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The Federated Suns Reborn
- Chapter 45[]
April 3065
ComGuards seek help
First Prince returns to New Avalon[]
Having arrived back on New Avalon the First Prince resumes his duties within the government, taking the reigns back from the various advisors who have been dealing with things while he has been at the WOB Front. Meanwhile, the 1st Davion Guards RCT resumes it's garrison duties on New Avalon. The addition of the 1st Davion's brings the garrison to 3 Davion Guard RCTs (Light, 1st, and 3rd), the 1st New Avalon Cavaliers, 3rd Dragonlords RCT, and New Avalon CrMM. While in orbit no fewer than 2 Avalon cruisers and 4 Fox corvettes protect the capital, with another 2 Fox's at nearby Galax. Excluding perhaps Tukayyid and Terra it's fair to say that New Avalon is currently probably the most heavily defended world within the Inner Sphere.
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New Avalon Class Cruiser
[]
Meanwhile, the Federated Suns navy has been expanded with the addition of 2 further Avalon cruisers at Kathil. Both the FSS Andrew Davion and the FSS Hanse Davion both finished construction at the end of March, but were not officially announced as having joined the fleet due to a clerical oversight. The Andrew Davion takes up station within the Capellan March at an undisclosed location. Although many suspect it will remain near Kathil to give the vital shipyards there added protection - while some will argue it is hiding in the Tikonov system to protect that key industrial world from any attack and others will argue it is deployed to the Kittery salient. The FSS Hanse Davion however heads for New Avalon. Like the FSS Melissa Davion, it will be home ported there but will not officially join the New Avalon Squadron. Instead, the FSS Hanse Davion will take up primary escort duties for the First Prince's flagship the FSS Melissa Davion. This is part of a growing trend for the Federated Suns to begin deploying it's warships in pairs. A further Avalon cruiser slip is expected to be completed in June and begin constructing a further Avalon. When this happens and with the 2 ships expected to be laid down now that the FSS Hanse Davion and FSS Andrew Davion are complete it will mean that the Federated Suns is building or will be building 6 Avalon' cruisers at a time.
Comstar Delema[]
Precentor Martial Focht arrives on New Avalon and is welcomed warmly. A full parade is arranged with elements of all the garrison regiments taking part as well as a flyby from a full brigade of fighters assigned permanently to the garrison (including the 299th Division) and then a review of the entire assembled cadets of the NAIS and Albion Academy. Not only is this a pointed reminder of the friendly ties between the Precentor Martial and the First Prince but also a way to show of the assembled might of the Federated Suns to anyone watching and considering foul play.
Once the parade and review have finished the Precentor Martial is invited into Mount Davion and to a private meeting with the First Prince and his key adviser's present on planet - Marshal of the Armies Jackson Davion, Princes's Champion Ardan Sortek, Marshal Galen Cox and Duchess Isis Marik. Also present at the meeting in his capacity as the First Princes's personal aide is Colonel Caradoc Trevena - a Lyran born officer who the First Prince took onto his staff following the Invasion of Coventry and who has now formally joined the AFFS. This group is entirely unofficial, but carries a disproportionate weight with the First Prince when it comes to giving advise. It is also for a Davion Prince a strange collection with 2 FedSuns born military officers, 2 Lyran born military officers and a member of a rival ruling house. Other prospective or current members of this "group" include Marshal Bishop Sortek of the Davion Brigade of Guards, Marshal Jon Davion of the Davion Heavy Guards, Fleet Admiral Buchwald, Duke Arthur Davion, Duchess Yvonne Steiner-Davion, Baron Tancred Sandoval and Duchess Helen Trempeleau of all people, when and if they were present on New Avalon.
The Precentor Martial, still obviously recovering from his wounds firstly gives a frank update of the status of Comstar and the ComGuards after the disasters at Caph and the betrayals that followed. Frankly the ComGuard's ability to take the fight to the WOB has been effectively gutted and will continue to be limited until a reformed ROM is able to purge the holdouts and infiltrators and ensure that no further incidents like what happened at Caph and Tukayyid can occur. At this stage the First Prince officers the services of his own intelligence organisations to help with this review and if need be purge. An offer that the Precentor Martial reluctantly puts off, explaining he will need the Interim-Primus' agreement for that.
Jackson Davion then asks what Focht is here for then if not for help in rooting out the infiltrators. While pointing out that that the AFFS is not in a position to launch a full scale assault on the WOB on it's own at the current time.
