SotU2 Chpt 16

=Chapter 16=
==State of the Union - Book 2==
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Telesian, Furillo
Bolan Province, Federated Commonwealth
25th April, 3065
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Reinhart Steiner found it comforting that Furillo was entering fall as he returned to the Ducal Mansion. Both Tharkad and New Avalon had broadly similar seasonal cycles to Terra, with their principle settlements in the northern hemispheres and thus the Federated Commonwealth might take this for spring, but Furillo was almost diametrically opposed in its seasonal calendar. The trees around the estate were terrestrial breeds that were beginning to show gold in their leaves and the chill in the air spoke of a bracing winter coming up, not the heat of summer.
“Your grandmother is waiting for you on the terrace.” the butler informed him on arrival and thus, the young Brigadier General (the Skye Rangers had quixotically elected not to follow the permitted german form of the rank, Brigadegeneral) followed the main hall and then took a familiar dog-leg out to the back of the palatial residence to where a broad paved terrace looked out over the formal gardens.
Iris Steiner, Duchess of Furillo and one time Margrave of the entire Cavanaugh Theater, sat on a chair looking out over the lawn and flowerbeds, a distant look on her eyes. A steaming mug of coffee was between her hands and Reinhart saw a carafe on the table next to her, alongside a plate of biscuits.
“Grandmother,” he offered, dropping to one knee beside her chair.
“Hmm?” She looked up, having apparently missed his approach in her reverie. Iris allowed him to kiss the back of her hand before ruffling his hair. “Do stand up, Reinhart, or better, pull up another chair. I’ve been waiting here for you to bring me all the gossip.”
He laughed and turned a chair so he could sit at an angle to her, neither blocking her view of the gardens nor out of her easy line of sight. Having commanded half the border with the Free Worlds League during the height of her career, and given his own father’s stellar performance as a commander - currently Caesar Steiner was the Generalfeldmarschall assigned command of all AFFC forces in Skye Province - he suspected that the duchess probably knew more about what was going on than he did.
“What would you like me to start with?” he asked. “The arguments over shutting down Tharkad City’s main fusion reactor for a two year refurbishment?”
“It’s Star League era,” she snorted. “It’d probably be good for three more centuries unless it got shot up during Peter storming the city, and if that happened we would have heard about it by now.”
Reinhart shrugged and picked up a small fairy-cake. He didn’t care if it made him look unmanly, he liked them. “It’s Peter’s money to spend.”
“It’s the capital’s infrastructure budget,” she grumbled. “if that needs topping up out of the national budget or the Steiner family funds then it’ll hit us to some degree. And if you eat too many of those you’ll end up as fat as your father.”
“Father’s not that fat.”
Iris shook her head fondly. “Not for want of your mother trying.”
Reinhart snickered. His father was noted for his appetites, of various kinds, and it hadn’t shocked the royal court when he ended up marrying a professional chef. However ‘inappropriate’ it might be for the heir to a duchy, at most ten places removed from the Archon’s throne, to marry a commoner.
“He seemed to be in good spirits when I last saw him.”
“Caesar is always in high spirits, I should have probably reined him in more but it’s too late now. At least he’s happy.” Iris shrugged her shoulders. “How about you, Reinhart? Are you happy? I thought Victor might have given you the Tenth Guards for yourself if he’d taken the throne.”
“Might have, could have, didn’t.” the younger Steiner replied calmly. “In hindsight, I don’t think Victor ever intended to reclaim the title of Archon-Prince. He was always happiest on the battlefield.”
“I note that you avoid the thrust of the question.” His grandmother stabbed one finger at him, for a moment suggesting to him what a holy terror she must have been in her own service days, before reaching for the carafe to refill her coffee. She only filled the cup halfway though, topping it up from a flask hidden in the pocket of her jacket.
“And you complain about father’s drinking?” he asked wryly.
“I know my limits.”
Reinhart grinned. “Actually, I am. The Twenty-Fifth need a strong hand given how their last colonel was in Robert’s pocket. Transitioning them to a frontline command is just the thing after serving in the Lyran Guards. I hadn’t noticed but I think I’d gotten into something of a rut.”
“Hmm. Well, if a jumped up militia makes you happy then who am I to complain. Robert won’t have stopped with just the colonel though. His father was more thorough than that, and he’s a chip off that block.”
“I have LIC doing some digging but it’s a delicate balance to let them work without it turning into the sort of witch-hunt that damages morale.”
