>
"Well, sir, we were there doing some standard recon on what we thought
> > >was a launch point for a possible first strike force.
As usual our intell
> > >was bad. Not that the information was bad, but I
believe that the analysis
> > >was of poor quality. We went in. I wish I could say
completely undetected,
> > >but I can not. I thought we got in fairly clean.
Enough for a quick look
> > >around before the heat came in. However, they were
waiting for us. Just
> > >they have been for several missions now. I can only
speculate on the
> > >reasons why, sir, so I will include them in my
official report. We got in,
> > >and somehow they found us. They found us, and tried
to corner us. The only
> > >thing that saved us was Palmer. He did a lone rush on
a squad of cardies
> > >and took them out, and almost got taken out himself.
If he had not done
> > >that, sir, we would have been captured. I was lucky
to get him back to our
> > >medic."
(snip)
> > She walked over to him and motioned questioningly if there were
any bugs in that place.
> He shook his head to say 'No sir.'
"Have a seat, Mrrr. Rrrussco," she said calmly and sat herself.
Once he had, she leaned in a little to show she was interested in everything
he had to say. Her voice remained calm and intent on what he had to
say. "Firrrst of all, I'd like to congrrratulate you on getting yourrr
team out alive. You werrre in a tough situation and you pulled them all
out. That's a verrry harrrd thing to do, and I'm imprrressed." She
was very sincere about it.
"Thank you, Sir." he
replied.
"Now, I do have some questions, and I want you to tell me exactly
what you think. I don't want to hearrr some sugarrr-coated
storrry. I can rrread that on Spacedock. Tell me the trrruth, all
of it."
"Aye, sir." he again replied. Slowly calming
down from the rush of inadvertently bashing his CO within ear shot of the
Admiral, and the hasty retreat of the officers at her order.
"Good. Now, what do you mean when you say they werrre waiting forrr
you? How do you think they knew?" Her eyes were keen and intent,
not the dull, bored look she had given Brell.
"It is not
that we have a leak sir, it is less intelligent than that. We found this
site about two months ago, and we did an initial recon. The results were
not spectacular, but we got some good information. So, we did another,
and another, and another. Each time getting better evidence of a staging
area for a first strike. Well, it is not to say that we were not
careful, but that we kept going there. We were bound to be
detected. I told the LCMR Pembroke, the PYT with Commander Brell, that
if we were to go back to this site that we should do it right. Send in a
full team and conduct a detailed look see. I was thinking of a two to
three day mission, on planet, searching and evading any patrols. That
would have done it. But instead, he organized several successive
missions with limited goals. We could have combined all of his little
excursions into one mission. The bad thing is that most of these little
trips, I had only a third to half of my team with me. To boil this
entire thing down, sir, is that Pembroke was a lacky on a hand full of
missions and now he is a Senior Operative planning missions. He
has no real idea what it is like out there. He refuses to listen to me,
my second or any of the other team leaders about missions. He just reads
the reports, and moves on. This little stick thinks he is an admiral up
on high, reads the summary of the reports, and plans his next mission.
"
Realizing his slip of the
tounge, "Aahhhh I did not mean you, sir. What I meant to say that
he skims the reports for the overall picture. That is not his job.
It is his responsibility to plan missions. Missions that can lead to
lives lost, and that can not, should not be done with a high level assessmment
of the situation. Sir." he thought he was just digging himself in deeper
so he decided to stop there.
{response}
