Fleet Action (wc-3) by William Forstchen (100 books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

Jason could see the clear division in the room, the military personnel, especially the front line fleet commanders, nodding in agreement, the civilian personnel sitting quietly.

"Don't let the pressure off now, I'm begging you, reminding you that we've lost millions upon millions of our finest to get to this point. Now is when we should be tightening the screws, hitting them all out with everything we have. Until you stopped us ten days ago. Operation Red Three held the promise of inflicting serious losses on the Empire — it might have permanently put them off balance.

"Might have," Jamison replied. "That is always part of your military jargon, might have. There was no guarantee. In earlier testimony today you heard Admiral Banbridge state that Kilrathi front line carriers still outnumbered ours by nearly two to one. Simulation studies of Red Three demonstrated that the probability for full success was less than twenty percent, and there was a twenty-five percent chance of a reversal and a loss of most of our escort carriers with little if anything gained. You might take such things lightly, Admiral, after all you would be secure in your heavy carrier, but I lost a son on one of those suicide missions you and your people so blithely send out."

Tolwyn glared at Jamison.

Her loss was well known and she made a point of attacking the fleet whenever possible as a result. He could feel some sympathy for her, but on the other side of the coin was the fact that there was hardly anyone in the room who had not lost loved ones in this war and to accuse him of not feeling that pain was enraging.

He focused his thoughts and pushed on.

"With support it would have worked. But you obviously don't want to give that support now."

"The question is moot," Admiral Banbridge interjected, looking over at Tolwyn, extending his hand in a calming gesture. "Red Three was scrubbed ten days ago and is impossible now to restart. Kilrathi intelligence definitely has the plans by now."

"You just don't get the whole picture, do you, Admiral?" Jamison snapped. "Do you know just how much it costs to build and launch one fleet carrier?

"Seventy three billion and some change," Jamison continued, not giving Tolwyn a chance to interject. "A full compliment of fighters another ten billion. In the last three years we've lost over one and a half trillion dollars worth of carriers and fighters."

"I rather think of it as some fine young men and women that we lost, such as your son," Tolwyn bristled.

Jamison stared at Tolwyn with hate filled eyes.

"You can think of it that way," Jamison replied, "but I and the rest of the government also have to look at the war from a financial light. It cost nearly eight trillion a year to run the war and we have a deficit of over forty trillion. It'll take generations just to pay that off. Shortages are wide spread, in a fair part of the Confederation rationing of everything from fuel to nylon to eggs is in place. You say we shouldn't give the Kilrathi a breather? I think rather it is we who are lucky to have a breather. The civilian population is war weary, Tolwyn and after thirty-two years of fighting I think we have had enough and for that matter the Kilrathi have had enough as well. I'm sick to death of the old military logic of having to waste more blood to somehow uphold the honor of those who are already dead. It's time to let the dead rest, Admiral. Let's finish it now and get on with the peace."

"I find it difficult to accept that a full accounting of the Kilrathi armed forces has actually been reached," Tolwyn replied, falling back on the second position of his argument. "I find it difficult to accept that we are actually allowing Kilrathi personnel into Confederation space as observers and in general I find it difficult to accept that our leaders would be so foolish as to actually believe this entire affair."

The civilians in the room bristled, but Rodham held up his hand and nodded for Tolwyn to continue.

"In the two years prior to your agreement to this armistice we dealt a series of bitter reversals to the Kilrathi. It must have had an impact on their morale. As you know, the young captain behind me," and he paused to nod back towards Jason, "took part in the destruction of six carriers right on the doorstep of the Imperial home planet.

"Now is not the time to call an armistice; now, if anything, is the time to jack the pressure up to the breaking point. I've heard some of you say that we don't really understand the Kilrathi, that down deep they are just like us. I don't think so. Maybe there'll come a day when we can live peacefully with them, but unfortunately it is not now. We must deal with them through strength. All our psy-ops studies have shown that if the Kilrathi have contempt for anything it is for one who displays hesitation or weakness. Even their word for such a person, tuka, is spoken with a sneering contempt, a word so insulting that a Kilrathi challenged with such a smear will fight to the death. And I tell you now that we are tuka in their eyes if we fall for this subterfuge."

There was an angry ripple in the room and even Tolwyn's superiors stirred uncomfortably.

"Only now are we really starting to learn of their political and social system. Take that information and use it, consider the suggestion formulated by the psy-ops division, plan K-7, which called for specific strikes against the holdings of only one or two families, making them share an unequal burden and perhaps cause a permanent rift triggering a civil war. Now is not the time to stop, it's the time to finish this war on our terms."

Jason could sense