.
“I’m not one for socials, sir,” said Mazer. “I hope you’ll forgive my absence.”
“Of course,” said Vaganov. He glanced back at Mazer’s record. “It says here that you fought the Formics in China, but there’s very little information or specifics. All I see are complaints of insubordination.”
He looked back at Mazer as if expecting an explanation.
“Some of my senior officers in the NZSAS and our counterparts in the Chinese army were not pleased with my decision to engage the enemy and offer assistance to wounded civilians,” said Mazer.
Vaganov nodded as if he expected this. “Yes. The NZSAS. That’s the New Zealand Special Air Service?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Special Forces.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vaganov frowned. “So you’re in China, you rescue civilians, you give the Formics hell, and all you get for it in return are strikes on your record.” He shook his head. “That sounds about right. If I didn’t know any better I’d say I was back in Russia.”
Vaganov waved a hand through the files and made them disappear. “Do you know why we’re going to lose this war, Mazer? Do you know the biggest weakness in the Fleet? The largest chink in our armor? It’s not our weapons. It’s not our inferior tech, or our numbers, or our lack of combat experience in space. It’s skomorokhi. That’s a Russian word. Do you know it?”
“No, sir.”
“It means ‘buffoons.’ Idiots, Mazer. That’s why we will lose. Incompetent leadership. There are far too many men with stripes on their shoulders who care more about getting additional stripes or protecting the ones they have than they care about the twelve billion people of Earth. I know that sounds ludicrous, but it is a fact. A fact you know all too well, I suspect, because when I see those notes of insubordination on your record, I know precisely the type of man who put them there. I know because I’ve served under men like that myself, men who have tried similar tactics to discredit me. They tear down junior officers they consider a threat, they fear thinking they don’t understand, they blame everyone around them for their own mistakes. And because these are charismatic men, and semi-intelligent men, they can fool those above them into thinking them tactical geniuses surrounded by fools.”
Vaganov stood erect and clasped his hands behind his back. “I know what type of soldier you are, Mazer. I’ve seen records like this time and again. And they always belong to soldiers who give a damn, soldiers who do what’s right.” He raised a finger. “Don’t mistake me. I’m not advocating insubordination. Disobey a lawful order from me, and there will be serious consequences.”
He smiled. “And I know why you don’t come to the socials, Mazer. You skip them because you can’t stand a kiss-up. The sight of all that fawning and pandering makes you sick to the stomach.” His smile widened. “But you see, that’s just it. That’s why I hold
these socials whenever I receive a new post. I am looking for soldiers like you, Mazer, soldiers who are so repulsed by those games and turned off by the bureaucracy that they would risk offending their CO by not showing up.” He laughed. “The only thing I hate more than an idiot commander is a brown-nosing junior officer. Oh sure, I act entertained. I’ll take their praise and compliments all day, but I’ll hate them for it.” He smiled. “That surprises you, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not what I expected, sir,” said Mazer.
“I trust you’ll keep this little secret between us,” said Vaganov. “If the kiss-ups knew how self-defeating their behavior really was, they’d change. That’s why I consider them so unreliable. They shift with the wind.” He shook his head. “No, there is only one way to gain my favor, Mazer. By being the best damn soldier you can be. By dedicating yourself completely to whatever missions you’re assigned. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think you’re one of those soldiers, Mazer. In fact, I’d bet my life on it.”
Mazer wasn’t sure how to respond. “Thank you, sir.”
“That lofty opinion of you is not mine alone,” said Vaganov. “I asked my advisers to tell me which of our breach teams was the best, and they all, independent of each other, picked yours.”
“Thank you, sir. My men are very competent. I think I got the best in the IF.”
“Or you made them that way, more likely,” said Vaganov. “An army is only as strong as its commander, including an army of only four men. In any case, I see that you and your men are one of the teams testing the gravity disruptor.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vaganov nodded. “And what do you think of the device?”
Mazer hesitated. “Permission to speak candidly, sir.”
Vaganov motioned for Mazer to proceed. “Please.”
“Sir, the gravity disruptor is a do-or-die weapon,” Mazer said. “If it fails, marines die. They cannot retreat. Nor can they be rescued. Any craft that attempted to do so would be incinerated instantly. We either penetrate that hull and take the ship, or we lose good marines. And based on our tests, I think it highly likely that the GD will fail.”
Colonel Vaganov reached into the holofield and brought up a report. “If that’s your assessment, Mazer, then why do you run so many tests? It says here that you and your men have tested the GD nearly twice as many times as the other teams. Far more times than is recommended.”
“The IF may adopt this tech, sir,” Mazer said, “whether I agree with that decision or not. Should that occur, we must know the best operational tactics to minimize casualties and maximize success. That means taking every aspect of this operation into consideration and holding it up to intense scrutiny. Not just the tech itself, but how we deliver the tech, how we work as a team to set and activate the cubes. The op seems rather straightforward, I know, but my team has discovered many potential improvements. Everything from specific choreography to new tech marines might find useful.”
“New tech?” asked Vaganov. “Like what exactly?”
“A few days ago we developed a rudimentary design for a nanobot shield that would catch and dampen explosive Formic doily rounds.” Mazer explained the premise behind the shields. Then, with Colonel Vaganov’s permission, he reached into the holofield and dug through the station’s files until he brought up the model Shambhani had created.
“I see,” said Vaganov. “Interesting. Have you told anyone outside your team about this design?”
Mazer hesitated. The IF didn’t explicitly forbid private forums like the one Mazer had created, but Mazer had never met a commander who liked the idea. If he divulged the forum to Vaganov, there was the risk that Vaganov would order him to shut it down. Mazer could probably argue whether that was a lawful order or not, but he didn’t want to risk it. So he answered honestly without mentioning the forum.