Focht explains that his primary mission is to obtain support. Particularly sources of military equipment. The attack on Caph involved the entire 1st Fleet and 2nd Independent Squadron as well as 10 full Divisions of troops. From those 4 warships returned, 3 of them heavily damaged, and 2 Divisions have been recovered due to the actions of the Captain-General of the FWL although most of these troops are without functional equipment and in need of medical treatment. The loss of half their warship fleet and nearly 20% of their ground forces in a single action had devastated the ComGuards and they will need a lot of work to rebuild if they are to take the fight to the WOB.
Marshal Galen Cox does point out that the Federated Suns is already building a number of industrial facilities to be used to jointly supply the ComGuards and AFFS. Production lines on Broken Wheel, Tikonov, New Avalon and 2 entirely new factories on Defiance and Markesan are being expanded or built to help supply the ComGuards. What more does the Precentor Martial want?
The Precentor Martial acknowledges the current level of support, but explains he is looking for more equipment and for additional production lines dedicated to helping supply the ComGuards. More he is desperately in need of more aerospace fighters and dropships. The 10 ComGuard Divisions at Caph had all taken their fighter wings and so far not a single aerospace fighter or pilot has been repatriated, while the warship's own fighter wings and the dropships assigned to the force were entirely devastated. If the ComGuards are going to continue the fight then these losses must be replaced.
The mood around the room is grim at this information. While everyone is keen to support the ComGuards fight against their treacherous brethren the AFFS is itself expanding rapidly and needs ever battlemech, tank and fighter it can get it's hands on. At this point Focht did point out that the one thing that Comstar was not short on was money. It was still a ridiculously rich corporation and could effectively afford to buy war material - it just didn't have access to the factories it needed.
Colonel Trevena then points out one possible short term solution followed by a longer term one. While Comstar funds an expansion in factories within the Federated Sun's to help meet their long term needs, they could effectively be offered the right to comb the bone yards of worlds like Novoya Zemyla and Bryceland for tanks and battlemechs that can be refurbished into active use once more. Machines mothballed and abandoned by the AFFS for centuries as obsolete, run down, worn out or just too damaged to be repairable could be bought, refitted, and used to build new ComGuards units. The ComGuards get new(ish) equipment and the FedSuns get hard C-bills for equipment they no longer want.
While this hadn't been what the Precentor Martial had had in mind, he was forced to admit it would supply his needs in the short term - if the First Prince was prepared to allow him to fund the increase in factories for the longer term issue. Victor explained he was - but he wanted to renegotiate the terms of their agreement. He wasn't prepared to support the building of factories when the ComGuards would receive the larger share of the production. Focht agreed that the new plants should be a 50/50 split, but the First Prince explained that wasn't good enough. He wanted the entire deal to be reworked to give both parties a 50/50 split - although as a gesture of good will he was prepared to allow the ComGuards to keep the Nexus and Lorica lines for themselves as well as being able to buy Guillotine and Awesome battlemechs from the factories here on New Avalon. He even offered to allow the ComGuards access to the production from the StarCorp plant on Crofton - as long as they helped to pay for expanding it and supported the Federated Suns in any action that StarCorp brought against them.
Anastasius Focht found himself looking over the table at a man he had once considered a promising student and protege and realized that the First Prince had now grown up. Rather than the idealistic warrior prince he had known, the man sitting across from him was now his father's son and heir. Driving a hard bargain for the benefit of his own realm over any idealistic views he might have. Still the deal he was offering was the only one on the table. The Lyrans would be prepared to support him but were inward focussing for the time being, while the FWL and Capellan Confederation were both tied too closely to the WOB to be trusted as a source of equipment and the Draconis Combine was rebuilding itself after the recent conflicts and loss of Victory Industries and damage to the shipyards at Deiron. The Lyran Alliance was a viable secondary supplier but couldn't be relied upon for steady and uninterrupted supply lines, while the Federated Suns could.
Reluctantly he agreed to the terms, but did stress that this wouldn't solve the aerospace issue. The First Prince at the almost visible prompting of Duchess Marik agreed this was an issue and admitted that there would be few fighters in the bone yards. He would make the Hellcat, Lightning, and Sabre designs available for sale to the ComGuards in the immediate term as well as look at other designs that they might wish to purchase over and above the existing deal on Dagger OmniFighters. However beyond the limited numbers of Dagger, Hellcats, Lightnings, and Sabres fighters he could spare, any further purchases would have to come from expansions paid for by Comstar. Which Comstar was welcome to make of course.
He then suggested that the Precentor Martial meet with Duchess Marik to discuss what additional lines that Comstar would wish built and funded within the Federated Suns. She would be his liaison with the Precentor Martial in this regard, supported by Colonel Trevana.
