Orphans. Why did it have to be orphans?
I’ll go see them. I’ll find the time. I owe them that.
“Admiral, I have the information you asked for,” Duellos said.
Geary looked over at Duellos. He was trying to stop the simmering anger caused by the latest reply from General Sissons, which had simply punted the problem back to Geary rather than offering either forces or solutions. The anger was aimed as much at himself as at Sissons. I should have realized that Sissons could keep up this kind of thing indefinitely. I need a way to pressure him into supporting what it looks like will have to be my plan.
The battle cruisers Inspire, Formidable, Implacable, and the light cruisers with them, were only twenty-four light-minutes, or about four hours’ travel time at point one light speed, distant from the primary world at Adriana as they continued en route the planet. Geary, uncomfortable in the flag-officer quarters aboard Inspire, had come to the bridge to watch events and get a better feel for how Inspire ran. “Which information was that?”
“The true status of the military forces in this star system.” Duellos gestured a tall, trim male lieutenant forward. “Lieutenant Barber, please give the Admiral a rundown.”
“Yes, sir.” Barber called up a virtual window and began explaining it to Geary. “These are aerospace unit and base designations. Over here are ground forces unit and base designations. These lines represent all of the comm traffic to and from those units and bases that we’ve been able to identify. More traffic, thicker lines, less traffic, thinner lines. Much of the traffic on Adriana’s main planet would be by ground channels, such as buried cables, which we can’t spot from out here, but by monitoring message sequence numbers, we’re able to tell how many messages we’re not seeing.”
“That’s clear enough,” Geary said. “The aerospace units all seem to be pretty busy.”
“Yes, sir. We assess that the status reports we’re seeing from the aerospace forces are accurate and do represent the actual forces present in this star system.” Barber paused, his lips thinning as he looked to the ground forces side of the image. “But for the ground forces, some units don’t seem to be communicating with each other or with their headquarters except for those status reports saying all is well and they are at almost one hundred percent readiness.”
Geary shook his head. “You’re saying some ground forces units, but to me it looks like most of those units.”
“Yes, sir. Which is especially odd since elements of those units are supposed to be on duty at facilities off planet. There would have to be a lot of messages we could see. There’s nothing going to or from them, though, except daily status reports. One of my chiefs ran a pattern analysis on those status reports coming from units that had no other comm traffic. She found that when all reports are compared against each other, the number of minor problems reported each day, such as the number of personnel sick or percent of equipment temporarily degraded, closely matches the results produced by a simple random number generator.”
“They’re fake,” Geary said.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Barber agreed. “My assessment is that those units do not actually exist.”
Geary looked toward Duellos. “Some of those units have been assigned to Adriana for a long time.”
“True enough,” Duellos said. “But that doesn’t mean they are still here.”
“The units were disestablished, but they were left in the comm systems?”
“In the entire command and control system,” Duellos corrected. “If you’re going to maintain the illusion of an army, you have to ensure the command and control system reflects that illusion.”
“My best estimate,” Lieutenant Barber said, “is that each of the two ground forces divisions still assigned here actually only have a single brigade of soldiers still active. The rest of the ground forces organization is just an empty shell that, as Captain Duellos says, produces the illusion of a much larger force than really exists.”
“Force reductions,” Geary said as he studied the image showing Barber’s analysis. “Done in such a way as to mask their impact. Ground forces divisions have three brigades these days? That means the ground forces in Adriana have been cut by two-thirds. The locals must know, though. You can’t hide all of those empty garrisons and camps. You can’t hide the lack of soldiers going out on liberty and spending money on the local economy.”
“The locals may know the truth,” Duellos said, “or they may be starting to guess the truth, but they may not wish to accept it. With what you told me about Yokai, it’s clear that the Alliance is going to extensive efforts to conceal how the force reductions have impacted its defenses near the border with the Syndicate Worlds.”
Lieutenant Barber pointed to some of the ground forces unit designations. “Sir, the locals may have been told that those missing soldiers were sent to Yokai. I saw a couple of reports that indicated the locals believe that the defenses at Yokai have been strengthened.”
“Maybe those defenses were strengthened,” Geary said, but he didn’t really believe it.
“Admiral,” Barber said with immense caution, “if, uh, if those missing units were at Yokai, there would not be any need to, uh, pretend they were still here.”
“You’re right,” Geary said. “Lieutenant Barber, I don’t mind people telling me when they have good reason to believe I may be wrong. In fact, I appreciate it. Thank you.”
Barber smiled with obvious relief. “Yes, sir. It’s just that… other admirals…”
“I know, Lieutenant. I’ve dealt with my own share of admirals who don’t want to ever be told they might be wrong.” Geary peered at the study again. “Both divisional headquarters are reporting that they are fully intact. Is that right?”
“As far as we can tell, yes, sir. Headquarters units appear to be fully operational. There are indications, requests for more workspace equipment and things of that nature, that they have grown a bit.”
“They gutted the fighting units, and not only kept the headquarters at full strength but made the headquarters larger?”
“When money is short, you have to keep your priorities straight,” Duellos observed sarcastically. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Excellent work. The Admiral and I will now discuss Great and Important Matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
Barber retreated to the comm watch station, and Duellos activated the privacy field around his and Geary’s seats. “Colonel Galland told you that the locals raised a fuss to maintain her wing at full strength,” Duellos said. “That probably didn’t endear Colonel Galland to her superiors.”
“No. I’m sure it didn’t,” Geary said. “And she said that General Sissons likes to suck up to his bosses though she didn’t say it quite so bluntly.”
Duellos smiled. “If General Sissons wanted above all to keep his superiors happy, he would have gone along without protest with any reductions in force passed on to him, and not told the locals so they wouldn’t raise any fuss that might upset Sissons’s bosses. We now know why Sissons hasn’t offered you any ground forces,” Duellos said. “He doesn’t have any to spare. Those who are left are maintaining the image of two full divisions. Judging by how many refugee ships we’re dealing with, we would need a substantial fraction of at least one brigade of ground forces to get this job done, and if that many more troops left Adriana, the whole imaginary house of cards would collapse as it became painfully obvious just how few Alliance soldiers were left here.”