Sakhara 2.9

Sakhara belonged to the Dahar PDZ along with Bettendorf Hoff and Elidere, the latter also including Ander's Moon. The problem was that the PDZ also stretched all the way to Cimeron, on top of those worlds and he could hardly abscond with the cadets and muck off to Hoff for LosTech prospecting that wasn't acceptable... and he didn't have the time either. Something with Hoff needed to be done probably sooner rather than later, but maybe not this year.

Henry looked at the floating display of numbers... and not for the first time he wondered how he wasn't actively distorting the c-Bill in terms of value... assuming the C-Bills he was using, exchanging through mediums were going into the broader economy... which they might not be... but even so he had to be putting C-Bills into the Davion economy to a lesser extent... and it wouldn't be so much 'lesser' before long.

... and of course from an economic stand point the C-Bill was a means of exchange between the houses and between houses and ... sub contracting entities of sorts. That was businesses as well as Mercenaries, but it wasn't the dominant currency. There was an exchange rate between the house bills and each other and the C-Bill because the majority of trade was local bills.

Corean was a publicly traded company, and while he could throw money at the problem.. he also needed them to orient towards other responsibilities.... and Corean would likely easier to whoo over than GM, but there was always Achenar. There was going to need be a deep dive of everything that could be done, and that meant looking at what licenses existed within the FedSuns, as well as what mercenary units were under contract because the third succession war wasn't over.

He figured they would need spare parts at a reasonable price, and well spare parts would probably attract significantly less attention at market than full on mechs... and of course on the subject of mechs there was the issue that not only did he have no good idea on where to go for light mechs, and here Henry was recognizing his own lack of strong footing in the knowledge base, he also was cognizant that House Davion seemed to have a lot of light mech production never might salvage from its frequent battles with House Kurita.

There were simply put a lot of light mechs, and in general lighter weight mechs in service. Some of that was probably the economics of constructing lighter mechs on the industrial technology of the succession war era economies, but even so Henry really didn't want to get into the light mech game until he was sure where things stood. Which was good because there were more important things going given the numbers in front of him.

A part of him just wanted to sit here and just mass produce possibly literally everything that could run off of a pitban 240 and call it a day... "Not all of your eggs in one basket." He muttered to himself... and he was banking on being able to get to Bristol and opening up the Castle Brian sized Fury warehouse and using that as an excuse to start producing those, and other gauss rifle designs for House Davion... and maybe House Steiner in order to get the ball rolling on mass anti clan designs but he had been hoping to use the excuse of a shipyard as being sufficient reason to have influence on the planet.

He was wondering now if he had overthought that. The truth was he hadn't readily expected or planned for what life on Sakhara was going to be like. He'd been at the time too busy expecting the combine to come charging over the border after the battle of Halstead station. That hadn't happened. ComStar hadn't invented some bullshit excuse to interdict the FedSuns... things had just sort of coasted from there... two years down the road here they were.

Here he was looking at mountains of c-bills, and a fund in house bills of what the transport company had been bringing in. He glanced at a third value display enumerating banked BV... he'd need a staff pool to work with, and that was going to have to be both military and civilians, and some kind of public relations board... and those people were going to entail security. It was handy thus that the Rabid Foxes were a ground force option... even though that nickname was unlikely to be granted within this timeline.

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A part of Yvonne expected that poor Ian was in no way prepared for what was about to be dropped into his lap... in truth she was hoping that the trip to New Avalon ... well that once they arrived that she would be able to take the monarch aside and attempt to brief him on the situation in such away to prepare him for both the matter as it was, and also what was best for the realm at large. That was likely going to be a tricky proposition, Ian was by no means an idiot, but he was less likely to listen to her advice than his younger brother.

Ian might very well consider it, just by his nature, to take the exuberance at face value from his younger companion of the field of battle, and side with the initial proposal. There was also the risk that the duke of Robinson might well able to leverage Ian, and possibly Hanse's, anti combine sentiments to support a proposal that clearly favored the Draconis March.

The First Prince had strong executive privileges. That didn't mean he could ignore the great houses.

She shuddered to think what might have been the outcome if Clay had simply pushed forward without approaching the government at New Avalon first, with his shipyard plan... given the alleged steps that were left to be completed it was entirely possible that in six to eight months they might have been having this conversation from the supremely awkward position of having a direct vassal to New Avalon casually mention that they had a shiny new shipyard producing Star Lords, and if that weren't enough following on with 'oh would it terribly bother you much if I could build another one of these at Bristol'.

A request that would have been unrefusable... and a part of Yvonne saw no reason to try and refuse it so much as the calculus that if Clay could restore the yards that existed elsewhere in the Suns to capacity then all the better.

Henry was currently talking with Justin Allard, whose father was a career member of the civilian foreign service and had no shortage of rivals at court. If the friendship between the two held, that potentially provided lord Allard a powerful ally at court, and more broadly the ruling house of Kestrel. The Allards were a cadet branch of the Cunninghams and hailed from Kestrel

Certainly as prospective suitors Alexandria could have done worse.

"I must admit I'm surprised you didn't invite Justin." Alexandria observed as he waved to the departing cadet.

"The Cataphract needs more testing, besides I've tried to pull Justin into the logistical side of things, and to be blunt given his posting its better he focuses on mech combat."

That was, Yvonne admitted, a fair observation, with sensible reasoning. It wasn't impossible that Alexandria as part of DMI would see combat, but it was far less likely than in any frontline command posting. What was more likely was given her breeding, and to be honest her good looks and demeanor she would be the public face of any Davion liberation, or outreach to worlds that the Federated Suns were looking to make a favorable impression on.

It was simply the way things were.

"What about the other heavy mech?" The question came from the wheelchair bound form of the duke of Robinson.

"The merlin? That will depend on what Mountain Wolf says, but I have instances of their company's original machines, and I'm given to understand they need capital to rebuild the original factory, so I expect they will be willing to license out production in return for support."

"Such as engines."

"It runs off of a pitban 240, I'm not above throwing money at them to get them to accept." He replied truthfully, "Its a heavy mech, its reasonably fast, and it carries a multi role armament. While I'm sure that armament could be tweaked I think it would complement the centurion well, and that's really my priority it producing enough centurions to fill the gaps for whenever the combine makes a good for the next round."

... and whether it was intended to sway opinion or not, it was precisely that sort of argument which would sway Ian Davion if he was in anyway still mulling the decision. So regardless of the direction Lord Aaron, or the young count of Sakhara were aiming she needed to sway the first prince ahead of time to consider the realm at large rather than just the interests of the Draconis March's most stalwart protectors.

The latter epithet was unfortunately to be something of a bane to Yvonne's efforts in the future as the media within Davion space took it and ran with it.