Over the next few weeks Focht, Duchess Marik and the Colonel agreed to support the following expansions. Comstar would pay for Kallon to build an expansive new facility on Belladonna within the Crucis March to build Hornets, Shadow Hawks, Griffins, Wolverines, and Exterminators for the ComGuards and AFFS. A vehicle annex to produce Partisan and Challenger tanks would also be built there. GM would be contracted to build a new facility on Victoria near their existing plants on Talcott, Kathil and Salem to build Wasps BattleMechs, Blackjack OmniMechs, and a facility for building Lorica battle armor. Achernar would be offered support to build a new facility at Chesterton to build Wasp, Phoenix Hawks, and Dervishs for the ComGuards as well as another small plant building Lorica. Corean Industries would also be offered funding to build a Devastator production line on Northfield.
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Devastator Assault 'Mech
With regards expansions, a number of companies would be contacted to offer them expansion contracts paid for by Comstar. Quickscell would be offered large scale subsidies to expand their Broken Wheel and Layover plants to build additional Pegasus, Hetzer ,and Vedette tanks and ACP's, with an agreement that most of these (and the resulting quality control headaches) would be sold to the ComGuards. Also at Layover Salvatore Incorporated would be supported to again expand their Vengeance dropship production with half the additional increase being sold to help rebuild the ComGuard's naval elements. The existing plants either built or being built at Broken Wheel, Defiance, and Markesan to support the ComGuards would also see expansions. A second line of Mercury and Hussars would be added to Broken Wheel, while a Mongoose line would be added to Defiance alongside a second Sentinel line and a third Von Luckner and Alacorn line on Markesan. The limited production facility on Ozawa that was building obsolete Kintaro battlemechs would also be fully upgraded and expanded to 2 lines of state of the art royal variant Kintaros.
Alongside the support for increased Vengeance production Colonel Trevena suggests that the ComGuards provide the AFFS with the specifications for the Colossus dropship class. This behemoth dropship can then be put into production at Galax, Layover, Firgrove, and Verde for not only the AFFS but also the ComGuards. Such a massive transport would go a long way to improving both militaries transportation issues.
With Fleet Admiral Buchwald is brought in for a brief meeting where it is also agreed that Comstar will move it's Faslanes to the system of Novoya Zemyla which will be patrolled not only by ComGuard warships but also at least one Federated Suns' Fox corvette to safeguard the ships. In return for this the astronomical charges for the renting of a Faslane Yardship to the AFFS will be reduced to only breathtaking.
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Tomahawk Light Aerospace Fighter
As for Aerospace Fighter production, the Precentor Martial is offering open licenses and contracts to produce the Huscarl OmniFighter and the Ahab, Hammerhead, Spad, and Zero Aerospace Fighter designs. As well as offering support to Wangker Aerospace to put the Tomahawk Light Fighter back into production. While also offering to buy any spare fighters that almost any firm can produce.
One final area of discussion resolves around Maltex's suing of Comstar for them providing Earthwerks plant on Tikonov their design of the Thug. Duchess Marik strongly suggests that Comstar deals with the matter out of court and makes a generous settlement to Maltex - large enough to support them rebuilding their plant on Errai which will give both the AFFS and ComGuards a second source of Thugs and potentially even Wyverns. Focht after some consideration agrees with this and after a quick discussion with the Precentor New Avalon agrees formally.
Political wrangling on Northwind[]
While Colonel Jaffray will denounce this gift as an obvious bribe, his argument is somewhat weakened when it is pointed out that when he arrived on Northwind he himself brought a BattleMech gift from the Chancellor - namely a Huron Warrior. Major Chastity Mulvaney causes no small amount of laughter (and almost equal amounts of fury from the other side) when she asks him in a heated council session whether he is upset at the gift or that the First Prince is clearly able to afford a much larger gift than the Colonel's own Chancellor.
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Huron Warrior Medium BattleMech
Colonel Jaffray's position is further weakened when the warriors of MacLeod's regiment formally meet and elect Major Mulvaney to colonel of their regiment. While Lt Colonel Jacobs was senior she was also older and frankly admitted she was intending to retire within the next 3-5 years. As such a younger more energetic officer was felt to be required for the self appointed "bad boys" of the Northwind Highlanders. Ironically, Chastity Mulvaney's former rebellion against Colonel MacLeod's wishes in 3057 was seen in a positive light by the warriors electing her. Who better fit the image of rebel and free spirit than an officer who had rebelled against a rebel! She is formally appointed Colonel of the newly renamed Mulvaney's Regiment 2 days before the vote on whether Northwind should rejoin the Federated Suns. The Clan Elders who might have worked against her election are now more and more coming around to the pro-FedSun's side of the argument and as such most of them give her some backing although knowing the contrary nature of the regiment they make sure to make this support very circumspect.
