Sakhara 2.7
Sakhara 2.7
By the time Monday morning had rolled around she was exhausted. She wasn't the only one it was clear most of the school had been run ragged by the exercises as they had been put through their paces. Star Colonel Robinson was currently looming beside the desk as Henry finished distributing the last of the papers.
They were theoretically back to their normal classes... one wouldn't have known that from how the vice Chancellor had looked at last night's dinner, or even this morning. Coleridge had looked like the proverbial cat who had caught the canary... of course Coleridge hadn't been out in the sweat and the sand.
"So obviously in an ideal situation we'd be," Henry had started talking without signaling to the class he was going to, "Doing more in cross arms drills. Coordination with aviation needs work, but that is a weakness that can be worked around, in six months all of you will have left Sakhara for your first posting so we simply to recognize that's a potential weakness." There was some grumbling about the cadets as part of the flight school. Clay ignored the background chatter, "The purpose of the exercise to see how you fared with people in your age group and not totally divorced from your skill level. The cadets in the classes under you can learn from you, beating an OpFor is an accomplishment, but there is always room to improve. So we're going to take this week to focus on the basics of lance fire and maneuver, and next week we'll be acting at a company level modelled on fighting a typical combine opponent. What we will be doing before hand is you will elucidate on paper your expectations, and strategies, you'll put them in this box, and next week you'll write up your after action reports, and we'll compare and contrast, expectation and reality."
She didn't like the sound of it... and it didn't help she was tired, and that he expected them to sit down and think about it without any reference material... but she could see the reasoning behind testing them on what they could recall while tired. There was grumbling from some of the other cadets, but she refrained.
Henry chugged down the tea from his thermos and looked out over the palm trees and the manicured oasis of a bit of campus greenery. He had called time and let them put the papers up but this wasn't really for a great, he just wanted to compare and contrast what they expected. Some of the students probably expected to be pitted again elite combine troops like the sword of light, others were probably expecting swarms of light mechs... well they had some time.
The real problem wasn't this experiment, it was what was coming after. The duke of Robinson couldn't be expected to just hang around, and the Field Marshal of the Draconis March and its chief minister kipping off to New Avalon was one of the things people complained about his counterpart from the Capellan March had been doing since inheriting the patrimony of House Hasek to go along with existing positions at court under Ian.
That was the problem, because from the sound of it... the duchess of Victoria wanted to curb Hasek influence at court, but there were worlds in the capellan march. It was enlightening to watch the two elder statesmen disagree... and see their motivations, their ambitions for regional for national levels of the realm and how ambitions competed with personal sentiment.
When he'd been introduced to the who was who of the Federated Suns upper crust it had been a hasty matter of Ian dragging him around. It wasn't helped that Ian who wasn't much to stand on ceremony had been drunk at his brother's wedding and so ... well great impressions and a grasp of expectations weren't exactly high. Michael Hasek-Davion, and Henry really didn't understand how that was supposed to work except as an honorific ... and yet that nagged at him more so than any other impression of the man during that fleeting evening on New Avalon... and the bigger problem was Michael Hasek-Davion was now the minister of the Capellan March having succeeded to his family's hereditary position with the passing of the family's previous patriarch.
He didn't notice Alexandria's presence until she cleared her throat to draw attention, and she glanced to the side, "You mentioned," She bit her lip, "inquired whether I could be spared to visit New Avalon when you leave with the duchess of Victoria."
"And, Lord Aaron is coming." He remarked absentmindedly shuffling his own papers as he moved away from the window, as her expression creased, "The original plan was just to discuss battlemech factory lines, but," Henry trailed off, "I can only let you know the full scope of things if you're sure-"
"I'm sure." Alexandria found herself saying. As heiress to Kestrel it hadn't been entirely out of the realm of possibility, but never mind.
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Alexandria stood somewhat star struck a few hours later watching the holographic display, the map projected into the center of the room. A command circuit, or jumpship circuit was a historical legacy, a time from before the HPG network had been built by the star league and when JumpShips had been more common than in the era after the Star League's fall.
There had been talk but the idea that the circuit established from New Avalon meant she could feasibly board a jumpship at Sakhara and be home in a week. "When did you have time?"
"About a month ago." He remarked as the icon representing a Star Lord jumpship, the last in the chain, winked from Koloma to New Avalon, "It will standardize once the Jarnfolk are in the rotation ," A series of icons glowed which would add to the number JumpShips creating a reserve moving back and forth, "If we were able to get things off the ground I wanted the material for the Mechs as soon as possible. The engineers and their experience is important."
There was a tired sigh from the Duchess of Victoria. "No, Lord Henry, that is not what its important,"
There was a grumbling, he clicked a couple of keys on the tiny palm sized keyboard in one hand, "This is a pressurized shipyard, its rated at 350K," Thousand, "Tons." Henry's focus internally was the sheer inexpensive nature of a large pressurized yard through his essence, and that was part of the benefit as he viewed things. The habitat were about one and a half the cost of the Star Lords he had been defaulting to originally, "The advantage of pressurized yards is that it allows techs to service my Star Lords without the need of cumbersome space suits. That includes," he clicked again, and the image changed, "These are the precursor part fabrication units to manufacture new parts, and indeed the assembly segments of new Star Lords."
A short animation followed as representations of parts in the form of labelled blocks flowed up a pyramidal shaped chart until they reached the end stage of components moved to the yard which then finished out a completed Star Lord.
Alexandria started to say something, but the Duke of Robinson had also decided to speak, "So a single Star Lord a year?"
"For the breaking in process, yeah probably just a replacement for the one we had to scrap," Alexandria felt a bit faint at the comment, "After that once we're sure about tolerances, and handling," He waved his hand, "Two to three with sufficient Germanium for the core. Since unlike WarShips, JumpShips are fairly static the JumpDrive is the main limiting facet of technological production. The hull is assembled from separate segments and joined together that's-"
"You understand that at present the Draconis Combine can only produce a single Star Lord a year?"
He shrugged at the observation from the Field Marshal, "As I said JumpDrive production, the K-F drive's integrity is the limitting factor. A Star Lord has six DropShip collars and thus represents a not insignificant commercial capability in terms of ferrying dry bulk cargo, or also people. Does it instantly correct the deficet in merchant shipping tonnage that stymies the economy, no. There has been a shipping crunch for two hundred years that isn't going to disappear with just one shipyard. Which is of course why I would prefer a shipyard at Bristol, further inside the borders of the Federated Suns and away from the front."
Sakhara was only two jumps from the Combine planet of Misery. Not that Bristol was very deep inside the territory of the Federated Suns given that Tikonov, of the Capellan Confederation, was only four jumps away... but that was still double the number of jumps. He clicked the palm pilot slash mouse thing in his hands, he was playing up the emphasis of his relationship with the JarnFolk under Haakon and the need for Sakhara to have the facilities to produce spare parts and serve as a port of call for the Jarnfolk, but that was only partly an exaggeration. He wanted Sakhara to serve as a hub of JumpShip and DropShip parts from what he understood there was a legitimate shortage of spare parts and maintenance... and well Sakhara and the Draconis March would need more air cover even beyond what he already had here.
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Notes: Alright I'm going to DnD, but here is today's update, I'll read and make