TBSO11

==Chapter 11 - The Silent Black Ocean==
Unity City, North America
Sol Star System
Wolf Empire
3165
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("...you wanted to be the High King.")
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The construction outside was reconstruction.  Inside, was restoration...with technical improvement. ilKhan Alaric Ward passed a crew of workers repairing the intricate inlaid tilework of the old Star League Palace here in Unity City.
He had made the unilateral decision to place the capital back where it belongs, on the Puget Sound in Unity City. Leaving instead of the administrative nest of vermin that was Fort Geneva on the European continent.
It was symbolic.  The Wolf Empire would by damn be the leading state in the Star League, if he had to build the damned thing himself. One alliance at a time, eventually one conquest at a time.
For now, it would be the Wolf Empire, but Alaric had already determined his next trick.  Trillian had no heirs beyond Roderick's line, she'd neglected to have children or to even marry. As far he knew, she didn't even have a living fiancé'.
She had the strongest navy in the Inner Sphere, bar none. Yet that would have to wait for a proper opportunity time. For Alaric's new Empire needed to get its feet fully under it, for him to solve the multitude of neglected problems that come with suddenly gaining one point four trillion people. Over half of which were on some form of public support simply to keep living, and the galaxy's largest 'rust belt' of idled, obsolete factories lacking skilled workers and raw materials.
On a practical level, the conquest of the Hegemony remnants in the Republic held almost no practical value whatsoever beyond waves of underemployed human beings on worlds teetering at the brink of collapse due to a lack of raw resources.
It was symbolic.  He stopped at a place in the Great Hall and looked at the artists carefully restoring the portraits of the Cameron dynasty. All the way back to the original Admiral McKenna.
"I will do it better than you." He  muttered, staring at the three meter tall image of Simon Cameron.  "I will pull them back together, and they will want it when I do."
Of course, the massive portrait made no expression, no reaction to his words.
After a moment, Alaric turned and returned to his path.
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