New Avalon 1.1
New Avalon 1.1The Longsword was not a complicated design. It didn't need to be, and if anything complexity would have defeated the purpose. He liked the grasshopper, really, he did, but the LRM 5 did seem something of an extra feature thrown in for a seventy ton mech. An extra feature that probably wasn't necessary, and maybe even be a potential vulnerability. It would probably be better to just claim to be able to make the fusion engine that powered the Locust or Whitworth and just put them in 80 ton Heavy LRM carriers for missile support.... but that could wait for the time being.
Henry turned away from the frame, "Alright well you gentlemen have your particular assignments," He remarked. They were going to reach out to federated boeing to see what if anything they had on the Cargo King DropShip, obviously the artemis and ER lasers were going to have to come out but he just wanted to know if the design was available. If it was... well then they could license the production and he could throw up a dropship yard and just produce a Cargo King without the lostech goodies. Then he wouldn't be competing with anyone manufacturing an existing dropship design.
As for hte rest of them, well he had interests besides just the issue of space lift even if that was arguably what he considered the largest priority. The problem, with his assumption of what was the largest priority was it was not universal. DropShips, and JumpShips as necessary to ferry material between distant star systems might carry the trade between worlds, but they hardly stirred mens souls, and for the aristocracy and the gentry it was the prospect of military power which struck the more resonant chord.
That brought them back to the matter of the Longsword... and to a lesser extent its LRM issue. He still thought the best option would probably be LRM carrier vehicles, but maybe the guys would find something.
New Avalon looked the same as it had last time he had been here.. but what Henry didn't see were the undercurrents of political power. At least for Henry's sake Ian Davion had ruled long enough that there were no remnants from the thirty eight year reign of his father Andrew, who Ian had succeeded just before the turn of the century.
Henry did still think it was insane that after sixteen years of rule Ian still didn't have an heir he was thirty five for gods sake, he had never been married. That probably sounded ridiculous given Henry's own apparent age, but even so he'd been arguably exposed to enough of the norm of the 31st century to recognize that that wasn't normal.
"There is one other thing," The essence generated MI6 'Rabid Foxes' officer remarked, "It appears Field Marshal Davion has scheduled her lunch with Prince Hanse." Who was in lieu of any children of Ian's heir apparent to the title of First Prince... but Ian was probably busy.
New Avalon traffic control when they had jumped in hadn't exactly been expecting two ducal ranked Field Marshals to be arriving. New Avalon being the capital of the Federated Suns meant the official welcoming party at the private starport deck had fallen all over itself to meet the expectations of the Duke of Robinson, and Duchess of Victoria... and left the two minors more or less on their own.
--
Within her hotel room at the starport, which were temporary accommodations for the evening Alexandria was mulling over her letter to her father. Penning the correspondence wasn't going well she'd been here the better part of an hour with little show for it.
She had always thought of the transit between her home on Kestrel and the capital of New Avalon to be an interminable experience of waiting. It was only three jumps, three weeks passage wasn't that ridiculous but she had in particular associated the the trip to New Avalon with her debutante appearance... and that had been time of jittery nerves.
This trip had had been a statement of wealth. Not necessarily a flaunting of it, or not how she perceived the trip. The JumpShip circuit had been a matter of cold hard logical reasoning to solve a problem rather than a statement of house wealth.
Not that House Cunningham's retainers were likely to believe that since they hadn't been there to observe... and Henry Clay's mannerisms were eccentric at the best of times. Probably better not to mention it at all, in fact she was having a hard time discerning what needed to actually be put in the letter... at what point she just ... relinquish the matter and simply ask for her father to come to New Avalon, and how to phrase that in a way to convey sufficient seriousness regarding the situation.
... and without starting a slew of rumors.
The truth was she had allowed the opportunity to slip by to contact Kestrel as they had passed by... because she hadn't known what to say, and because she had underestimated precisely how short of an interval they really had before the next jump.
She had ...made a mistake in not being prepared, and not taking seriously the claims of travel. It wasn't as if Kestrel was close enough either to simply trust a courier to get there quickly. She did have the benefit of having an appropriate chaperone, but that didn't help with the matter of getting the duke of kestrel's attention and act ...
... she scowled and looked at the half written draft and discarded what she wrote to start over, yet again.
--
"While I do appreciate you coming to call auntie I don't see how I might be of assistance." Hanse Davion was playing coy. He was heir to the realm, and more importantly his wedding to Dana Stephenson had already proved productive.
More importantly than just securing the line of succession, Hanse was one of the few people that Ian could be said to trust implicitly and that included, had included moving his heir apparent from a frontline combat command with the Davion Guards. Not that Hanse minded, from the twinkle in his eye, and the sly grin the not so little fox was happy with his new position.
Eventually it was rather likely that Hanse would supersede her and put posted to command of the entire DMI but for now he was simply a posted advisor to the office of the First Prince. That was a safe enough place for the heir to the realm, and kept him on hand if the worst were to come to pass... and so Yvonne began the process of unfurling the horrendous gordian knot of her headache to Hanse.
"It does seem a pickle, auntie." He agreed after a minute. "You're right of course that if Ian can be convinced of a position first it'll be unlikely he can dissuade from it...but that might take more than just me." He demured, but that was more a deflection to spread out the argument further to a wider clique of influence within the government.
She sighed, "I am aware that what I view as being the best interest of the realm does benefit him. I don't have to like it, but nor am I ignorant."
As Duke of New Syrtis and the recently installed hereditary minister for the Capellan March Michael Hasek Davion had an inflated sense of self importance. She didn't like the man, she hadn't liked his father... and there were historical enmities between the Combine and Capellan marches... it was no secret that as the capellans had the unfortunate nickname of being the 'sick man of the inner sphere' there were plenty of nobles among the Draconis March who were happy to look down their noses at New Syrtis.
That admittedly didn't apply to Lord Aaron, or many of his inner circle, but it didn't change the reputation or the historical animosity either. Lord Aaron respected the capellan threat, so he might accept reason and logic, but it didn't mean he would necessarily like it... and it might cause his backbenchers to protest.
"So about this seventy tonner?"
"I believe he has brought a few of them," She was under the impression that they'd been assembled for Albion to experiment with them, but that wasn't the reason Hanse was asking, "Do you have something?"
"It wouldn't hurt for him to grease the wheels, so to speak with New Avalon's other manufacturer," Based on the continent of Brunswick she wasn't sure if it had just been the fact he already had owned Centurions that had driven him to select Corean, but Archenar had been scarcely mentioned outside of the historical context. "Just this Longsword, though?"
"To the best of my knowledge. He didn't bring one of these cataphract," Why, or what reasoning had gone into the decision she wasn't sure but it didn't really matter. Clay considered the mech question to be more a matter of convincing Corean to license a medium mech design and to construct Centurion lines in the Draconis march. That would if it was successful increase the number of centurions in Davion service, and that would be of interest to Corean. The majority of Achenar's income came from its other industries, but that didn't mean they weren't interested in their military contracts it wouldn't hurt to try and leverage their participation on amiable terms. It was certainly in the interest of House Davion to balance its industrial entities.
Better they reached out first, rather than have Achenar's representatives feel slighted by having to find out on their own, Yvonne figured that might make them less likely to want to participate fully in the future.