Few are surprised when the vote takes place on the 28th that the world of Northwind votes to rejoin the Federated Suns rather than maintain it's current vulnerable independence. The vote is roughly 62% in favor of rejoining the Suns with 38% against. Although the vote within the Highlanders themselves is much closer with barely 51% voting in favour of the proposal and within the Northwind Hussars there is a large majority for refusing the First Princes's offer.
What is a surprise is when in the early afternoon of the 29th, a mere 3 hours after the results are declared, large elements of the Northwind Hussars take to their dropships and blast off. Roughly a reinforced battalion, built around Jaffray's Own, leave the world with Colonel Jaffray resigning his commission and informing the people of Northwind that they have betrayed their heritage and he and his troops will continue the true independent spirit of the Northwind Highlanders free of the shackles of House Davion!
Some on Northwind and particularly within the other regiments immediately suggest chasing the departing force, but Colonel's Mulvaney and Stirling speak up and refuse this suggestion. Highlanders should not kill Highlanders. If he wishes to go, then that is his right. Although they will formally protest the theft of the Highlander dropships and all non-family owned equipment that the fleeing force has taken. Ironically given Colonel Aria Jacob's refusal of consideration of command of the Northwind Hussar's she is immedietly appointed to command the devastated and leaderless Hussars.
Northwind's acceptance of the First Princes's offer is relayed to Small World via jumpship as Northwind's HPG is still a crater. A waiting jumpship immedietly jumps back and the people of Northwind are broadcast the First Princes's delight at their decision and welcoming them back home. It is made known to the Clan Elders and news outlets that the First Prince recorded two broadcasts and left them with a jumpship with orders to pass whichever was the correct one as soon as the result was declared. It will become something of a local legend/holy grail for news networks on Northwind to get their hands on the alternate message but they will all be unsuccessful as the First Prince ordered all alternate recordings except his own personal one deleted as soon as the result was made known. Over the years however the interest in seeing what was on the other recording grows and the First Prince eventually promises to release it - upon his death in his will.
The Dragoons & Highlanders Rebuilding[]
On Outreach the surviving Wolf's Dragoons arrive from Caph and face the total devastation of their homeworld, along with death of most of their friends and families. Rolling both groups of survivors into 2 provisional commands - an under strength Alpha Regiment and Zeta Battalion. Colonel Maeve Wolf promises to rebuild not only the Dragoons but also Harlech. How she intends to have the funds for this is something of a mystery given that the huge industrial facilities that were the source of so much of the Dragoons' finances are in ruins and her command is reduced from 5 full regiments and a number of battalion sized commands to less than a full regiment in both her active commands. She does still have the Blackwell shares in the joint venture with GM on New Valencia producing Marauder IIs. As well as this production facility, Colonel Maeve orders her remaining troops to salvage what they can of the destroyed Clan tech and regular production lines on Outreach. While she knows that the plants have suffered catastrophic damage it is possible they can perhaps salvage enough to get at least some production facilities online. In the meantime given the shattered state of her regiments, infrastructure, industry, and total destruction of her space facilities and warships she formally petitions the Federated Suns for membership for Outreach. She then offers her units for long term garrison contracts on the same deal as the Northwind Highlanders. The two companies worth of shattered Dismal Disinherited survivors fold into her Alpha Regiment to bring it to almost full strength as do a number of individual survivors of scattered commands.
The Northwind Highlanders sent out a call for any Highlanders serving in other units or militaries to return to Northwind to help rebuild their shattered commands. Specifically included in this invitation were the Black Thorns and Major Cullen Craig of Swann's Cavaliers. While the Black Watch are not specifically included a number of warriors resign from this prestigious command in order to return home to protect their families and world. Some argue that this is a particularly bad sign for the prestige of the Star League that even members of the Black Watch are prepared to put their own world ahead of the alliance. Lindon's Battalion is also offered the option of folding into the reforming 1st Kearny Highlanders, which they agree to. Stirling's Fusiliers and Mulvaney's Regiment sign long term garrison contracts with the AFFS at rates comparable to other merc units like the Vegan Rangers, Illician Lancers and such. Although the reforming 1st Kearny's Highlanders and Northwind Hussars remain at the current time un-contracted.
