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"Ma'am," he said finally, "I'm not going to pretend I'm happy hearing about any of this. Just between the two of us, I'm especially concerned about how Captain Aberu got access to a confidential report addressed solely to the Captain."
Even here, in Bourget's office, with no other human ear actually present, that was as close as he cared to come to suggesting that someone on Byng's staff had actually violated half a dozen regulations and at least two federal laws to acquire that "access." The two of them looked into one another's eyes for a second or two, sharing the same thought, before he went on.
"Having said that, however, I wrote that memo for two reasons. One was because I really had collected some additional evidence in support of Commodore Thurgood's analysis and wanted to make the Captain aware of it. But the second was expressly to give him something he could use in any discussions with Admiral Byng and his staff." He held Bourget's eyes unflinchingly. "Something he could throw out as a worst-case set of assumptions from a junior officer too inexperienced to realize how absurd they were . . . who might still have managed to stumble across something that needed to be considered."
"I thought that was probably what you had in mind," Bourget said softly, and those hard hazel eyes warmed with approval.
"Don't get me wrong, Ma'am." Askew produced a tight smile. "If the Captain didn't think he needed it, I hoped to hell that no one else—especially Captain Aberu—would ever even see it! I just wanted him to . . . have that warhead in his ammo locker if he did need it."
"I appreciate that, Matt. And so does the Captain. But I'm very much afraid that it's actually had something of the reverse effect."
"Ma'am?" Askew twitched in surprise, and Bourget's eyes hardened once more—though not at him, this time—and she snorted harshly.
"However Aberu got hold of it, and whether Admiral Byng ever saw your initial memo or not, she sure as hell showed this one to him. I'm not absolutely positive about this, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't even be suggesting the possibility to you, for a lot of reasons, but I'm inclined to think at this point that Aberu deliberately chose her moment carefully for sharing it with the Admiral." Askew's eyes widened, and the exec shook her head. "As I say, normally I wouldn't even suggest such a thing to you. In this case, though, to be honest, the shit you're in is deep enough that I think you need to know exactly who the players are and what they may be up to."
"Ma'am, it sounds to me like we're getting into things here that are way above my pay grade," Askew said nervously, and Bourget's laugh was even harsher than her snort had been.
"I'll keep it simple. Ingeborg Aberu and Admiral Thimár both have close personal and family links to . . . various industrial interests in the defense sector, shall we say? Both of them have spent their entire careers in the tactical track, and both of them have established firm reputations—in Battle Fleet, at least—as being on the cutting edge. Admiral Thimár, in particular, was one of the senior staffers when the Navy Ministry put together the 'Fleet 2000' initiative. As a matter of fact, she was the lead author on the final report."
Askew couldn't quite keep himself from grimacing at that. The Fleet 2000 Program had been the brainchild of Battle Fleet, although it had since spread and found adherents in Frontier Fleet, as well. Essentially, it combined good, old-fashioned pro-Navy propaganda with a more-or-less hardware response to some of the more extreme rumors coming out of the Manticore-Haven wars.
Funding within the gargantuan Solarian League was far more a bureaucratic than a legislative function, and had been for centuries. Nonetheless, public opinion often played a not insignificant role in deciding how funds were split up between competing bureaucracies, and so Fleet 2000 had been initiated. At its most basic level, it could arguably have been described as a "public education" effort designed to inform a largely ignorant Solarian public about the valuable services the Navy provided as humanity entered the twentieth century of interstellar flight. As such, it had included HD features on "Our Fighting Navy" and "The Men and Women of the Fleet," both of which had focused primarily on Battle Fleet, which had then been plastered across the entertainment cha
Frontier Fleet hadn't had any objection to the notion of additional funding going to the Navy, but it had objected—strenuously—to the notion of that funding going to the white elephants of Battle Fleet's superdreadnoughts rather than Frontier Fleet battlecruisers, or even destroyers, which might actually do something useful. As a consequence, Frontier Fleet's Public Information Office had gotten into the act, as well, producing such features as "On the Frontiers of Freedom" and "First to Respond."
"First to Respond" had been particularly effective, concentrating as it did on the many instances of disaster relief, deep-space rescue, and other humanitarian missions Frontier Fleet routinely carried out.
The other prong of "Fleet 2000," however, had been a deliberate effort to impress the public with the value—and effectiveness—it was receiving in response to its lavish funding. As a tactical officer himself, Askew had looked askance (to put it mildly) at that aspect of the program. Oh, there'd been some genuine advances, and some recognition of shifting threat levels where things like missiles were concerned, but nowhere near as much of it as the PIO releases suggested. In fact, a much greater degree of effort had been invested in what amounted to window dressing with the express purpose of making the Navy's ships and their equipment look even more impressive on HD.
Consoles had been redesigned, bridges and command decks had been rearranged, and the parts of the ships the public was ever likely to see had been generally opened up so that they looked more like something out of an HD adventure flick than a real warship. There'd actually been some improvements along the way—for example, those sleek new consoles not only looked "sexier" but actually provided better information and control interfaces. And although nothing much had been done to actually upgrade most of the fleet's tactical hardware, more recent construction had been redesigned to reflect a modular concept. It would appear that someone was at least willing to admit the possibility that improvements and upgrades might be forthcoming—someday—and the Office of Ship Design had been instructed to design for the possibility of plugging in new components. That was one of the major differences between the older Indefatigable-class ships and the newer Nevadas, like Jean Bart.
Yet despite the impression which had been deliberately created for the Solarian public, and despite all the money which had been spent in pursuit of Fleet 2000, very little in the way of actually improving the SLN's combat power had been achieved. After all, the Solarian Navy was already the most powerful and advanced fleet in space, wasn't it?
To be fair, Askew had partaken of that same confidence in the SLN's qualitative edge until very recently. Now, however, he'd been forced to confront the mounting evidence that his confidence—and everyone else's—had been misplaced. Which meant that whether or not anyone had intended them as such, the Fleet 2000 public relations claims amounted to . . . untruths. In fact, if it turned out Askew's fears were justified and it really did hit the fan out here, the public was going to see them as outright lies. And if Aberu and Thimár had direct family co
"Obviously, I can't be sure about this," Bourget said now, "but I don't think I'd be particularly surprised to discover that Captain Aberu and Admiral Thimár both had . . . vested interests in quashing any 'panicky fears' about 'impossible Manticoran super weapons,' especially if those 'panicky fears' suggest that our hardware might really need some minor improvements. And if that's the case, they wouldn't be very happy to have anyone rocking their boat."