1.3
Ana Marie Centrella knew it was important to cultivate close relations with the next generation of planetary leadership. Coromidr was an important world on its own, but there was every indication that Tamati Arano would pass his throne to his daughter, and the formation of the Aurigan March showed no signs of changing that succession. The Aurigan Coalition was just that. It was, and had grown out of a trade partnership and that still reflected in the internal relationships, and the new relationship between the core and the march coming together as a growth of that trade partnership, and free trade area.
That relationship was important for the Magistracy of Canopus to pay attention to, even without the pirate threat currently dominating the news spheres. Pirates typically didn't like attacking well protected targets, and it was rare for a known pirate, and established pirate to mount an attack that was going to draw repercussions unless he was being paid to do so or he needed to bolster his reputation. Out of the blue attacks were more typically associated with pirates who needed to make their bones... and even they were unlikely to mount an attack on a heavily reinforced planetary garrison... but that was no reason to relax.
Black Jack had demonstrated he wasn't the typical sort of pirate. The threat he posed was precisely the sort of thing that required the magistracy to build ties with other periphery nations, and open trustworthy channels of communication... especially since the bastard seemed to be going out of his way to burning HPG stations that prevented word from being beamed out of system and thus spreading warning that his pirates were operating in a given area.
Whether he was typical or not, he was successful and that meant that he'd be attracting all the lesser pirates looking for the prestige of success, and table scraps. The Magistracy's concern was that with the relatively recent raid on Luxen, and before that Detroit in 3015, plus other region instability was that the pirates would come down in force like locusts. That would strain an already over stretched, and limited MAF and so the diplomatic corp had its responsibilities.
She was about to refuse, as a result of those responsibilities, a direct invitation from the heir apparent of the Coalition to the March's ruler. Heron's eyes swept over both of them as he looked up from the table mounted holographic globe. It was an aurigan relic the table, a holdover from the star league era, and it had always been a curiosity that cult of St Cameron wasn't more established in the Aurigan Coalition, which had always been more pro star league than the most post Concordat contraction worlds.
Lord Espinosa hovered over the edge of the table looking at the dots representing worlds. "This is important Kamea," He lectured his niece, "the fate of worlds hangs in the balance. The whole of the coalition could be threatened." The reality was, though of course she was polite enough not to mention it, that as tentative a grasp, as precarious the balance that governed periphery states were any significant pirate force could be a disaster ... Black Jack's force were at least a level exponentially worse than just catastrophe.
"As I was telling your uncle," The other man remarked, "This is a current projection of where we have forces stationed at present. That there are limitations of what can be done. It had been my intention that,"
That his forces could largely be mobilized. That the massive volume of military materiel and especially the conventional ground forces personnel tens of thousands of personnel would be able to be furloughed to set up homes, shops, and work out new civilian lives. Instead whatever they had been planning had to contend with a war against a pirate king.
It was an atypical priority, but on the other hand the composition of forces that made the Aurigan March viable stood out by the nature of its atypical structure. All of it had arrived seemingly with full strategic, that was jump capble, mobility in addition to DropShips.
By demobilizing those troops it would free up a significant volume of JumpShips that would have meant trade flowing between the two rebels. "As it is I'll have to remobilize the 60th Brigade and that may take a few months." He stated without concern for the prospect of a unit of that nomenclature.
Because this was not a discussion of a historical unit that was now a component of political organization rather than regular military deployments. Then the other shoe dropped. It had been established months ago that there were six BattleMech Regiments and an unclear number of supporting other combat arms, and also the necessary droppers and JumpShips.
It was no wonder the Taurians were upset the force based on Aea while comprising a single BattleMech Regiment was supported by two regiments of armor plus mechanized infantry battalions and additional ASF forces.
She watched and counted the other two squares with small 'x's above them appeared. One at Regis Roost, and the other at Katinka. It was information she had been hoping to purloin not information she had expected to just be provided for. The details though were alarming for other reason. There were six marcher worlds
Aea, Regis Roost, Katinka, Artru Qalzi, and the odd one out, the separate, distant Tarragona. She had wondered why, Tarragona but it may have simply been part of the deployment of forces sent out on anti-pirate operations more broadly. A whole regiment had gone out after Grim Sybil, uprooting her from a base on a moon entirely too close to Canopian space, another had dropped on Fjaldr.
