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Chapter Ninety-Six: Welcome to the Revolution

Kentares IV, May 7th, 3019

"Zarantha," I greeted the older woman as she entered my office. "I take it everything is going well over in Taurian space?"

"Yes actually, those Vincent corvettes are being refitted in one of our old Warship yards." She said with a smile. "Thomas has apparently been funneling Bulls into getting our jumpship and Warship yards up and running, he only has one slip up and running for now, and it'll be another few decades of work to get the rest of them up and running again, but it's a start towards recovering what was lost in the suppression wars by the Terran Hegemony."

"Frankly, as long as Thomas doesn't freak out and assume the Davions are making plots where they aren't, I could care less what he's working towards." I shrugged. "We don't exactly get along…" I trailed off.

"A pity that." Zarantha said with a small smile. "Your landhold on Taurus is growing, you know." She offered as she reclined on my office couch. "The steward that you left in charge is actually quite effective with the funds you divert to him every year, and has managed to grow your assets on the world significantly."

"That's good to hear." I replied. "I'll have to make sure that he gets a raise." I nodded. "So, my R&D department outdid themselves." I tossed Zarantha, one of the new "ipad" clones. "Check this bad boy out."

"Where did they get the idea for this?" She asked as she looked up after easily navigating through a series of scientific manuscripts easily. "The interface is fluid, and there is no need to have a massive list of commands memorized." She stopped. "How much does one of these cost to make?"

"A fraction of a C-Bill is what we're going to sell them for." I told her. "And production is actually easier automated in this kind of work, which means that all we have to do is build the factory and monitor them." I grinned. "I'm planning on donating them to every major learning center in the Galaxy, and distributing them to every periphery nation and the Outback of the Federated Suns pre loaded with medical and engineering courses."

"I take it the Concordat is among the top of your list?" Zarantha asked me.

"Yes, and the real reason for distributing this around major learning centers is this." I used the pad on my desk to "Drop" a file to her. "This is encrypted end to end, the only way you can get that is if you are holding the pad."

"And they can be keyed to biometrics?" She asked excitedly.

"Yes, they can, allowing researchers to coordinate in the same building without having to change whatever it is that they are doing at that precise moment." I smiled.

"And there isn't any more risk than there would normally be because researchers are typically at risk anyway, and you could restrict specific pads to stay on the premises." She stopped. "And this would simplify logistics as well, not having to have physical paper to note everything down, or use easily screwed up commands to file requests or documents."

"I know." I said as I leaned back in my chair. "Welcome to what I am going to call, "The Information Revolution"."

May 23rd, 3019

"Watson!" I greeted the man. "How goes getting the Ironsides and Centurionfactories up and running?"

"Everything is on schedule for an opening in the next year." He told me. "And I think if we do it properly, we can produce two separate variants." He opened one of our new devices and sent me a file. "With our current technology base, we can produce a version of the Ironsides that is comparable to the Royal variants that the SLDF had produced." He showed me the specs. "The Centurion lines that we bought will be up and running in a couple of months, Jalastar was eager to sell them to us."

"Now, the Centurion is an older fighter, but with the new electronics that Dr. Rogers just released allow us to do a lot more with an older fighter as far as electronics packages go, it'll take a bit of refitting to set up the lines to manufacture them, and to get things set up, but I think it's a viable plan sir." Watson laid out his vision for our Aerospace division for me.

"Your plan looks solid Watson." I told the very happy man. "I thought you were sick of setting up factories."

"Oh, I was." He looked me in the eye. 'But this one is interesting." He smiled, "I've never set up aerospace lines before, and I always wanted to learn how to fly."

"Well, to each their own." I shrugged. "I make a habit of jumping out of perfectly good dropships from orbit."

"Crazy sumbitch." He looked at me with a strange look in his eye. "That's called bailing out, and if you do it then something went wrong."

"Not if you're trying to rapidly deploy to a planet's surface." I smirked at him. "Go have fun Watson, I'll try to slot you one of the first Ironsides off of the line."

"Yes sir," He replied with a grin. "Going to go set up factories now."

June 6th, 3019

"You're starting to look grizzled, Mark." Natasha told me. "I think you need a beard trim"

"Just because you still look like you're in your twenties doesn't mean we all age that way." I told my wife. "Be glad that silver is just now starting to show up in places." I told her. "Trimming things will only conceal it for a little while."

"Hmm," Natasha looked at me for a second. "When was your last checkup with Dr. Hale?"

"When I messed up my foot with David." I told her.

"That does not quite count." She told me. "She only does a vitals check whenever it is an emergency."

"It counts in my book." I told Natasha. "I'm perfectly fine, I'm not in any pain, and can still kick it with the twenty year olds in training."

Natasha just raised an eyebrow at me and stared…

"Fine, I'll set up an appointment with Dr. Hale." I grumbled, "But when she tells me that I'm healthy I reserve the right to say "I told you so.""

"That will not happen." She said confidently. "Instead, she will recommend some sort of treatment, and you will accept it." She stared at me for a little bit. "I will not outlive you by a decade or more, it is forbidden."

June 10th, 3019

"Dr. Rogers, you wanted to see me?" I asked the woman in front of me.

"Yes, I hope you have lawyers ready, because we finished the Sarissa design plans." She looked me in the eye, "Getting that Centurion factory was a great idea." She told me, "With it, we have the ability to put a 240 fusion engine in both of the machines, and we can double up on production, the Sarissa can be manufactured in an industrial mech factory aside from the armor electronics, and weapons systems."

"What did you come up with?" I asked her.

"Well, seeing as it's designed to be a second line unit or a garrison unit, we decided that lasers would be a good choice, and so we mounted A large laser, four medium lasers, two machine guns for anti infantry with a half ton of ammo. All of this cooled by the only advanced technology in the entire 'mech, fifteen freezers." She shrugged, "The Inner Sphere freezers, not the clan based ones."

"How long will it take for us to get it into production if we can get the license from Corean?" I asked.

"The next day." She told me, "It won't take long to reconfigure one of our five industrialmech factories to produce the 'mech."

"That's good to hear," I told her. "And the amount of them that you think we can manufacture in a year?"

"Twenty five if we devote two of our Industrial mech factories to them." She started. "I assume that any produced for our militia will be upteched variants."

"Yes, so we should probably get those set up as well." I told her, "But have those drawn up quietly for now, I want to sell this 'mech everywhere."

"The new electronics packages will allow us to update that as well for much cheaper." She told me bluntly. "I would recommend that we install that in the middle of production, it'll make it easier to produce."

"Sounds good Dr. Rogers." I shook her hand. "Thank you for all of your hard work."

"This isn't work for me Hull," She laughed. "This is what I call fun."