“Any officer? So you’re saying that Fleet officers make a habit of disobeying orders, of needlessly sacrificing the lives of their spacers?”
Michael shook his head. “What I am saying is that I did what any Fleet officer would-”
“So you admit it? You admit sending good spacers to their deaths unnecessarily?”
A hairbreadth away from leaping out of his seat and beating Pantini to death with his own holocam, Michael kept his cool. How he did not know, but he did. He stared Pantini right in the eye. “I think, Mister Pantini, that this would be a much better interview if you actually let me finish. If you don’t want me to answer your questions, if you’d prefer to do all the talking, that’s fine. I’ll save us all a lot of time, and I’ll sit here saying nothing while you tell me-and the rest of the world-what you think.”
“Please continue,” Pantini said tetchily.
“Thank you,” Michael said, all sweetness and light. “Here’s the point. Destroying the Hammer plant was the reason-the only reason-the ships of Battle Fleet Lima were in Hammer space, and I’m sure I don’t have to remind you why doing that was so important. Or weren’t you here when the Hammers fired antimatter missiles at the home planets? I’d-”
“I thought you wanted to answer the question, Lieutenant.”
Furious with himself for trying to score points off Pantini-he sensed Mitesh wagging his finger at him, a look of profound disappointment on his face-Michael forced himself to concentrate. “I am answering your question, Mister Pantini, if you’d let me,” he said, recovering his equilibrium. “I followed my orders, and those orders were to destroy the Hammer plant. If I hadn’t, that plant would still be operational, still be producing antimatter, and your home planet and mine would still be living under the threat of imminent destruction.”
“Rear Admiral Perkins does not share that view with you. What will you say when the board of inquiry agrees with him?”
“We don’t know that it will, Mister Pantini. I’ve not seen their report yet, and neither have you, so I think we should wait to see what they actually say.”
And so on and on it went, around and around in circles, frustrating in all its pointless futility. By the time Michael finally rid himself of Pantini-nobody from Fleet PR bothered to turn up to help him out-it was too late to step out to grab lunch; ignoring an outraged stomach, he sat and waited for the board to reconvene.
At 13:00 promptly, Captain Shavetz brought the conference to order. When silence fell, he peered around the packed room. “Welcome back. This is what is going to happen. I will present a short summary of the board’s key conclusions, absent those that are classified for the reasons I have already outlined. Then I will present our recommendations. After that, the unclassified version of our report will be available from the Fleet public relations office in the normal way. Together with the chief of the defense force and the commander in chief, I will be available for questions at a press conference at 17:00. Right, let’s get on. The conclusions of the board of inquiry are these …”
Michael’s heart started to thump when Shavetz recited the first of what would inevitably be a long list of conclusions, a process made even longer by the man’s florid turn of phrase. Come on, come on, he urged Shavetz silently.
Finally Michael’s moment of truth arrived.
“Conclusion 31. That Rear Admiral Perkins’s order that Dreadnought Group, commanded by Lieutenant Helfort in FWSS Reckless, come to the assistance of Assault Group was a legal order as defined by the Federated Worlds Code of Military Justice.
“Conclusion 32. That Rear Admiral Perkins believed his order to be consistent with the mission’s prime objective, which was, to quote verbatim from the operation order, ‘the total destruction of Hammer Support Facility 27.’
“Conclusion 33. That Rear Admiral Perkins issued the order to Dreadnought Group because he believed the ships of Assault Group under his command to be the only force capable of destroying Hammer Support Facility 27.
“Conclusion 34. That the Board has been unable to determine why Rear Admiral Perkins held this conviction, a conviction held despite advice given to him by all senior members of his own staff.”
The conference room was silent, the attention of everyone present locked on Captain Shavetz. Hands clenched, Michael allowed a tiny flame of hope to flicker into life.
Shavetz continued. “Conclusion 35. That the evidence presented to this board of inquiry demonstrates beyond any doubt”-Shavetz stopped to look up as if to make sure everybody paid attention-“that compliance with Rear Admiral Perkins’s order would have resulted in the neutralization of Dreadnought Group.
“Conclusion 36. That the evidence presented to this board of inquiry demonstrates that even with the assistance of Dreadnought Group, Assault Group’s losses would have rendered it incapable of completing its assigned task, namely, the destruction of Hammer Support Facility 27.
“Conclusion 37. Noting the precedent set by Federated Worlds v. Captain J. D. Kingsway FWSF (2315), that the decision of Lieutenant Michael Helfort, commander Dreadnought Squadron One, of Junior Lieutenant Kelli Anushri Rao, commander Dreadnought Squadron Two, and of Junior Lieutenant Nathan Panyar Machar, commander Dreadnought Squadron Three, to disobey the order of Rear Admiral Perkins to come to the assistance of Assault Group was wholly justified.”
The only sound was a gentle murmur washing across the room. Michael breathed out a long slow sigh of relief.
“Conclusion 38. That there are no grounds for disciplinary or administrative action against Lieutenant Michael Helfort or any other officer of Dreadnought Group as a consequence of their refusal to obey the order of Rear Admiral Perkins to come to the assistance of Assault Group.
“Conclusion 39. That Lieutenant Michael Helfort, Captain in Command, Federated Worlds Warship Reckless, and Commander, Dreadnought Group, discharged his duties during Operation Opera in a manner entirely consistent with the finest traditions of the Federated Worlds Space Fleet.”
Michael slumped back in his seat, drained of all emotion. It was over.
Thursday, May 31, 2401, UD
Transit officers’ quarters, Space Fleet headquarters,
Foundation, Terranova
After another mostly pointless day at his desk buried in the bowels of the Warfare Division, Michael fled to the safety of his cabin, unwilling to risk being hounded by supporters and enemies alike. Slamming the door behind him, he threw himself onto his bunk, mind racing.
Fool that he was, he had assumed that being cleared by the board of inquiry would allow him to move on, to leave Opera behind him, to convince the world that he had made the right decision.
No such luck.
The attitudes of many in Fleet were utterly impervious to the board’s logic. If anything, the board’s scathing criticism of Rear Admiral Perkins shocked the antidreadnought lobby into action. The response of the trashpress-never interested in either facts or logic-was no better.
Michael asked Fleet PR for a summary of the press coverage of the board’s findings. When he read it, he wished he had not. True, the serious news channels had been fine, but the trashpress had not, putting a saddle on the cover-up idea floated by Giorgio Pantini and riding it for all it was worth. The headlines were terrible: “Fleet Conspiracy to Cover up Hero’s Role?” “Hero’s Complicity in Fleet Deaths Not Explained,” “Fallen Hero-Betrayal at Devastation Reef,” “Fleet Inquiry-Whitewash Alleged,” “Rear Admiral Perkins-A Man Betrayed?” and so on ad nauseam. One thing was for sure: The trashpress was extracting its money’s worth from Lieutenant Michael W. Helfort, Federated Worlds Space Fleet.
Michael refused any more interviews after a particularly bruising encounter with Pantini; he had come within a hairbreadth of ripping the dishonest little jerk’s head off. Talking to people like Pantini was pointless. No matter what Michael said, no matter what an increasingly frustrated Fleet said, the trashpress trotted out its own warped view of the matter to the public: all selective quotations, lies, distortion, spin. Nothing was beyond them in their relentless efforts to paint Perkins as the real victim and Michael as the bad guy. His agent, the tireless Mitesh, had already launched legal action against Pantini and World News; sadly, the only result had been to goad Pantini into even more outrageous attacks.