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Chapter 26[]
Dead Man's Hand: Family Values[]
Boojum Shipyard
Boojum Orbit
Bucklands Province
Lyran Alliance
12th May, 3058
The space around her may have been the very definition of organized chaos, but Liz doubted she had ever felt more at peace.
Floating free of the massive shipyard that orbited an airless moon that in turn orbited a gas giant, she had found herself adopting the lotus position almost subconsciously as she allowed her eyes to take in the ceaseless activity that was arguably her true legacy. Kowloon had always had some form and native shipbuilding industries: the binary system was simply too vast to get around at sub-light speeds, and a number of so-called 'jump taxis' made regular jumps close to the key transfer nodes and larger Belter settlements. Such ships needed to be built, maintained, and when needed, repaired, and that required a shipyard.
Oh, sure, the Rim-Jobs had blown most of their orbital infrastructure to hell when they moved in, but enough of it had survived, hidden away in isolated, hard to reach corners of the system, that they had managed to keep going, despite the best efforts of their imperial overlords. Even the SLDF Navy, with all their awesome might, hadn't been able to stop them building and maintaining ships. And, as if to prove that the universe had a sense of ironic humor, it was those same shipyards that had helped build the ships needed to carry the 171st Kowloon Volunteers Brigade all the way to Terra, to help overthrow the Fat Man. The years since had been hard: so much, too much, had been lost to the insanity of the Succession Wars, and the yards had lost much of their previous capacity, until they were only a shadow of their former glory. But, time, an incredible amount of money, and the assistance we Spacer's Guild, had restored at least part of the station to life.
In many respects, the Kowloon Coast Guard were the inheritors of the legacy of the 171st, all be it on a vastly reduced scale. Long gone were the Sampan Class Cutters, really just refitted and upgraded Type-51 Gunboats, and the attendant flotillas of primitive JumpShips. For far too long, the Lyran Navy has stripped them of anything of any real value, always under the guise of 'National Security' or the 'Needs Of The State'. Which left them with far too few hulls, or crews, to adequately patrol their sector for pirates and smugglers. As such, one of the first things she had done upon assuming the position of Duchess was to lie through her teeth about just how expansive the upgrades to the yards had been. Given their inability to produce anything larger than a Merchant class JumpShip, they'd managed to avoid any serious attempts at a hostile takeover.
Liz had ended that particular threat by personally buying all the outstanding debt the yards owed. Which with the stake she already held as Duchess, effectively made her the majority shareholder. Unfortunately, it had tapped out almost everything she had that wasn't already tied up in Nha Tranh University, leaving her asset rich, but cash poor. As such, she hadn't been outright lying when she told Katherine Stiener-Davion that the entire output of the yards was pre-sold for the next ten years... she just didn't tell her the full truth as to how many ships were under construction, and who they were intended for.
Parallel manufacturing was a hell of a trick. The longer the production run, the lower the unit cost. Build enough and you'd end up with a surplus of effectively free components. As nobody was willing to spend weeks in transit to inspect the yards personally, they just looked at the end-cost numbers on the spreadsheet and compared them to the commonly accepted price of a given item and left it at that. They didn't care just how much you were actually producing, so long as the taxes and tithes were paid, in full and on time. As such, nobody had noticed that, for every six JumpShips they were expected to produce, they were actually building seven. Or that they had vastly expanded their DropShip and aerospace fighter lines over the last few years. Oh, it was taking time and exorbitant amounts of money, to the point where Liz wasn't even sure she'd live to see the end results, but she was determined to leave Kowloon better armed and prepared to defend themselves then they had been before she'd taken power.
Tyra Miraborg had proven that the Clans could be defeated in space, if you were brave, crazy or desperate enough. While even primitive warships like the Sampan might still be out of reach; but still something they were actively working towards, they could build a massive fleet of Assault and Carrier DropShips, and enough fighters to equip them. Throw in an unexpected fleet of Jumpships to give them strategic mobility, and the Coast Guard was finally getting back to something approaching its desired strength.
Opening her eyes, Liz looked out to see the assembled ships of 1st Squadron, Kowloon Coast Guard. Twelve Merchant class JumpShips, arranged into three four ship patrols, each equipped with an Achilles class assault Dropship and a Leopard CV Fighter carrier DropShip. Upon each hull was the leaping Orca insignia of the Kowloon Coast Guard. Liz had looked into the more powerful Vengeance class Carrier, but they were too expensive to get the license for, and it would have drawn unwanted attention. As it was, they represented the biggest concentration of naval firepower that side of Arc-Royal... and few outside of the Coast Guard or the shipyards even knew they existed.
...And they were only the beginning...