SotU2 Chpt 36

=Chapter 36=
Part Six - Chaos March
What if you did?
What if you lied?
What if I avenge?
==State of the Union - Book 2==
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Castle Davion, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Commonwealth
8th July, 3066
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“Three items for final decisions, sir.”
Peter pushed back his chair and gestured for Bishop Sortek to take a seat by the coffee table. His Champion complied, setting the document folder he’d brought on the table, then placing an open notepad on top of it. As the Archon-Prince filled two mugs with coffee, he was amused to see that the top page neatly laid out the written issue and options and hand-drawn tick boxes next to them waiting for the choices to be made. It was very secretarial, but this was a private conversation and who was to question how the uniformed head of the AFFC handled his personal notes? It clearly worked for him.
One sugar in Sortek’s mug, one cream in his own. He sat down facing the Field Marshal. “Anything we haven’t discussed to death already?”
“No, I think they’ve been chewed over repeatedly and nothing so urgent that I couldn’t have sent word while you were on Galax.” Bishop accepted his coffee. “Thank you sir.”
“Good coffee is the least I can offer with how much if this you’re handling for me.” Peter was honest enough to admit that he didn’t have close to the experience of high level military command to run the AFFC. He’d handled task groups he’d led in the Civil War by delegating most of the detail work to senior officers and trusting them, but learning how to run things from the capital… it rubbed in just how a junior officer he’d been when his career derailed.
As the Archon-Prince’s Champion (there had been a suggestion to reinstate the original title of Prime Marshal, but Peter liked the personal touch of the current version), Sortek wielded all the authority of the commander-in-chief, letting Peter pick up the job at a manageable pace alongside his civilian responsibilities. Most importantly of all, he’d managed to do so without undercutting his much younger superior.
“What’s first on your list,” Peter asked, although he’d read the upside down words. “the Alliance Guards?”
Bishop sipped from his mug and then nodded as he put it down. “They’re not bad troops, but they need their own niche. The perception that they’re second-rate FedCom RCTs is almost as damaging as the doubts about their loyalty.”
“I can see that. But I’m not about to write them off. Disbanding the corps would be almost as damaging, and spread disaffected soldiers across the AFFC.”
“Then we need to find them a new role, Sir. Jon Davion suggested taking a leaf from the Ceti Hussars’ and breaking them into smaller sub-commands.” Bishop told him
Peter rubbed his jaw. “It’s not exactly their own niche, but it’s a start. I take it you think that it’s the right track?”
“Yes sir. RCTs are very logistics heavy, particularly on shipping. We could do with additional smaller commands that can be moved around more easily to respond to a crisis.”
“Somewhat like the Capellan March’s Borderer regiments, or the Argyle Lancers.”
“Exactly, sir. But an entire corps of such units.”
Peter sipped his own coffee. “I see the merits, but we’d better not have them simply turn into second-rate Ceti Hussars instead of a second-rate FedCom Corps. Look at splitting them permanently into smaller formations, with each of the current RCTs forming three distinct combined arms brigades. We can look at beefing up their ‘Mech, aerospace and battle armor complements and scaling back conventional armor and infantry, so we can get the maximum punch for every dropship allocated to them.”
Bishop picked up his pen and ticked off one of the options. “We have some potential tables of organization,” he confirmed. “I’ll get back to you on a schedule for breaking off the new commands. We may need to adjust our allocations for new equipment and personnel. Do you want to revive the First and Second Alliance Guards?”
“Let’s go ahead. It’s not as if they did anything offensive before Kathrina broke them up to build her Jaeger formations. If you need cadre, consider picking some transfers from the Federated Suns Armored Cavalry. A mix of their doctrine and the Ceti Hussars could be what we need.”
“Next on our list is the construction of the Durandal-class.” The Marshal shuffled the folders, bringing a different folder to the top of his stack. “The admiralty has finalized enough of the design that we need to commit to where they’re to be built.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve had some thoughts there. We’re looking at upgrading Panpour or New Syrtis.”
“Yes, either yard will need some upgrades to manage that.”
“Expensive upgrades. One moment.” Peter rose and walked to his desk, checking one of the files that had been waiting for him when he got back from Galax. It was classified as need to know, and until now even Bishop Sortek hadn’t needed to know. He carried it back and handed it to Bishop. “Victor still has some friends inside ComStar, enough that we knew who to talk to. We’ll be upgrading both yards, but Panpour gets the contract for the Durandal.”
Sortek opened the folder and scanned the contents. His eyebrows lifted. “I see. Well, they can afford to finance it. We might find that New Syrtis becomes a target if it comes out that we’re building a warship for them there.”
“A warship yard will always be a strategic target and George Hasek has been backing upgrades there.”
“Yes.” The older man paused and drank from his mug, then continued. “But the Word of Blake aren’t necessarily going to be provoked by building AFFC ships the way they will by building this… what’s a Faslane-class?”
