For Honor We Stand (29 page)

“I wouldn’t know about ‘self-satisfied’ but, yes, I do believe I have an understanding of what is going on, a high capacity for inductive reasoning being essential to the successful practice of medicine.  I talked to these men about the specific circumstances under which they were awakened—who woke them up and what for.  I then looked at the wake/sleep logs for several other men similarly situated and they showed a similar, although not quite as severe pattern of disruption.  Many of these men are also showing stress-related symptoms.  I have identified seventeen men who are affected.  If something is not done soon, they will all begin to suffer serious medical problems from sleep deprivation and nervous exhaustion.”

“Why?  I don’t understand.  We’ve tossed Captain Oscar’s obsessive cleaning routines and insane reporting requirements out the airlock.  We’ve arranged the training schedule so that it is reasonable and places only sensible demands on every department.  Each section on each watch is being given only a small number of exercises to complete to build proficiency.  The scores are going up, the ratings are improving, and we are making progress.  Why should seventeen men be about to drop in the traces.”

“Because they are pulling almost the whole load.  They are carrying the ship.”

The two sat together in silence.  Then it clicked.  That is what Max had been seeing.  That’s what was wrong.  As the proficiency demands became higher and higher, the crew was responding by relying more and more on the small number of men who either had a high level of proficiency and expertise to begin with or who are very fast learners.  And, as the supposed proficiency level of the section or department got higher and higher, and the exercises and the work took that higher level into account, they got further and further above the heads of most of the rest of the crew, who had to rely ever more heavily on that same small number of highly proficient men. 

The weak arm was letting the strong do all the work.  And the work was now so hard that the strong arm was breaking.  The strong needed the help of the weak.  How do you strengthen the weak arm? 

Or the weak
eye
.

“Doctor, isn’t there a disease called ‘lazy eye’ that children get sometimes?”

“There are several conditions that receive that imprecise layman’s label.  I presume that you are referring to Strabismic amblyopia, a condition in which there is a misalignment of the eyes that results in the highly neuroplastic brain of the child essentially learning to not see or to reject the image from one of the eyes.  It is often treated by realigning the eyes with surgery and then taking some sort of action to teach the brain to accept and process the signals from the disfavored eye.”

“Exactly.  Didn’t they used to put a patch over the strong eye to force the child to see through the weak one?”

“A crude way to say it, but yes.  That was the treatment.  When the brain was presented with only one image, the child’s highly adaptable brain quickly learns to accept the only visual input that is available.  As soon as the brain is favoring both eyes with rough equality, the patch comes off and the problem is cured.  But that is not the modern treatment.”

“Why not?”

“Children don’t like wearing the eye patch.  The other children tease them.  So, we pharmacologically penalize the good eye.”

“You what?”

“Pharmacologically penalize.  Essentially, we put in eye drops that make the vision in the good eye blurry so that the brain will start relying on the weak eye.”

“Then, that is what we are going to have to do.  In order to make the weak eye strong we are going to have to make the strong eye weak.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“First, I’m going to have to trouble you for those seventeen names.”

“I understand.”  He reached into a pocket of his tunic and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.  “Here they are.  I thought something like this might be necessary.  And, next?  Are you going to tell the men that they have become too dependent upon these seventeen individuals and take them off duty, requiring the other men to shoulder the weight?”

Max recoiled in abject horror.  “Oh, no, doctor.  That would never do.  If I take those seventeen men out of service completely, the ship would go to pieces.  We can’t do without them entirely, or even most of the time.  Plus, the reaction of the men to something like that would be a disaster.  The seventeen would feel as though they were being punished for performing their jobs too well, which they would resent, and the remainder of the men would interpret the action as an implication that they are incompetent, which
they
would resent.  And, we mustn’t foster resentment when we can avoid it.  We are going to have to do something else entirely.”

“Captain, I very much fear that you are about to unveil one of your ruses.”

“Doctor, I very much fear that you are right.”