“I’ve shared it with a few junior officers, yes.”
Vaganov shook his head. “Next time, don’t. If you share ideas with junior officers, they’ll only run it up the chain as if it were their own. What’s worse, their simpleminded commanders will dismiss the tech outright because they won’t understand it. Then these same commanders will fight against the tech’s approval should it resurface elsewhere, lest they look like the fool for not approving it initially. That’s how these people think, Mazer. They’ll do anything to protect their own image. I saw it all the time at Acquisitions. It’s senseless and stupid, but that’s the IF. Share your ideas with others outside your circle, and you’re throwing pearls before swine.”
Mazer considered that. On one hand, he agreed. He had seen commanders act in the very way Vaganov described. Yet guarding ideas wasn’t the solution either.
“If you have ideas,” said Vaganov, “anything that requires development, bring them to me. Let me employ our engineers and get some momentum behind it before some dimwit commander puts a bullet in it. While at Acquisitions I developed relationships with people who can make things happen. They trust me. If I connect you with them, they’ll listen to you.”
Mazer didn’t like the arrangement. If he took Vaganov’s orders to the letter, he would never post to the forum again, he would bring everything directly and only to the colonel. That would defeat the very purpose of the forum and hinder the proliferation of ideas.
And yet … if Vaganov was sincere, if he had the connections he claimed, he might break down all the barriers Mazer and others had encountered as they tried moving intel and ideas up the chain.
“Are we clear?” said Vaganov.
“Understood,” said Mazer.
Vaganov nodded, the matter settled. “Good. Now, back to the gravity disruptor. You think the device will fail. Why?”
“Several reasons,” said Mazer. “One, Formics communicate instantaneously across great distances without tech. As soon as one Formic figures out we’re using camouflaged capsules, every Formic on every ship will know. They won’t take chances after that. They’ll obliterate every scrap of debris approaching their ships. Big or small.”
Vaganov nodded. “Go on.”
“Problem two,” said Mazer. “It’s unlikely that the GD can penetrate the hull of a Formic ship. We have their scout ship from the previous war in our possession … well, technically Juke Limited has it, but it doesn’t matter anyway because the engineers at Juke can’t even scratch its surface. Nothing damages that hull. It’s an indestructible alien alloy that remains a total mystery. Ukko Jukes believed gravity manipulation could damage it, but he was wrong. The GD is built upon the same principle. It will likely prove ineffective as well.”
“The hull of the Formic scout ship is not the only material the Formics use to construct their ships,” said Vaganov. “The Juke gravity weapon ripped Formic fighters to shreds.”
Mazer nodded. “Fighters, yes. But those were small vessels not intended for interstellar flight and built with a different alloy. The ships we need to breach are the big interstellar ships en route to our solar system. They will likely have indestructible hulls much like the scout ship.”
“Probably,” Vaganov agreed. “Anything else?”
“The GD’s delivery system,” said Mazer. “The pieces must be hand-delivered and set. Which means if the capsules don’t deliver the marines, the mission fails. In our test runs, we use a dummy Formic ship that’s adrift. In battle, Formic ships will be active and mobile, capable of altering their speed and trajectory at any moment. If they do while the capsules are en route, which is highly likely, the marines will miss the target altogether and float off into space.”
“The GD is by no means a perfect system,” said Vaganov. “Unfortunately, it’s the best we have at the moment, and time is running short. The loss of Copernicus has the world in an uproar. Confidence in the IF is at an all-time low. This is a delicate situation, Mazer. If we appear weak and inept, we could lose support from superpowers like the US and China, whose taxes fund the Hegemony and the IF. That would only leave us we
aker than we already are.”
Mazer nodded. He understood the state of things.
“That’s where you come in,” said Vaganov. “The Hegemon wants to announce new tech in our arsenal to put people’s minds at ease, something that shows we’re prepared for the fight ahead.”
“The gravity disruptor,” said Mazer.
Vaganov nodded. “The Hegemon wants to unveil it to the press. The capsules and the GD will illustrate that we can strike the Formics to the heart.”
“That’s premature,” said Mazer. “And misleading. We don’t know that the GD will work. In all likelihood it won’t.”
“That’s not the point,” said Vaganov. “The point is to provide the perception of strength. Whether the GD sees combat or not is irrelevant. The Hegemon wants to give the press a dog and pony show, and that’s precisely what we will give them.”
“How?” said Mazer. “The engineers haven’t even begun testing live charges. We’re still practicing with dummy cubes.”
“No more,” said Vaganov. “Tomorrow morning you will begin testing with live charges.”
Mazer couldn’t hide his surprise. “Sir, every computer simulation thus far has shown that the hull’s integrity responds in unpredictable ways. Cracks form outside the detonation zone. Shrapnel is heavy. The engineers are still calibrating the device. They’ll tell you it’s not ready.”
“I have spoken with the engineers,” said Vaganov. “And I have given them my instructions. They’ll be ready.”
“They assure you they’ll be ready or you have ordered them to be ready?”
Vaganov’s pleasant expression fell. “Careful, Mazer. You overstep your bounds the moment you question my orders.”
“Sir,” said Mazer, “with all due respect, testing the GD on human ships teaches us little about how the Formic hull material will react. We’d be testing on watermelons and making conclusions about bowling balls.”
“That fact is not lost on me, Captain. But we don’t have Formic ships to practice on. The scout ship is property of Juke Limited, and they won’t grant us access.”