He indicated a key calling up the last of the Mech Regiments in question, "Our Light Horse Regiment dropped on Fjaldr to clear out the clans there, but I maybe be able to retask the units of that regiment with others to respond better to our current crisis." Ana Marie assumed that would entail deploying the regiment as part of its constituent battalions... the normal behavior of the succession wars. He continued on, "With Tarragona secured, and the pirates eliminated I can probably accelerate their remobilization, but that will have to be sometime in the new year. I've already said that to Lord Espinosa."
The the older man shrugged.
The summation was that they wouldn't move the forces on Aea it was better they remain and it made sense. She wouldn't have put it past the Taurians to complain that a return to garrison by the forces deployed there currently would be a 'provocation' if they had to be deployed anti spinward, or even potentially just rimward.
"I don't understand you said you needed to remobilize them," Kamea observed.
It was the Taurians. Remobilization of the brigade's supporting units was to insure that the Taurians didn't try and jump the border while other forces were elsewhere. "And beyond that unpleasant realpolitik, Blackjack seems to be aiming to burn down the HPG network, it seems like he's got some grudge with ComStar from the way he goes after them but whether personal or simply murderous pragmatism, Aea has a ComStar HPG on it... besides the Taurians its very likely that Black Jack might mount an attack there."
--
Heron wished that it were that simple. The truth was he couldn't trust ComStar not to be up to something, and he couldn't trust the Taurians either... despite the surprising lack of insanity out of the Taurian current leadership... but they were on the precipice of a larger conflict... and risking the attention of the successor states.
He didn't want to abandon Tarragona but it might come to that, which meant they needed to consider stripping the world... and that was going to be complicated. The larger priority for the forces nominally based on Tarragona was the recovery of the Dobrev and any material related to it.
That would take potentially longer than he claimed, but he hoped it didn't. Getting it done by December would be good, maybe not ideal, but the Dobrev had the potential to be useful in other ways. It would potentially allow them to help prepare the Inner Sphere for the conflict with the Clans... and if the machinery aboard the Dobrev was intact it might also be useful for the Aurigan Coalition to expand its own military industrial complex without being dependent on machinery he generated via essence either c-bills or BV. The intermediary weapons between star league and mature clan production models would be useful for scientists to look at.
Both the existing Aurgians and people who were Star League era personnel.
"What do you make of the report?"
The gray haired man pinched his nose, and took a breath, "With all due respect colonel the comparison between this, Dire Wolf thing you provided me, and the things pulled out of the Dobrev." He paused... "I don't understand why they're not further along. Most of these weapons are incremental improvements of things we already had. Alright the Omni-Mech is impressive, no doubt but these Omni-Vehicles and I would assume that there is an Omni Air equivalent," There was but he'd also only shown the Badger and Bandit vehicles that the Wolf Dragoons had had blackwell introduce, "I would assume they'd have more to show for it if Kerensky's people had two hundred plus years on us."
"Thats a valid point."
There was a timeline projected. Kerensky's flight from the Inner Sphere, and the Dobrev's flight from the clan homeworlds. They had a timeline of the improved models being introduced in what would be called the 'early clan' period... and then what did they have to show for it.
"My bigger concern..."
"Sir?"
"My larger concern is not so much their lack of progress, but the advantage that they may retain in naval tonnage... Intelligence suggests that the Inner Sphere can no longer construct capital scale drives,"
"Hell sir, the intelligence says they can barely build standard JumpDrives. Once our yards are online we'll probably have more JumpShips coming- Oh." He grunted.
"Exactly we're going to need to take precautions, not just against Keresnky's people but against other potential enemy actors. I want us to focus on production of Blackwasp ASF and Pentagon based drone protection systems. I want jump points heavily reinforced as soon as possible."
"Yes sir."