Dreadnaught

All potential factors. New officers used to complain that there was no way to describe all potential factors, and we’d laugh and tell them that was the whole idea of the regulation. All . . . Potential . . . Factors.

I’ve never really taken advantage of being Black Jack, the popular hero. But I’ve never liked people like Celu. And I have a lot of other things I should be doing besides justifying my decisions to a bunch of bureaucrats at headquarters. I will not screw the crew members who are taking leave now and earned that leave in plenty of battles. Nor will I rush a mission that requires substantial preparation.

There wasn’t much I could do about this kind of thing before. But they need me in command of this fleet. And, by regulations, I have ultimate responsibility for deciding what to do here. I just have to justify my decision.

He carefully composed a text reply. In response to your message (reference a), per fleet regulation 0215 paragraph six alpha, I am required to take into account all potential factors in carrying out orders. The current projected departure date on my assigned mission reflects my assessment of all potential factors, including but not limited to the time necessary to meet essential logistics, readiness, repair, personnel, and planning requirements. Justification for this assessment and delineation of all potential factors is contained herein (attachment b).

He had offered no give on his chosen departure date, though that was slightly hidden in a nicely vague, politely worded, and deceptively brief message containing no real information. The information would be taken care of by the attachment. They want all possible factors? I’ll let them read through everything to see if they can find any grounds for saying my decision isn’t justified.

Geary instructed the fleet database to copy every official file it held on any subject (though he did exempt anything related to the Potemkin fleet simulation) and drop the entire collection into a single folder to attach to his message. The fleet’s massed computing power, every warship linked into a single networked system, chugged away at that one task for several minutes. He hadn’t imagined it was possible for any task to take that long for the fleet’s systems to handle and was wondering if he had somehow managed to crash the network when the result finally flashed onto his screen.

Geary paused then, awed by the sheer magnitude of the resulting attachment to his message. The mass of information was so huge that it would probably give even a black hole indigestion.

That made him wonder what would happen when all of that information got dumped into headquarters databases already renowned for their musty size and scale. Could a large enough mass of information result in a collapse into a virtual black hole of degenerate information from which nothing could escape? If the result meant that headquarters would have trouble sending out more messages, it was certainly worth a try.

He took another look at Celu’s image, thinking of her order to respond quickly, then gave his reply the highest nonemergency priority. You asked for a reply as soon as possible. You’re going to get it.