***

USS
Cumberland
   DPA-0004:  Ship’s Standing Order #15-14

20 March 2315

Effective immediately:

1.  Starting tomorrow and on every third day thereafter (Day 2 of every Watch Cycle) the persons listed on Attachment A will attend Special Leadership Development Training from 08:00 to 16:00 hours, with appropriate breaks for coffee, lunch, etc., as determined by the person(s) conducting said training. 

2.  So that the listed personnel may devote full attention to their studies and be appropriately rested, they are not to be disturbed by any person for any reason without the explicit permission of the CO or XO for the entire 24 hour period of the training day. 

3.  As this training program imposes substantial out of class work requirements, the listed personnel are to be exempt from any duty-related requirements on Days 1 and 3 of the Watch Cycle except when they are on watch.  They are not to be disturbed by any person for any reason when they are off watch without the explicit permission of the CO or XO.

4.  The listed personnel are similarly prohibited from engaging in any activities related to their regular duties on Day 2 of the Watch Cycle or when they are off watch without explicit permission of the CO or XO. 

5.  The provisions of this Standing Order are automatically suspended when the ship is at General Quarters. 

***

Having written and posted the General Order, Max spent a few hours at his workstation slogging through the endless bureaucratic minutia that seemed to be one of the primary burdens of command.  He had his supper brought to him.  It was outstanding.  The
Cumberland
was still eating high on the hog with provisions purchased on Rashid IV and given to the ship by Mr. Wortham-Biggs in exchange for information that he had been unknowingly selling supplies to the Krag through intermediaries.  Max dined on fruit cocktail, shrimp and crab gumbo (alas, the Rashidians did not cultivate oysters which would have been a delightful addition), Cajun potato salad (simply potatoes, eggs, mayonnaise and some mild seasonings, without all the chopped vegetables that usually go into potato salad), fresh French bread, and strawberry pie.  Between the Rashidian supplies and having a couple of Cajuns and a few more men of Southern descent in the galley, Max was starting to worry about gaining weight and being assigned mandatory workouts with the Chub Club, crew members found to be overweight and under medical orders for exercise over and above normal requirements.  He hadn’t eaten so well since the four months he had attended the Navy’s Covert Operations and Unconventional Warfare School on his home world of Nouvelle Acadiana five years ago.  Max ate at the keyboard, reading a series of newly issued intelligence estimates on Krag intentions and capabilities in the
Cumberland
’s
current operational area.  According to Intel, the Krag were about to begin a major push in this sector. 

Unless, of course, they decided to consolidate their previous conquests and adopt a defensive stance for the time being before initiating a major push sometime in the future.

Unless, of course, this sector had been indefinitely downgraded to a secondary theater in favor of major operations to take place against Task Force Sierra Bravo (Admiral Middleton’s force). 

Take your pick.

Intel.  Useless.  No, that wasn’t true.  When you got an Intel guy in the same room with you, you could usually get some decent answers out of him, and if you could get your hands on the intermediate level reports prepared by the Intel officers attached to the task forces, you could learn a lot.  But the top level reports out of Norfolk were so full of caveats and weasel words that they meant virtually nothing.  If the top Intel brass put as much effort into being right as they did into not saying anything that could later turn out to be wrong, they might get somewhere.  If those guys played poker, they would try to raise, call, and fold at the same time.

