“Any time,” Herzer replied. “If I’m not running errands for the general.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Joel replied. “Good day.”
“Good day to you,” Herzer nodded as the man entered the tent.
“Who was that?” Destrang asked as they headed for the main tent.
“I’m not sure I should say,” Herzer answered then shrugged. “He’s a spook.”
“A what?”
“An intel officer. I don’t know what he’s doing here.”
Chapter Ten
“Hello again… Major,” Edmund said. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Joel said, sitting down languidly.
“I’ve blocked out most of the afternoon,” Edmund continued, getting a cup of coffee from the samovar. “Want some?”
“Please,” Joel replied, opening up his briefcase. “I suppose I don’t have to tell you about need-to-know.”
“Not really,” Edmund replied. “But do I decide that or you?”
“I suppose we’ll have to discuss it,” Joel answered with a grin.
“What name are you using at the moment?” Edmund asked.
“Kolata,” Joel said. “When I’m in my official capacity I generally just go by T.”
Joel Travante had been one of the few police in the pre-Fall era. The Council Inspectors were independent operatives and most of them worked part-time. But among the group was a smaller core, the Special Inspectors, who were the elite. You became a Special by solving the toughest cases in the best possible fashion. Joel Travante had been a Special Inspector for forty years prior to the Fall.
Just prior to the Fall he had been in the Asur Islands trying to find a serial rapist and murderer. Either was difficult pre-Fall since everyone was protected by personal protection fields. The perpetrator would seduce young women into lowering their shields and then keep them too occupied, mostly by pain, to be able to raise them again.
Joel had been close on his heels when the perp disappeared, apparently off the face of the earth. The inspector had finally found information that indicated the murderer had turned himself into a kraken and was hiding somewhere near the bottom of the sea. The question being, which bottom? He had managed to trace him to the Asur Islands and had been preparing to go hunting in the depths when the Fall hit.
After the Fall he had worked fishing boats. Then, when New Destiny took over the islands, he had taken his small boat and sailed two thousand kilometers to Norau. From there he had reestablished contact with Sheida Ghorbani and gone back to work. This time not as an inspector, but first as a member of her burgeoning intelligence apparatus and then as its head.
He liked his job for several reasons. One of them was that he got to see the real information about the world, messed up as it was. The other reason being that his wife and daughter had been in Briton and Ropasa, respectively, and his position was the only one he could imagine where he might get some inkling of their fates.
“Any word on your wife and daughter?” Edmund asked, handing him a cup of coffee. “I’ve got cream and sugar.”
“Black, sir, thank you,” Travante replied. “And no, unfortunately.”
“Well, if we can ever get back to Ropasa, hopefully we’ll find something out,” Edmund said, glad that both his wife and daughter had managed to make it home after the Fall. He could imagine what a hell it must be for Travante. “So, what do you have for me?”
“The anti-dragon frigates were a known weapon,” Joel started. “I’d sent both a description and schematics to Naval Intelligence who apparently decided that it was an ‘unconfirmed report.’ I’ve also developed intel on their carriers. There are some differences from ours, some significant ones I believe.”
“Such as?”
“Shorter legs,” Joel said, extracting a sheet of paper. “They’re only good for about forty days at sea. Furthermore, the training of the dragon-riders is, my analysts believe, sub-optimum. That is confirmed, I feel, by their lack of success.”
“They took out four carriers,” Edmund pointed out.
“Yes, sir, but given the number of dragons they can loftÑthey carry forty-five, which is one reason they are short-leggedÑthey should have been able to sink the entire fleet. Their aim was rather poor.”
“Okay, point.”
“They currently have six, unfortunately. I’ll admit that the additional carrier caught me by surprise. I’ve been concentrating my gathering efforts in the northern ports and they apparently used Bassay to build and field that one. Their fleet is currently headed for home ports, including the one from Bassay, which is headed to attach to the main fleet. They were caught by the storm and badly battered around; they also don’t appear to have as good quality of sailors as we do. Some of their light units and one anti-dragon frigate are reported as lost.”
“How many frigates did they have?”
“Ten, which explains our losses,” Joel replied. “It’s not my place to ask, but are you going to be able to replace those?”
“I’ve got wyverns flying in from all over,” Edmund replied. “Training them, and their riders, will take some time but not as much as you’d think. Once they make a carrier landing, I’ll have the ships do further work-ups at sea. And I think I can do some work on the supply issues. But the shipyards are going to have to work like demons.”
“You can anticipate them doing a fast turn-around on their end,” Joel pointed out. “I don’t have any intel on their intentions. So far I’ve been able to establish a fairly good intelligence group in Ropasa, but penetrating their high level positions is a slow and dangerous business.”
“Well, keep at it,” Edmund sighed. “What else do you have?”
“Quite a bit, actually…”
Edmund was leaning back in a comfortable chair, a glass of wine in his hand and his feet propped up when there was a knock on the door.
He looked at it irritably and sighed. It was after midnight and he had been meeting with one person or another all day and most of the day before. He certainly was in no mood for more company. But there was no one else to answer it. He’d sent Herzer and the rest off when he got back to his quarters.
He set the cup down and walked over, mentally grumbling to himself. It seemed as if no one on the entire base, possibly in the entire Navy, had the slightest clue how to organize and manage a military force. Oh, they could move food around and they could sail ships. But that seemed to be as far as they’d thought. No one that he had encountered seemed to think in terms of bringing harm to the enemy.
For Edmund, who thought about it even when there wasn’t an enemy to bring harm to, it was like being the one-eyed man in the country of the blind.
He jerked the door open, intending to ream a new asshole, and then smiled when he saw it was Shar Chang.
“I can come back later,” the general said. He’d gotten a new uniform and washed up but he still looked worn out from the long flight.
“No,” Edmund said, waving him into the room, “I said as soon as you woke up. One of the things I’m trying to get this cluster of school boys to understand is the concept of doing the work when it needs to be done.”
“Sailors generally understand that,” Shar pointed out. “A storm doesn’t care what time it is.”
“Most of these guys were sailors when you knew exactly when there would be a storm,” Edmund pointed out, pouring another glass of wine. He handed it to Shar and sat back down, waving at the chair across from him.
“Point,” Shar said. “Do you know how the senior officers were chosen?”
“No. I know they all come from that same sailing club.”
“Every year the club has a regatta, a race,” Shar said, taking a sip of wine and looking at the ceiling. “Quite the do. Yachts come in from across the world. It was one of the big events right at the end of the yachting season. Anyway, absent any other way to choose, the senior officers were chosen from the captains that had the best time in last year’s race. Draskovich was the winner; the man really can sail. Kabadda was in second place, by a nose if I recall correctly. Et cetera.”