SotU2 Chpt 27

=Chapter 27=
==State of the Union - Book 2==
----
Fortress Dieron, Dieron
Dieron District, Draconis Combine
15th November, 3065
----
Generations of officers on both sides of what was now the Federated Commonwealth had fantasized about invading Dieron and marching into Fortress Dieron, the former SLDF base that was the key to controlling the Draconis Combine’s most powerful fortress, within a single jump of Terra. A successful invasion would have potentially crippled the entire Dieron District for months and would have been a humiliation forcing the Coordinator to commit units recklessly to recover the world.
Galen Cox was welcomed aboard a Draconis Combine Admiralty dropship that ferried him down to the surface. His SLDF identification saw him waved past landing requirements and into a staff car that whisked him into the legendary fortification through a side entrance within two hours of his first footsteps off the dropship.
It was distressingly anti-climatic for a boy from Tamar.
Then again, no one was shooting at him. That was always a bonus. While the Combine were, if not friends, then at least allies. Possibly.
The man working at the great mahogany desk in the office he was ushered to looked up the sound of the door and broke into a broad smile. When he rose to his feet, Hohiro offered a bow that would have scandalized almost every level of Combine society. Not because it was poorly done - Hohiro’s etiquette teachers would have been proud. No, just at the fact that the Coordinator’s eldest son and heir, who was also the Commanding General of the much vaunted SLDF, had bowed to this visitor as an equal!
“Galen, my old friend!”
Galen matched the smile as he saluted crisply. “Hello, Hohiro. You’re looking well.”
“Between you and me, it’s hard not to avoid having to let my belt out with all the meetings to attend and the paperwork to go through.” Hohiro confided. “What a fate for honest soldiers!”
“As I recall, your career is a tapestry of mis-direction, fraud and stabbing overly trusting Clan Warriors when they weren’t looking.”
“Is that a complaint?” Hohiro questioned him
''
“No,” Galen grinned even more. “Just admiration.”
“Excellent!” Hohiro gestured towards a western-style coffee table and the padded chairs around it. “Take a seat and we can catch up while you tell me how bad it is in the Free Worlds League.”
Over coffee and quillar (which Galen knew Hohiro must have arranged just for him, the Tamar staple was very rarely cultivated in the Combine), he outlined the situation.
When he was done, Hohiro sat back in his own chair. “First the Liaos fighting over St Ives, then the Steiner-Davions and now Mariks. I’m glad my own family is at peace.”
Galen decided not to mention the 3058 coup attempt that had tried to replace Hohiro’s father with either Hohiro’s illegitimate half-brother or a more distant cousin. It had been foiled by an unlikely alliance of mercenaries, yakuza, and a Capellan movie star, but the Draconis Combine preferred to pretend that ‘Mechs had not waged war on their own capital.
The Kurita must have read something in his face anyway for his lips quirked. “At peace now, anyway.”
“I don’t think we’ll be saying the same about the Mariks for a while. The coup itself was so mis-managed I’m half-tempted to think it was intended to fail. Isis’s request for SLDF intervention is the first sign of sanity I’ve seen among their leaders since then.”
“I still remember her as little more than a girl on Outreach, trying to fit in and offending most of us more than I think she ever realized. And now she’s dropping hot potatoes like this one in my lap.” Hohiro said mournfully. “Why did I even take this job?”
“Because Peter tied Victor up and wouldn’t let him come back?”
“Something like that. I think my sister is pregnant again, by the way. You might want to think about gifts.”
“Victor will be ecstatic.” Galen thought of the happy couple a little wistfully. “Who would have thought back then that we’d be in these positions now?”
Hohiro shook his head. “Certainly not I. But to business: the First Lord, the Archon-Prince, the Precentor Martial, and my father all agree that intervention is for the best. That’s as official as it can be without a full vote by the Star League Council.”
“I’m sure Chancellor Liao would oppose that decision.” Galen noted
“I’d be quite content not to let him have any say. However, if I’m going to ask for forces to be seconded to the SLDF from the AFFS and DCMS then I suppose I can hardly avoid making the same request of him.”
“Do you have to? It might not be a bad way for the First Regimental Combat Team to get their feet wet.”
“I will be sending them, but four brigades isn’t enough. The Duchess of Tamarind has added a request mirroring her nieces, and I can’t spare the Eridani Light Horse as well.”
Galen nodded in understanding. “That does widen the requirements then. I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer that Sun-Tzu refuse to contribute though. His troops might be more of a problem than a solution.”
“I’m quite sure I’d prefer it, but I have to treat him the same way as the other Council Lords. At least the smaller states won’t be slighted if I don’t ask them to make a long-term commitment. The Taurians and Canopians got burned loaning regiments to the Capellans and Rasalhague is facing the Clans.”
“And sending ComGuard divisions into Blakist territory would be incendiary.” Galen rubbed his chin. “Well, Peter will probably be willing to break some troops loose for a short term deployment.”
“Almost as bad in the eyes of the Mariks but it is what it is.” Hohiro looked frustrated. “I’ll send them to Isis’ new alliance… or rather, to the Coalition she’s usurped.”
“Now now, she’s only their Foreign Minister.”
“For now. How they grow.”
For a moment, Galen had a visceral remembrance of how Isis had grown since they’d met on Outreach back in 3051. Almost half her life ago, she wasn’t a cocksure teenager any more. No, she had grown into someone with real strength of character that she could be proud of, but with the humility not to take it too far.
“Yes.” he agreed after he realized he’d paused too long. “Have you considered looking at funding to get mercenaries?”
Hohiro paused, the knowing look in his eyes fading as the possibility engaged him. “With the Chaos March beginning to stabilize, that might not be a bad idea.”
“I hear that the Wolf's Dragoons and Northwind Highlanders have been trying to put together a mercenary federation to get a seat on the Star League Council. They might be excited to take a new SLDF contract.”
''
“Excited would probably be a strong word, there’s more politics going on about that than you seem to have realized,” the Kurita prince told him drily. “but if nothing else, I suspect they’re cash poor and it might be easier to get money than troops out of ComStar and even my father right now. He does have to keep more troops facing the Federated Commonwealth now that Peter is the Archon-Prince.”
Galen shrugged apologetically. He’d had no hand in any of that.
“If you do have any back-channels,” Hohiro suggested somewhat heavily, “you might want to pass on that he’s not really making a lot of friends in the Star League Council. I realize that that’s probably unavoidable given the sheer size of the Federated Commonwealth, and objectively he’s doing very well holding things together but if one of his March Lords jumps into another border war then it might rebound more harshly than he expects.”
“Well, I can tell, Victor. I assume that he has a back-channel to Tharkad and New Avalon.”
“I’ll take it.” Hohiro looked saddened. “I really don’t want to wind up using the SLDF against the Federated Commonwealth. If nothing else, my very name would be incendiary.”
The optics of a Kurita, the ancestral enemy, using the SLDF to invade the Federated Commonwealth… Galen shivered. “You’re not wrong.”
“It’s one of my many charms.” The older man shrugged and then consciously cleared his mind of the matter. “On a happier note, I gather that while Irian are mostly going to back Isis, it shouldn’t affect the delivery of our equipment.”
“That’s my understanding. In fact, if we’re sending troops into that area then we might want to consider contracting them as part of our supply lines…”
----
Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter
Category:State of the Union Chapters