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New Dawn in the Sun's - Chapter 11[]
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The Needs of the Crucis March[]
Proving Ground Alpha
New Avalon, Federated Suns
June 30th, 3016
"Your thoughts, Yvonne?" Hanse asked not taking his eyes away from the binoculars he was watching the experimental 'mechs through. The Transportation and Resupply working group had already put them through their paces, and submitted an exhaustive report, but Hanse had wanted to see at least one test with his own eyes. You could only get so much from a report after all.
"I wish we hadn't lost the ability to produce Shadow Hawks." Yvonne answered easily. "The upgrades make it into a much more dangerous beast then it has been. I've already recommended that we issue upgrade kits, sourcing remains an issue though."
"I heard… the question is which of the models? From what I've read there was some dispute over that."
"For those in the 2D configuration, the 2DX1. Between keeping the second medium, the hurt that the largest MML rack can put out, and bringing the armor back up to nine tons it's a no brainer."
"The loss of range?" Hanse glanced at his champion with a sly smile. "I do read your reports after all."
"The 2D was an ambush predator to begin with, the loss of range isn't going to effect how it fights. All the changes just mean that it can bring a lot more firepower to bear, and that it has a chance of surviving the encounter. We've lost too many of them over the years…" Yvonne trailed off not quite willing to bring up the other problem which had been brought to her attention. "The question is more for the two aches we have in service. The exe one is a simple enough refit, and it brings something to the table for very little investment, but honestly? I'm leaning towards the EX2."
"No concerns about the rotary jamming?"
"Less then I had expected. No ones is in a rush to certify the larger rotary. Its still too damn jam prone, but the smaller one is close enough that I feel comfortable officially classifying it as a deployable weapon. Especially with a solid mount like what the Shadow Hawk has."
"As for the Swordsman." Hanse wasn't one to hold an unjustified grudge, but he had to admit what Harry Brockton had said to him stung. Worse still, when Janet Olsen had made her way back to New Avalon the data she had brought with her bore him out at least on the technical side. The raid had neutered a company of Kingstone Legionnaires for minimal damage, an impressive showing, especially without any truly brilliant tactical thinking. The raid had been a straight slugging match, and the mechs had shone. He was personally looking forward to seeing what they could do under a brilliant officer. It was enough that he had Nicholas looking into his accusations on the social and political side.
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SWD-2D-X1 variant of the Swordsman Medium 'Mech
"We need them, Hanse." The use of his first name and not his title made Hanse's head snap up. For all that she played at being the grandmother to the AFFS, Yvonne Davion kept to a certain level of decorum with him, it was a mental trick she used to keep in mind that he was the First Prince and not another of her nephews while doing official business.
"You found something."
"I found a lot and I'm going to be ripping Michael a new asshole sometime in the near future." Yvonne almost hissed in anger. Her long running feud with his brother-in-law was well known, but it usually manifested in complaints from Michael Hasek-Davion. "I also want to go back in time and smack your father a few times for good measure."
"You're making me nervous here."
"We need to invest in Trevlu beyond getting them funding to work out the kinks on the larger rotary system, badly. The Crucis March Militias, with some exceptions, have been gutted completely to reinforce the border marches. Remagen, Malagrotta, and Bastian are running sixty percent Militia grade 'mechs. Point Barrows in even worse shape, eighty percent of their 'Mechs are Militia grade. We've pulled way too much over the years and those regions are barely teetering along." Yvonnes jaw was tight as she laid out the damage. "The Dracs keep pulling factories out of their asses, and we needed to find reinforcements from somewhere. The problem is we never replenished those regions, then you had the Cabal happen and all too many members were from the outback. Your father was naturally disinclined to let those families have their BattleMechs back, which further drew down the Crucis Militias strength. When your father died and Ian took over… Michael used the opportunity to do a bit of creative book keeping and a lot of their front line equipment ended up in the Capellan march."
"Christ," Hanse shook his head as if to dislodge an annoying fly. "Its really that bad?"
"I wouldn't have realized if I hadn't had intentions running checks on Trevlu, and as a result of those checks double checking all of our data for the entire region." Yvonne didn't let on that she had been worried about successionist sentiments, but Hanse was more then smart enough to see it anyway. He had after all been the one to suggest testing his training battalion concept on Brockton. Not that it would work there, the system was too well known and the implications of putting a training facility there of any kind would be destabilizing. "Trevlu's the only game in town out there for both militia, and at least a few regular grade BattleMechs a year, which is worrying in its own right given its been bureaucratically obscured for a long time. Unless you can think of a way to conjure up more production capacity, they're our best chance at quietly fixing this before it goes completely to shit."
"Every company is running flat out, or at least as close to it as their physical plant will allow." Hanse put down the binoculars and closed his eyes thinking hard. "Do we know what Trevlu would need to up their production?"
"Money or if we can swing it machine tooling. From the reports I've been reading their biggest issues are the engine package and the electronics," Yvonne answered back promptly. "If you authorize the refit kits that's going to be a start. I've been playing with allowing them to have a go at the Wolverine…"
"No. Kallon would throw a fit and they're already too close to Michael for my comfort." Hanse took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "Pull every one sixty engine we have in the brigade of guards strategic reserve and get them on their way to Brockton with my compliments."
"There aren't going to be that many…" Yvonne warned softly.
"I know, it's the political message I'm after here. The numbers don't matter nearly as much as where they came from." Hanse thought that there should be at least a few engine kits waiting as spare parts, after all the Brigade of Guards had top priority for spare parts and one of the few unit assigned reserves. "Get a message to Andrew Brocton, directly not through Trevlu's corporate headquarters, that we'll pay five percent over list for the next decade on every Swordsman he can give us. Let him know I don't care how he does it, and then watch him carefully. Use the stealthy foxes, I don't trust Nicholas to keep a close enough eye on the situation. He has personal contacts across the periphery borders so let's use that to our advantage. Secondly, our non-interference policy on Blackwell is suspended, put pressure on them. Not enough to drive them out of business, but enough that Wolf thinks its worth it to throw us some tooling the next time he gets back from one of his sojourns in the periphery."
"You think the Wolf brothers were the ones who supplied Blackwell with their new tooling?"
"Who else could have?"
"It would be nice to have another assault around…" Yvonne's voice was shrewd.
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Marauder II Assault 'Mech
"If they're willing," Hanse wasn't that concerned with the Marauder II, as far as he was concerned the Wolf's Dragoons could keep it exclusive if they liked. He was concerned about getting them to pony up any extra tooling they could find lying around. "While we're waiting to see if that avenue bears fruit I'm going to need to sit down with Nicholas sometime in the next week or so and see if we can convince anyone involved in the Irian rebuild to let some things fall off the DropShip. I'm also going to have to reach out to our ambassador in the Commonwealth to see if they would be willing to sell us any tooling."
"You think they have some to spare?"
"I think the Archon is interested in pulling us away from the Free Worlds League, so they might." Hanse tried to think of what he was missing. "The Sandovals will need to be appeased if it looks like we're building up Crucis at the expense of their march so we need to invest in Robinson as well."
"There isn't much there." Yvonne pointed out.
"I still need to keep them onside," Hanse contemplated sending Aaron a message about the state of the Crucis March, but wasn't enthused by the idea. He already had one march on the verge of rebellion, and the entire Brockton mess made him less comfortable with the lack of support he had in the outback. When those systems were little more then a drain on the purse it was one thing, but given they had unexpected depths he was going to have to put some effort into building up his political capital in the region. Especially if Michael was smart enough to start returning some of the equipment he had appropriated.