Older, more tired, but not more wise, Max turned his attention to a series of projections from NAVSUP, more fully known as the Naval Supply Systems Command, estimating the quantities of fuel, foodstuffs, ordinance, replacement parts, and other supplies that would be delivered to Task Force Tango Delta and other forces under Admiral Hornmeyer’s command over the next 45 days.  The Pfelung contribution to the war effort was starting to make itself felt.  As an Associated Power, the Pfelung brought one major asset to the table in addition to their not inconsiderable Navy:  deuterium.  Not only were they a major producer, they were a major producer located close to where the fighting was going on, meaning that the fleet now had a significant source of fuel that didn’t have to be hauled almost a thousand light years from the Core Systems or produced in newly-constructed separation plants or portable units.  As a result, total tonnage was up by almost 25% as shipping capacity freed up by the Pfelung’s fuel production was used for other transport.  NAVSUP estimated that the increase would eventually reach 40%, when production from the Pfelung system’s Europa-like ice moon Pfelung VII C, known locally as Strulp, was fully ramped up.  The logistics bean counters hadn’t even begun to put together figures on how much difference Rashid’s contribution was going to make, particularly given that Rashid also had a major deuterium production facility as well as industrial capacity on Rashid V A that came close to matching some of the second or upper third tier of industrial worlds in the Core Systems. 

Then there were the Romanovans.  Were they even going to be allies?  Their enormous potential contributions weren’t even a gleam in NAVSUP’s eyes.

The shipping increase resulting from in-sector fuel production meant fewer ships sitting idly in rear areas waiting for repair and replacement parts to arrive, fewer ships being sent into combat without a complete load out of missiles in their racks, more and better food on the men’s plates, better inventories in the ships’ Spare Equipment Bays, more rapid issuance and installation of improved and upgraded sensors, computers, fire control systems, point defense batteries, and weapons, and a subtle but measurable increase in the fleet’s combat effectiveness and ability to inflict death and destruction upon the enemy. 

Good news for everyone.  Except the Krag.

As hopeful as this news was in terms of the impact on the war (even so, Max’s rough calculations told him that it was not enough to overcome Krag advantages in production capacity and population, but it did narrow the margin), the reports themselves were deadly dull, even in comparison to other naval reports.  Max had several hours’ worth of material through which he had to wade, much of which consisted of tables listing the tonnage of various commodities projected to be made available in the sector month by month.  There was no way that his brain was going to assimilate any of that stuff unless he gave it a break.

He decided to go to the Wardroom to see what the Galley had put out for midrats.  Max had been serving as a Midshipman on warships for three years before he learned that “midrats” stood for “midnight rations” and not for “Midshipmen eat rats” or something to that effect.  Starting at 00:00 and lasting until the culinary staff needed to clear for breakfast, the Galley crew set food out in the Wardroom and the Enlisted Mess.  It wasn’t anything fancy, just dinner leftovers, sandwich makings, dinner rolls, sweet rolls, and a rotating variety of donuts, gelatin, fruit, cakes, pies, and cookies, and other simple but sustaining food on a self-serve, all you care to eat basis.  There were a lot of things the Navy did that just made good sense and this was one of them.  On a warship, there were men doing hard physical work and standing watches around the clock.  The very least the Navy could do for these men was to make sure that they didn’t go hungry as they worked through the night and no man had to go to his rack with an empty stomach after a long day’s duty. 

In the Wardroom, Max made for himself a salami and pastrami sandwich, and snagged a couple of kosher pickles, a handful of chips, three (or was it four) chocolate brownies, and two tall iced glassfuls of the reconstituted from powder artificially-flavored fruit beverage which, dating back to the days of the Salt Water Navies, has been known as “bug juice.”  According to a rumor that Max had never verified, the powder from which bug juice was made also served the galley staff as an abrasive cleanser.  Sometimes, Max wanted to know whether the rumor was true.  Most of the time, he didn’t.  There were things that men, even Captains, simply should not know.

Thus fortified, Max was ready to spend some more time trying to keep up to date in the larger picture of what was happening in the war.  He was walking from the Wardroom to his quarters when Midshipman Hewlett overtook and passed him in the corridor, moving as fast as his little legs could carry him without running.  Hewlett was the second smallest of the “squeakers,” “deck dodgers, “panel puppies,” or “hatch hangers,” the youngest group of Midshipmen, the boys taken on the ship to be inducted into the satisfactions, the adventure, the dangers, and the hardships of naval service.