New Avalon 3.5
They had been waiting for some of the day visitors to clear out, there were just too many people for the first rounds of the tournament to make it easy to get around the campus so they had chosen to stay put rather than moving to the apartments set aside for them. It presumably had made it easy for the Duchess of Victoria to find them. He'd given Yvonne the data she had asked for, been asking for when she'd made her appearance at the booth as they had waited for an opportunity to leave once the crowds were more manageable.
"What was that about?"
"History," He replied to Justin's question with a shrug, "I get the feeling she has someone she wants to show it to, but I don't personally think it changes things..." Not on an operational level anyway, "on the other hand as has been pointed out to me the combine really doesn't seem to understand that they're the bad guys... and Takashi the current coordinator is what passes for a moderate over there... and that's horrifying. To me at least." He muttered the last more to himself.
"Oh?" Lord Aaron had perked up, "Does this have something to do with the Dragoons?"
"Yeah, and on that front I admit ... I don't expect them to react well to the news," He shrugged, "And I expect that if Jaime does sign on to an agreement for manufacturing some of his... quirkier designs I'm going to want help, more locations but maybe we can get them to come back to New Valencia and stay there." New Valencia was a jump from Blandisville and that was one jump to Robinson, and New Valencia of course held Blackwell industries.
"Interesting news," Lord Aaron remarked as they continued to move forward now that the throngs of people had thinned and they could move easier around Albion's palatial campus, "There was something else I had hoped to discuss, it was something I had begun to discuss with Northwind of late regarding conditions in the March and how we could expand educational opportunities."
--
An audience with the First Prince of the Federated Suns entailed a certain amount of pomp best demonstrated by the procession and the men outside of the chamber. Kerston was used to it by this point. The Eridani were one of the, if not the highest prestige non house units in the company of the Federated Suns... but today felt different. He had learned to trust his instincts there was something going on that he wasn't aware of.
Ian Davion sat down and then gestured for him to do the same, which he did. Upon which the monarch leaned back, made himself comfortable and steeped his fingers, before choosing to speak "Two years ago, I nearly died. Yorinaga Kurita had me quite dead to rights." He shrugged, "The realm would have been fine in my brother's hand, Hanse is up to the job... but I didn't die. A friend came to my rescue, and as much as it pained me to do so I had to have him shipped away from New Avalon to another post after. That friend of mine, his family aren't that unique many of my nobles, many of my closest confidants can trace their lines back to the Star League, and the SLDF. Henry Clay, the Count of Sakhara commands as part of his household guard the descendants of 19
th Striker Regiment of the Star League Defense Force," The Prince held up his hand to staunch the outburst of questions that Kerston felt well up, "I've seen the proof ... you see I have seen the proof of House Kurita collaboration with Stefan Amaris... and I have it on supremely good authority that the 19
th were ambushed because Kurita's ISF handed over their movements to the Rim World, where in they were ambushed and the unit destroyed."
The holographic images that took shape were ... in a sense made sense. In that the pieces fell into place with new context.
Kerston had seen them before, but he'd never had reason to question them. For two centuries there had been an empty chair to represent a lost regiment, and of course House Kurita had attempted to hold the dependents of the Eridani hostage during the early years of the succession wars.
"I assume there is something more than this?"
"Yes, there is. I am going to ask Henry that when his production allows it if that 19
th can be reborn, recreated. I expect that should take some time, I am aware that he has a number of other things which need doing, and that I have a number of other matters I must ask him to see to... but also that I must make requests of you general. However that is not without reciprocity, I will be speaking with General Motors regarding what can be done to strengthen units of the old SLDF that are operating under AFFS directive... because I quite assure what we can now prove regarding House Kurita's collaboration with Amaris is nothing short of explosive." He paused, "There is one other thing... the Wolfs Dragoons are descendants of Kerensky Exodus, my understanding such that I'm told is that other descendants of that exodus came to join Clay because there is an Amaris pretender afoot and that he's enough of a threat that Clay has felt the need to take precautions." He allowed the comment to hang there... but the truth was Kerston didn't have a response to that.
He did understand ... to a degree... and as the pieces fit together perhaps not quite right the nightmare came together... and the words found him, spilling from his lips "Some fragment of the Amaris Empire escaped into the deep periphery then... and means to enter the inner sphere with force?"
Ian paused, "We don't think its quite that bad, we think they're more pirates, but well there was that unpleasantness with Black Jack McGirk on the Lyran side of things... and given the metal they had," Black Jack McGirk had been an emphasis pirate rampaging on the fringe of the Lyran and Draconis borders and by some reports had a nearly a regiment of heavy battlemechs... and he had just disappeared one day with his band to no real explanation, "We don't know for sure other than that there pockets of Rim World supporters, worlds that we've been made aware of, and I don't think Henry something like that if there wasn't some threat."
--
Night had fallen on New Avalon, bathing the city in the lights of winter decorations celebrating the hols and stretching far into the distance from the window. While he planned to build VLAR 300 engines, probably here on New Avalon using Pratt and Whitney tooling... Aaron Sandoval had brought up inadvertently a good point. The Dragon was so ubiquitous to the combine that there were a lot of them in Fed Sun ranks recovered from the battlefield.. and those could be worked from especially since the base model used an Imperator A auto cannon.
That would be largely a program of rearm and refit kits ... maybe something with the MML later was those increased in production, but fundamentally something he envisioned as a comparative line offering to the Shadow Hawk refit package that should start shipping in the new year.
What Lord Aaron had really wanted to talk about circled around how quickly they could potentially start fielding cadets in classes with machines that had the same mechs, and expanding armor schools. He wasn't talking about just for Sakkara but also RBA, and Northwind.
It was an idea, not even a serious proposal at this stage, but it did bring up a point. Northwind was on the other end of the line, within striking distance of the Combine border. Even though Cosara only did refit work now... it was there too... that was actually how they had ended upon the discussion of the 300 engines by accident. His plans hadn't changed on that regard, putting complex manufacturing on Northwind before he had Bristol in order was out of the question... but he could probably make up the difference to ship some testing and evaluation models to the highlanders.
That would of course have to wait until next year, after he had returned to Sakkara... but there were a lot of things he wanted to do... and there were a lot of Federated Suns industries that he wanted to to discuss with the prospect of licensing designs for wider scale production given the number of designs proliferating... and if they weren't going to cooperate then the next best option would be to snatch up firms with names but limited manufacturing capacity and sink money in them to bring lines back online. He didn't want to resort to that because it would take time and money away from expanding stellar capacity... which was the conversation he expected to have any day now with Ian about Bristol at least.
That was his priority.
The First Prince wasn't so much thinking about that so much as laying out a grand coalition, a gathering of regiments that traced to the SLDF and plans to rearm them as mechs became available for a grand campaign... and also to shore up his other weaker front... and to secure peace with the Lyrans. Ian's plans were to build off previous talks with the Archon and while he didn't expect an overnight transformation it would force the Combine ideally to divide their attention, and stymie any further issues on the Capellan front.
