New Avalon 1.8
Ian Davion had quickly come to view this as the high point of his year, and it wasn't even Christmas yet. There were quite a lot of parts in various stages of disassembly or in crates that dominated one side of the interior of the space set aside for Clay's technicians ... techno wizards might have been a better description to work for the past week.
Of all the designs present the ShadowHawk was the one he had spent the least amount of time looking at, perhaps it had been fabricated solely to have an old standby to round out the two lances. That was to say maybe they had just needed an eighth mech for the sake of even-ness. He had almost joked aloud that the shoppe must have run out of ChisComp type 39s since there was a marked transition from that model of Medium Lasers to a competing Martell design of laser for the two eighty five tonner designs. In addition to sharing an engine and medium lasers they also, the two eighty five ton assault mechs, shared the same model of JumpJets, and relied on the same model of Harpoon Six launchers. They used different model PPCs.
"So," He remarked conspiratorially to his younger brother, "What exactly is the impediment to the Battlemaster." Their brother in law stiffened.
"The engines I think." Hanse responded in complete seriousness. "It uses a different engine than these do."
"Mm, that's unfortunate. What can be done about it?"
He was then assured, "Its being looked into."
"Mm, very good." They had yet to tell Michael about the plan for Kathil's shipyards ostensibly because Sakhara's yard wasn't ready yet. He probably wouldn't even bring it up to his brother in law until that first star lord was completed... maybe the second. He made a show of consulting the 'program' so to speak, the Shadow Hawk was unfortunately first. There was a volunteer cadet from New Avalon who had been chosen to pilot the 'Hawk.
The pilot in question had not quite made the cut for a chance at the long swords of which were being vied for for a special testing section by the corp of cadets best scoring pilots. Of course that test had been organized and planned when there were just twelve machines... and Avalon was getting to keep those machines.
There were a handful of 'sketches' as he was thinking of them in terms of what it was going to cost. Spares tools, raw materials, the time to 'tool up' for production that and a significant amount of other, but the techs had been working around the clock, the past week first searching for what was available, and then consumed by the work of making machines.
It had apparently utterly befuddled his youngest vassal that while the Shadow Hawk was common the Federated Suns could not domestically manufacture it. It wasn't fair to the pilot that she was piloting the least interesting of the machines present here... if Ian were honest the Centurion had probably been put together if for other reason than to show off this new missile system. Something about logistics but as a result the Centurion was being piloted by one of Clay's people.
Ian had wracked his brain to consider if he had ever seen a Shogun Assault Mech... in anyone's possession other than the Dragoons, but Jaime Wolf's command was the only instance he could think of on the matter. It did tickle his fancy a bit to be in such an exclusive number.
The impediment again, as with the idea of the BattleMaster seemed to be the fusion engine which powered the Shogun, or also the impediment to the eighty five ton 'Falchion' design which had been developed as well... fusion engine manufacturing was the bottleneck... and he didn't really need to be told that, nor that there were obviously things that the Federal Government could do.
The Federated Suns would need to do something about that, and with a bevy of new mech designs, one might even say a renaissance there were things that could be done.
Smaller still than the Shadow Hawk, and the Centurion were the Antares and the Sentry, thirty five and forty tons respectively. Intended as, they had been described, Strikers easily maintainable. That both designs carried flamers and no ammunition to speak of well, they had obvious anti infantry capabilities while having a reliable enough amount of close range firepower for mechs in their weight class... and the Sentry's PPC would allow it to reach a bit further still.
--
"I would say those tests went well." Which was on its face an understatement. Twenty BattleMechs, nominally speaking nine either wholly new designs, or variants never tested before, designs across the entire weight class range, an entirely new weapon system capable of firing either short range missiles or long range missiles. Went well was an understatement.
"It should keep the duke of New Syrtis distracted particularly," Especially since the command circuit Henry had established would soon be returning him and Lord Aaron to the Draconis March. It was very tempting to simply give Clay what he wanted, and send him on his way to Bristol, but he recognized it was the correct decision to wait. There were going to need to be lengthy discussions with between the existing manufacturers of battlemechs within the Federated Suns... and as he had been unpleasantly informed that would mean potentially facing a riot from General Motors over the Marauder II.
