SCMR Chpt 109

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==Chapter 109 - Self Configuring Modular Robot==
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Elizabeth and Arthur arrived...
...on the 4th of March, 3059. While they were arriving, Operation Bulldog was going into motion in the Draconis Combine for the second time, this time, the joint task force included much of the AFFC's second fleet, along with elements of the Free Worlds League's primary warship fleet-two carrier groups to supplement the Lyran collection of Sampan IV and Fox corvettes, and Landmark class destroyer escorts.
There might have been Cruisers, if the Mjolnir project wasn't showing severe operational deficiency in the prototype, and the FCS Avalon wasn't showing similar issues getting through the morass of subcontractors, contractors, and engineering revisions.
It's all well and good, however. Comstar's collection of classic iron and new-build Dante class Frigates were more than up to the task of filling holes in the roles of the two larger powers.
The Landmarks were there to provide protection to the troop-carrying Foxes and the Leaguer carriers, while the bulk of 14th Division Cutters (Corvettes) were ranging ahead of the advance, targeting enemy transport and warship assets and marking the location of airbases and surface defenses in enemy systems for the allied advance.
The Carriers provide the fighter cover for the landing forces, and 16th Cutter Division is the flank security to allow the Fox-class vessels to, if needed, close to orbital bombardment range in support of landings-in-force, free of the risk of hostile interception from the outer system.
Focht's plan, agreed upon by Beresick and Prince Victor, is methodical-isolate enemy forces, destroy their ability to respond at a distance, close with the enemy using overwhelming force, upon destruction of the enemy, move on.
It's a multinational meat-grinder designed to leave the Smoke Jaguars and their allied Clans with no option but surrender, or die, with the forward ranging corvette units and some destroyer flotillas being tasked with eliminating the enemy's ability to reinforce or rescue their peers.
This is the price of Turtle Bay...not that anyone is really concerned. 
The Grand Council has another issue going on instead. A Fractious, vicious, debate, triggered by one of the 'below reserve' Clans showing up with materials that call into question the very moral fabric of the Clans themselves, their history, their traditions, their entire societal outlook.
Part of this, is the surveillance imagery from the sensors of the Goliath Scorpion flagship during their visit to the Kowloon system-the imagery showing ongoing projects that a single system was doing. That scale so far beyond the ability of the most ADVANCED of the Clans, as to be in its own way. An indictment of Clan scientific superiority, technical capability, and economic wisdom. This, coupled with the recordings from Khan Elam's visit to Dinh Diep, the documents retrieved at Giap Island and, finally, the materials from the Kowloonese archive, including the Elbar Declaration and the final message's harsh indictment.
It's worth vicious arguments on the floor of the Grand Council. Old accusations and counter-accusations surface. Old feuds dusted off revived old hatreds and divisions stoked to white-hot intensity.
There is no unity of action, as political divisions go to open fracture.
In ancient days, a man once observed that a body buried in the desert will surface at the worst time. That man was a criminal, he was discussing the disposal of other criminals in a place called 'nevada'.
The bodies were surfacing. Suppressed histories were creeping back into consciousness, legends were being questioned and challenged.
The counter-invasion was coming for the Clans, and they were not able to unite.
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