The Twenty-Fifth Skye Rangers were a very recent addition to that long-standing brigade, having formerly been the Alexandria FTM and before that, the Alexandria SMM. Neither the March Militias or the Theatre Militias had fit well with Lyran military customs and Peter’s solution to that had been to abolish those established in the Lyran half of his realm, transferring personnel and equipment into existing brigades (or in the case of the Coventry Strikers, creating a new one). The result had been a surprise reprieve for the Jaeger regiments established by the former Archon. While most commentators had expected them to be dissolved, instead the Bolan and Alarion Jaeger regiments had found themselves with sister regiments. Only the Skye Jaegers remained orphaned, since the militia units in Skye had been rolled into the Skye Rangers to open up the famously rebellious units to reorganization and a quiet purge of the most hardline or high-ranking pro-Free Skye personnel.
Colonel Timmerman had been handled comparatively kindly. A transfer in grade to the Lyran Regulars where he’d be surrounded by loyal personnel and hopefully be swayed away from any further sedition. Other officers had joined the comparative flood of ex-LAAF mercenaries on Galatea and Outreach.
It was opening a lot of room for relatively junior officers like Reinhart or his cousin Sabine to jump up to positions that would have previously been years away. A bloody war or a sickly peace, as the saying goes.
“He calls himself ‘leader of the loyal opposition’,” Iris observed tartly. “I’d hate to see what disloyal opposition looks like.”
“Robert?”
She nodded. “Victor’s mistake wasn’t having Ryan killed, it was in not following through and purging the rest of them. A ruler can afford one really thorough purge of their opponents.”
“And Kathrina went too far in the other direction?” Reinhart enquired musingly.
“Correct.”;; She dipped a cookie in her coffee and shook off the droplets before putting it into her mouth. “Peter, I will reserve judgement on for now. He hasn’t really been tested yet.”
“Not by the Civil War?”
“He wasn’t the ruler yet.” the old woman told him dismissively. “He’s shaking things up, which is good, but the question is where they will settle. This ‘grand senate’ idea could bite him in the ass.” Reinhart choked and she gave him a sharp look. “I’ve seen plenty of asses in my time, Reinhart. Yours a few times when you were still wearing nappies that needed to be changed.”
“It does give everyone a stake in what happens with the Federated Commonwealth going forwards.”
“It gives a comparatively few elites a say in what happens,” Iris corrected him. “look what that’s done for the Free Worlds League. Peter was right to send his brother here to straighten things out before we have a war across the border. Are your troops ready to deploy down there?”
He nodded. “Either aggressively or as SLDF peacekeepers.”
Iris shook her head. “This won’t be like Anton’s mess or the Andurien war. Once they turn on each other we could push the borders to back where they were in 2864.”
That was a little before Reinhart’s time or his grandmother’s - but he took the point. The end of the Second Succession War had been the highwater mark of Lyran success against the League, with their forces in raiding range of the world that bore House Marik’s name, as well as strategic industrial worlds like Thermopolis and Irian. “And probably retake the worlds we lost in 3058, but the trade-off might be too high. I think Peter is still focused on rebuilding and preparing for outside threats looking to conquer us.”
“Like the Clans.” For the first time in a while, he saw Iris look uncertain. “Perhaps. Yet he managed to see them off easily enough at the end of the Civil War. I’m hesitant to dismiss them as a threat, but they seem to be less of a problem now than they were when we first encountered them.”
“They weren’t seriously pushing. We’re better off when we were, but it’s still a risk.” Reinhart made a face. “Of course, if Sun-Tzu jumps in then we’ll have to step in. No one wants him picking up more worlds.”
Iris nodded. “Ignoring him was another mistake by Victor, but if I list those then we’ll be here all day.”
With a sigh, Reinhart decided to let it slide. He’d worked with Victor Steiner-Davion for years. He both liked and admired his cousin, but there was a certain willful blindness on his part to how decisions like the election of Sun-Tzu or his open admiration and friendship for the ancestral enemies of both sides of the Federated Commonwealth…
“What’s been new here?” he asked, seeking a safer subject.
Iris blew on her coffee - although surely it must have cooled off by now - and took a sip. “Well, Defiance have been pulling older production lines out of storage and shipping them out to some very secret site off world. Using the space to extend their production. I don’t know what Peter’s up to there but it’s probably a better use of government funding than a reactor no one has complained about in as long as I can remember.”
“I haven’t had any briefings,” Reinhart admitted. “probably because I’ve no need to know. But I guess it’s likely part of his grand ‘rationalization.” While Defiance Industries was best known for their massive factories on Hesperus II, still the largest single BattleMech factory in the Inner Sphere, they also had a secondary site here on Furillo that mostly manufactured medium ‘BattleMechs.
“My suspicion is that he’s setting up secondary sites for parts, on worlds well away from the borders.” His grandmother sipped again and then licked her thin lips. “Not before time. Katrina looked at doing it and so did Melissa, but they always had higher priorities for their political capital. I’m guessing that Peter jumped on the opportunity to be a new broom sweeping clean, as he has so often.”
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