Chapter 31 - The Advisor[]
RAF Intelligence
Sol Star System
Republic of the Sphere
3156
[RAF Intelligence HQ, London, England, Terra]
"Well, that's interesting." St.John Mathers of the analysis section as he looked at the reports from their asset Shane in the Federated Suns.
"What?"
"We've been watching the Davion naval buildup, right? Comparing it to the Lyrans. The patterns are completely different and not just because of our friends in the AFFS helping slow things down."
"Oh?"
"Look here-they're salvaging standard jumpships and putting the expense on the training budget. The subcontractor for their cutters is struggling to even finish the design but, has already gotten greenlit with funding-this isn't the Lyran buildup at all."
"Huh, you're right. It's almost...disorganized?"
"That's what I mean. The Steiners bought into a whole build and deployment doctrine, purged a lot of our agents from day one, and turned out a remarkably competent force. Our allies are having a hell of a time even getting organized, and they're wasting tons of money getting bog-standard transport Jumpships rebuilt as opposed to either paying for new ones-which would cost less, or importing already manufactured hulls."
"Hmm...do you suppose the old man will down-rate the potential threat?"
"I think he'll have to, hell, they haven't even decided on a single design proposal yet but, they've already released funds!" St.John laid out a series of graphs, "We might not have to hamstring their program at all. They're doing a fine job of that on their own, We might have to find a way to streamline it for them!"
"What in the devil for?"
"The Steiners are still building their navy ships, still improving the existing designs. The 'wolf empire' has brought four more multi-slip shipyards on-line and begun a high intensity naval development project of their own-aimed at us. The Free Worlds League has begun a Naval building project of their own and restored half a dozen capital units already and we still don't know what the Capellans are doing, except they're up to something."