It was amazing he'd never even heard of the domestic assault mech and yet it starts making the rounds and then all of sudden the lawyers come trundling out of the woods like ogres. It was despicable, so that needed to be seen to. Clay needed to return to Sakhara, and they could return to discussions of this at some point next year.
"I'm actually surprised Achernar wasn't able to put forward a proposal of its own." Yvonne remarked, "Corean was all but tripping over itself to send engineers to Sakhara,"
Yes, Ian recognized that they were more interested in seeing Sakhara than Robinson but they had agreed to both... not simply because of the issue of money, but because of recognition of what this might mean for them... not the least of which was the demonstration of the 200 engine fusilier had probably been a surprise, and probably not a pleasant to have rolled out.
Achernar just didn't seem to have the engineers on hand ... not when they were probably all sequestered away with the dangling prospect of a Heavy BattleMech and the leadership eyeing that, and if the Long Sword could be put into production more broadly all the better.
Yesterday had gone well. Ian had even been 'allowed' to sit in a few of the machine and even the opportunity to fire a few rounds from the auto cannon of the Alecto, which was a small compromise.
"What is it?" He asked after a minute.
"It was Clay's comment regarding the loss of the 19
th Striker Regiment, and the Dragoons. The Eridani Light Horse has been in the employ of the Federated Suns for some time now, I believe it would be a mistake if we didn't, personally inform Brevet General Kerston of the matter."
"I don't see why not." Ian replied, "But I assume there is something else?"
She paused, "Lord Henry's retinue is at least three distinct factions I suppose. Two of whom, the Battle Company particularly has clear SLDF lineage, and the Robinson Assault Cluster is almost certainly accordingly to my analysts descended from 19
th Army of the SLDF potentially even units which were thought to have departed with General Kerensky's Exodus."
"Henry?"
"No, from what we have pieced together the RAC seems to have joined Clay's retinue in response to ... from what we understand some conflict with a descendant of Stefan Amaris, and specifically that Clay considers an Amaris, revanchist Rim World threat at least as concerning as the Combine, at least that is my reading of his behavior."
--
The Duke of New Syrtis was not happy. Michael Hasek-Davion had been looking to consolidate his position for the last two years, nearly three since he had become duke-elect of New Syrtis when his father had died in the spring of 3013. The ascension of which had removed him from New Avalon and the Federal Government on the expectation of taking up the hereditary position of Minister of the Capellan March... and Ian had been consumed with martialing to relieved Mallory's World...
... and that was when the problem had started .
Ian had won one victory after another. Inaugurating a new house, naming a young mech warrior as Count of Sakhara for the matter of slaughtering one of the regiments of the Sword of Light... since of course the Victory at Mallory's world had then been followed up on by the Victory at Halstead Station where the First Prince of the Federated Suns had secured a victory against his opposite number.
Something that New Avalon had allowed anyone present on the capital to possibly forget. There was no end of it in sight, even before the Rabid Fox had returned to New Avalon. The dozen Heavy BattleMechs he had brought him had yet to reach the the papers, never mind the rest of it.
... and what was he supposed to do? Suck it up. Suck it up as the Draconis March consumed ever more resources and were lauded for their success while he was blamed for 'failures' in the capellan march. Hanse, his brother in law, was married to one of the Stephenson daughters had moved forward the notion that this could be the opportunity to rebuild those units... as if they otherwise deserved some special consideration over troops fighting on the capellan front.
... and of course it was no secret that the reason for the RCT posting to Spica and that base was a brazen questioning of his ability as Field Marshal of the March, and the soldiers of the Capellan March to protect the border.
It was infuriating.
--
Notes: Updating this, nominally nominally the plan for the rest of the month is the lit rpg, aurigan renaissance, the drow fic in theory. So thus in theory that should be the updates for Thursday the 26
th, Friday, Tuesday (the 31
st) with a normal tuesday update finishing out New Avalon 1 on the 24
th if that makes sense.....