Aid for a lost world[]
The first support troops arrive on Cooperland and begin augmenting the 12th Hussar's attempts to help the scattered communities of surviving colonists. A number of medical facilities are set up and one of the worlds smaller ruined spaceports is put back into operations. Meanwhile a handful of the engineers begin checking the long shutdown mines to see if they would be viable for the current time period or if they were shut because they ran out of ore. It's soon evident the mines shut due to a lack of technology to keep working them and a lack of trading ships to sell them too. Given the massive expansions of Federated Sun's industries in the nearby Outback there are plentiful markets for the worlds ores. If the mines are reopened.
Developments in Industry[]
On Broken Wheel the Mercury and Hussar 'Mech production lines come fully online. Immediately they begin producing royal variants of these tried and tested designs to be split between the AFFS and ComGuards. With the new agreement between the Precentor Martial and First Prince coming into force at the end of April this will be the single production run that is split as per the 60/40 ComgGuards/AFFS agreement. All further production will be split equally.
The semi-automated plant on June to produce Musketeer hover tanks goes into full production in April as well. With 2 other facilities fully automated work begins on upgrading June to the same standard almost immediately. Initially there had been some concerns that the Outback world would not be able to support such an advanced design, but given how well and quickly the semi-automated plant has went into operation it is now felt worth the risk of upgrading it.
Wangker Aerospace's Sun Prairie Land Train plant has all 4 lines in production as of the 12th of April, bringing this plant online and giving the Draconis March it's own facilities for producing the versatile and ever popular Corsair aerospace fighter. The entire first run of the plant will be sent to reinforce the aerospace wings attached to the various Robinson Ranger regiments.
Along with these fighters the first two Unions built at the Verde shipyard are also delivered to the 3rd Robinson Rangers during April having been completed in late March. A small, but steady stream of Union dropships will be sent almost exclusively to Draconis March units to replace older and worn out dropships over the coming year.
Jalastar Aerospace's new production plans are formally announced by CEO and Duchess Marik on New Avalon on the 20th of April. The stock price for the company instantly rises given the profit margin on a new omnimech and new facilities. Ironically there is a small drop off in sales for their Javelin battlemech as many buyers now consider waiting for the new omnimech version. Reports of this lead to the First Prince offering the small surplus for sale to affiliated mercenary units and to the ComGuards, both of which soon snap up the small excess of Javelins.
In the Draconis Combine, the Coordinator orders that not only will the corvette yards at Deiron be rebuilt they will also be backed up by a new corvette production facility at Chatham or Midway. Seeing the growing number of Fox corvettes on his border he realises he has to get a mass produced light warship into production as soon as possible and so orders the Inazuma corvette to reenter production at both the rebuilt yards and a new one as soon as possible. These new yards will take at least a year to get built and in the meantime he can only grind his teeth and watch as the Davion's commission corvette after corvette while his own fleet doesn't grow.
Worse from the Coordinators perspective the Lyran Alliance push forward with building 2 slips for Fox production at Alarion. While it will take them as long to build the slips they at least have a single slip already in production. Hemmed in on 2 sides by realms ran by 2 brothers he can't help but feel they will coordinate against him if war comes. Not to mention the massive super battleships of the Clan Ghost Bear he has to contend with. As well as reports of the famed aerospace forces of Clan Snow Raven prowling along his periphery border.
Events in the Lyran Alliance[]
Archon Peter Steiner also announces that he will be reforming the 1st and 2nd Hesperus Guards in the coming year. Both formations will be traditional Lyran units but with a full RCT built up around them and will be specifically tasked and trained with defensive operations in mind. The first will be deployed permanently on Hesperus itself while the second will guard the satellite facilities on Furillo. Most commentators take from this that assault Battlemechs will predominate. Which pleases most of the traditionalists if nothing else.
On Tharkad, the local Comstar Precentor has a meeting with the Archon and General of Armies Adam Steiner about securing access to long term contracts of battlemechs, tanks and fighters as the request of Focht. While he still maintains that the Federated Suns are the best source of such material, gaining access to a secondary supplier is not only logistically a good idea but will prevent the Federated Suns from raising their prices too high. Also it will make the deals much easier to get by Interim-Primus Dow who is not a fan of the Davion First Prince.
Activities in the Trinity Alliance[]
Within the Capellan Confederation, Chancellor Sun-Tzu is informed that a cache of war materials secured on Wei have went missing. At the current time his intelligence operatives have little idea of who might have taken it, but whoever it was clearly had extremely accurate information as to where the material was stored and was able to fake very high level codes to get access. The Chancellor does not take this news well and immedietly orders a full investigation to ascertain the leak. As well as recover the material.
The Taurian Concordant begins stockpiling materials to rebuild their long lost naval shipyard capabilities while also awaiting the arrival of the four Pinto corvettes they have been promised. The workers who had helped to build the new Capellan yards over Capella are drafted in to help with this project.