Paperwork or the realities of war?

  Informal – Maj Chen

  The room was large. It had to be to accommodate the table that could seat twenty plus people but felt empty today. The walls were lined with banners and citations. Pictures of former senior command personnel and medals. Lots of medals. They looked down, stern but hopeful of this generation.

  Chen had been asked to attend a briefing session. He entered the room and was shown to a chair at the foot of the table.

  Lieutenant Colonel “Iron Maggie” Hale sat at the head of the table, opposite Chen. She was the Chief of Expeditionary Force Capability, quite the mouthful. Responsible for the capability pipeline and post-action system refinement. Known to be tough as hardened granite, but fair. Chen’s unit was part of her command and hidden within ‘Testing and Evaluation’.

  Hale started, “I am obliged to tell you that this briefing is being recorded. Let me know if you object.” She continued leaving him little in the way of time to object, “On my left is Major Grant. He has an operational focus. On my immediate right is Major Wolfe. He’s responsible for staff and planning. You know these people.”

  Chen nodded. Hale continued, “On my far right is Captain Tran. She is here to provide us legal counsel… if needed. Tran will also take notes.” She nodded.

  He looked at the four. It was feeling a lot like an inquisition.

  There were water and glasses in the middle of the table. He couldn’t reach them.

  Clever, he’d have to remember that.

  Hale listed Chen’s recent operations, one by one. “Everyone of these had unexpected consequences.”

  Hale waited.

  Chen tried to copy Feebee’s unsettling stillness. He sat stiff, upright and said nothing. There was no sense of the relaxed calm she projected.

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  He cracked first, “What do you mean by unexpected consequences?”

  Hale smiled, first points to her. Wolfe spoke, “Your actions were just short of reckless. Casualties were narrowly avoided. Political incidents barely contained. Your staff were put at risk because there’s a pattern of improvised recoveries. All just-in-time.”

  Hale cut through, “Your missions gamble with your personnel. Your mission briefs are clean and simple. Your mission teams consistently encounter threats outside mission parameters. Do you deliberately withhold intelligence from them?”

  Chen scoffed.

  Iron Maggie banged the table, “This is not a laughing matter.”

  “Indeed it is not Ma’am.” Chen continued, “I brief them with confirmed data. I refuse to speculate in official documents. Our briefs to staff are not novels. I follow regulations. To the letter.”

  “Yes. You do.” It was Grant. “Your operational reports tick all the boxes.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  Grant responded immediately, “It wasn’t meant as a compliment.” He continued, “I’ll ask again. Do you deliberately withhold intelligence from you teams?”

  “You will not find any verified intelligence omitted.” Chen was insistent. Strong in his response.

  The inquisitors paused. Hale looked at Wolfe. She opened one of the files and read from it. She presented examples of hidden alien variables, political traps and technological anomalies encountered in the missions. “Your teams were faced with these, and you seemed to anticipate them in the resources provided, and shaping of the operation. But, there was no mention of these ‘threats’ in the team briefs.”

  “Indeed. Briefs must contain verified intel. Instincts and hunches are not actionable. If anything, they paralyse the operatives. They have too much information as it is. I like to give them clean verified intel and the scope to improvise.” He paused then added forcefully, “And it works.”

  “Convenient.” Muttered Hale.

  Chen leant forward, “No ma’am. Not convenient. I don’t brief possibilities. I send people capable of handling them.”

  “And how do you assess that? Tell us Major Chen.” It was an attempt to goad him.

  He ignored it, collected his thoughts. Readying his arguments and ordering them as if about to talk to a child.

  “Missions are ecosystems, not events. I don’t predict disasters or problems. I recognise the footprints in the reports, in the intel, in what the opponent is doing. Or not doing. Basically, I look for weak links where the chaos usually appears and send people to stop it from appearing.”

  “And this,” Hale looked at a report, “this Feebee Jones. You use her like a problem sponge. You send an under-aged captain into missions that are disasters.”

  “She is old beyond her years. Only looks young.”

  Hale cut across him, “We’ve looked at the records. Timelines and date stamps don’t line up. Cryo-exposure. No one believes that. Who is she?”

  So that’s what this about. Feebee Jones. He chose to ignore the question.

  “I send the people who can adapt. Get the job done.”

  Tran spoke up, “And you do that knowingly. Send people into danger?”

  Chen laughed, “Yes! That’s literally my job.” He then went on to present the mission stats from recent missions his teams had completed. Relay Stations catalogued. Wars avoided. Incidents his teams had contained. All done with minimal casualties.

  Chen then asked, “What would you prefer. Safer briefs full of fictions, or safe outcomes? This isn’t a popularity competition.”

  Grant was the first to recover.

  “We require procedural change, risk forecasts and external oversight of your unit. This haphazard approach of yours cannot continue.” He was rattled, Chen’s argument made sense, they hadn’t expected that.

  “Then you’ll get perfect paperwork.” He paused and looked them each, one at a time, in the eye, “And worse results. More deaths.”

  Chen sat back, arms crossed.

  Then he continued and asked, bluntly, directly.

  “So tell me. What is it to be? Paperwork or the realities of war?”

  His inquisitors looked at each other. When no one spoke, he got up walked to the door and turned, “Oh, and please put your response in writing. Sirs.” he saluted and left.

  Chen smiled.

  He understood now, inner peace felt good.