“It’s a yardship. Essentially a mobile shipyard,” Peter explained. “the ComGuards have been struggling to maintain their Warship fleet since they lost control of the Titan shipyards, so they’ve agreed to very favorable terms in exchange for us building at least one yardship for them.”
“If we build one, we can build more.”
“Given how many of our warships had to fight through the latter stages of the Civil War with serious damage, the ability to move a shipyard to them and make more in-depth repairs than their crews can manage unassisted could pay off down the line. It’ll be years before we have any but…” Peter trailed off.
Sortek closed the folder with a snap and reached for his pen again. “I trust you won’t be offended if I say that I’m impressed. At a minimum, we save Ways and Means the cost of the upgrades to New Syrtis shipyards and gain some valuable technical data. That’s well worth the impact on Jumpship production.”
“Which should be minimal.” Peter was amused to see the Marshal tick one box and asterisk the other. “So, what’s last on the list?”
“That…” His champion looked uncomfortable. “There is some discontent within the Deneb Light Cavalry.”
Peter blinked. “Which command?”
“All of them. To varying degrees.”
Rubbing his jaw, Peter sat back in his seat. The Deneb Light Cavalry had served the AFFS loyally since the fall of the Star League. A lone SLDF regiment had become a powerful corps, but the last few years had not been kind of them - in fact, they’d gone from six commands to three during Peter’s own adult life. “Is this about retiring the Tenth and Fifteenth’s colors?” The two RCTs had fought against Peter and for his alleged sister, one of them right here on New Avalon.
“It’s a factor, sir, although I don’t think it’s the main factor. No one really expected you to rebuild them given their last service. There was some hope that you might announce the formation of a new Fifth DLC, but that has been pushed back…”
“So what are they looking for?!” he demanded.
“There’s voices within the brigade, particularly the Fourth, that are suggesting following the Eridani Light Horse and returning to the SLDF.”
Peter bit back his initial response and rubbed the brow of his nose. “And not in a ‘resign their commissions and walk to the nearest SLDF recruiting station’ way?”
“No sir. En masse and with their hardware.”
“****** them.” He met Sortek’s eyes. “That would be a mess that we don’t need.”
“The Fourth were originally an SLDF regiment.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “I know. Let me think about how we -”
A chime from his desk interrupted.
“It’s never just one thing.” Peter went to the desk and tried not to snap. “What is it?”
“Lord Allard is here with an urgent matter, Your Highness.” his aid told him
“...send him in.”
The double doors to the office swung open and admitted Quintus Allard. His eyes widened appreciatively as he saw Sortek. “Your highness, Field Marshal. I was hoping I’d catch you both.”
“What’s so urgent, Quintus.”
The spy turned and made sure the door was closed. “The Capellans have invaded the Free Worlds League.”
Peter was reaching for his coffee mug and missed, almost knocking it over. “What?! No, never mind. Stupid question. Where? With what?”
“Ohrensen Province and at least three ‘Mech regiments, plus echelons of garrison and/or pacification units.” Quintus paused for effect. “There at least one warship has been sent in to back them up. One of the Feng Huang-class cruisers.”
“Damn.” That was a powerful vessel, a Capellan-rival to their own Avalon-class cruisers. The Capellan warship fleet was small but it was of a high quality. “You’re sure?”
“The Second St. Ives Lancers are one of the regiments. We’ve maintained some contacts with members of the regiment who remember we were our allies until Kathrina’s reign.”
Sortek shook his head. “Does the League have anything substantial there to stop him? That region isn’t aligned with any of the forming factions.”
“Two brigades of federal forces to stiffen the militia, one more or less neutral and the other leaning towards Corinne Marik. She has a destroyer there too, but FWLS Schrack is a refitted SLDF vessel. It won’t last long against a Feng Huang.”
Peter nodded in understanding. He wasn’t a naval officer but he’d been briefed in. The old SLDF had built its warships to operate as part of large battlegroups, each filling a specialized role. However, almost no one could field entire squadrons of warship any more and fighting alone such vessels fared poorly against more modern generalized designs. “Then Sun-Tzu can take the Ohrenson-Zion salient and then carry on into what’s left of the Chaos March or the Silver Hawks.”
“We’ll have to increase readiness for the units operating in the Chaos March,” warned Sortek. “Our detachments acting as peacekeepers in the Silver Hawks Coalition don’t have warship support though.”
“No, whatever Corinne Marik claims about one of our cruisers being there.” There was one Avalon-class cruiser that was unaccounted for though. If her spies had seen the Lucien Davion then it might be a clue at last to where the so-called ‘Archon-Princess’ was, but so far Isis hadn’t been able to validate that.
“And the Hawks have no warships of their own.” confirmed Quintus.
“The First Lord has been talking with the Blakists about the interned FWLN warships,” Peter thought out loud. “They’ve dropped hints that they’d be willing to hand most of them out to the factions but their price was retaining some for their own fleet. We may have to accept that or see Capellan bases threatening the Terran corridor.”
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