Empire in Crisis Read Online Free PDF

thought that’s what Capital Fleet was
for, to act as a reserve fleet in case all other fleet assets were committed
elsewhere. I’m not suggesting moving the entire Capital Fleet just like THAT.”
He snapped his fingers to emphasize the point. “What I am suggesting is that
Capital Fleet’s cruiser squadrons be detached and redeployed to the starbases
along the Rift edge. Then, as we pull squadrons back from the Kravell border,
they can come back here to bring Capital Fleet back up to its full strength.
And before you present the same micro-management argument again, let me remind
you, Admiral Hiakawa, that the Emperor is still the Supreme Military Commander
and is entitled to make operational deployment decisions in time of war. I put
it to you that that is exactly what we have now. As far as I’m concerned, the
Empire is at war, and I will act accordingly. Is that going to be a problem,
Admiral Hiakawa?”
     
    Hiakawa’s expression revealed that he knew
there was no way to win this argument. Drawing a line in the sand about what
ship classes to build would get the support of the other 100 admirals, but
threatening to overthrow the Emperor regarding who should direct strategic
operations during a war with an alien race was an entirely different matter,
and in a war scenario, the Emperor did have both legal and traditional
authority to make those kinds of decisions. Hiakawa suspected that many of his
senior admirals would back the Emperor if Hiakawa dug his heels in.
     
    “No, my Emperor, that is not going to be a
problem.”
     
    DeChastelaine resisted the impulse to gloat
over forcing Hiakawa to back down. Whatever other negative traits Hiakawa might
have, he was a shrewd and intelligent adversary who understood that you
couldn’t expect to win every battle.
     
    “Very good. In that case, I want Capital
Fleet’s cruiser squadrons to be detached and sent to reinforce all our Rift
starbases, but TD39 is to get additional reinforcements, either one
battlecruiser squadron or two heavy cruiser squadrons. Get them moving fast,
Admiral. I’m going to want an operational briefing every day, and if any
cruiser squadron is still with Capital Fleet tomorrow, there had better be a
good reason for it. For the next while I will want you to brief me personally.
That may change later on.
     
    “Now as for this meeting, I see that the
remaining items on the agenda are not urgent and could be postponed until next
week, so I’m going to adjourn this meeting, but before I do, there’s one more
order that I want attended to immediately. I want to speak personally to this
SubCommander Logan in order to get his first hand impressions and any thoughts
that didn’t make it into his AA report. His ship can stay where it is. He can
turn command over temporarily to his acting XO and hitch a ride on the next
ship that can bring him back here either directly or indirectly. I’ll have my
staff contact yours to set up the daily briefing. This meeting is adjourned.”
     
    To his surprise, Hiakawa left the electronic
meeting room immediately. DeChastelaine remained to make sure that the 101
admirals weren’t continuing their own meeting without him. Eventually all of
the admirals had terminated their electronic connections and disappeared from
view. The Emperor was once again alone, and now that he was certain he wasn’t
being observed, he told his console computer to display the service record of
SubCommander Tyler Logan. There was something about that name that seemed
familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
     
    It was the Academy attendance dates that got
his attention first. DeChastelaine himself had attended the Space Force Academy
at the same time, while his clone father was still Emperor, before he’d been
poisoned by someone in his own Imperial Guard. But that was another issue that
had nothing to do with Tyler Logan. So, he and Logan had been Academy
classmates. DeChastelaine had no recollections of having met