FSRB Chpt 88

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==The Federated Suns Reborn - Chapter 88==
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March 3068Preparations
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===Raven Fleet Arrives===
April began with word coming from the Outworld's Alliance that Galaxy Commander Thorsten Magnus had agreed to bring only his 1st Raven Phalanx Cluster and the CSR James McKenna to New Avalon. The rest of his escort - the 6th Raven Battle Cluster and the remaining 3 warships of the Swift Wing Naval Assault Star would await his return at Manassas. This of course left the AFFS facing "only" an elite cluster of clan warriors and one of the most powerful battleships ever constructed in their capital system. However, with all 8 Fox corvettes of the 1st Corvette Flotilla reinforced with the FSS Fox, FSS Broken Wheel, FSS Salem, and FSS Northfield as a third division, while the 5th Corvette Flotilla will accompany the Clan Snow Raven Naval Star to Manassas and will remain there as escort for the CSR Blizzard, CSR White Terror, and CSR Spur. Along with the 1st Corvette Flotilla at New Avalon will be the 4 Avalon class cruisers of the 1st Cruiser Squadron supported by the 4 Davion III destroyers of the 1st Destroyer Squadron all in system along with the high numbers of aerospace fighter regiments and assault and pocket dropship squadrons if is felt that the Federated Suns Navy can handle the situation. The concentration of 20 warships in a single system by a single naval power is the largest non-Comstar/WOB fleet formation since the end of the 1st Succession War and one that generates no small amount of pride in the Federated Suns Navy. Particularly as this is not the entirety of their strength and they are continuing to maintain their patrol deployments. This is also seen as an opportunity to show the Clanners the military potential and power of the Federated Suns and how ill-advised it would be to pick a fight with them. 
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===FedSuns Royal Marriage Preparations increase===
Wedding preparations push forward with an almost frenzied pace, but nothing is allowed to compromise security. The various Federated Suns Intelligence Agencies also contribute to reinforcing security and in a surprising move a small team is even sent from the Tikonov based Okhrana who are tasked with ensuring that no Free Tikonov dissidents disrupt the proceedings. 
With no fewer than 5 battlemech formations on the world - no less than 4 of which are RCTs - the High Command are confident that no major ground assault will be able to quickly overwhelm the garrison. Particularly in light of the massive force of warships and other aerospace assets in system. That doesn't however stop them from standing up the entire senior year of the cadet corp of the NAIS and Albion Military Academies to help with security. While their training mechs, other equipment and training might not be up to full AFFS standards the High Command adds effectively a 5 or more scratch regiments to their security force for the duration of the wedding festivities. The remainder of the cadet corp are formed into provisional infantry battalions and used to reinforce the conventional forces of the senior cadets. Extra conventional infantry brigades are drafted in, with specialist military police units attached to them to help with crowd control and routine patrols. Ardan Sortek, the Prince's Champion himself, is placed in overall command of the security for the event, with Marshal Galen Cox as his deputy. 
Amongst the guests of honor a final addition is made at the First Prince's personal intervention. A number of Lyran Alliance military personnel who are completing their prolonged treatment at NAIS are invited to stay and attend the ceremony, led by Lt. Colonel Archer Christifori himself and given a place of honor. 
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===AFFS Naval & Troop Movement===
In the meantime the FSS Charles Davion arrives in the Tikonov system and begins a series of exercises. Between patrols and training the crew are all granted shore leave, with the officers of the ship (led by a native son of Tikonov) given an almost royal welcome by Duke Ryan-Bowman and feted with balls and parades. These events give the Duke and a number of high ranking Davion officers on the planet opportunities to meet with Captain Makarov and pass on the latest updates on the Free Tikonov's movements. He assures them that when they make their move, he and his ship will be ready for them. Left unmentioned by all is the fact that 2 of the Avalon cruiser's dropship ports are currently occupied by Conquistador class dropships. Officially in case any informants are feeding info back to Free Tikonov these are listed as having been dispatched empty to be assigned to the Davion Assault Guards RCT on Tikonov. Unofficially these troop carriers are packed with Federated Suns Marines.
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===Naval Expansion===
With the naval industrial expansions that had been ordered in previous months as well as an entirely new shipyard being built at June the Federated Suns overspends by a few billion C-bills and accidentally manages to acquire enough equipment and material to build a hidden repair facility. This is helped by the fact that the Federated Suns is already building 2 repair slips - at Verde and Novaya Zemlya - already. This hidden fifth repair slip (2 are already operational at Edwards) begins assembly in the dead system of Arcadia near New Avalon. This hidden facility is only to be used in the event of war and to return battle damaged ships to operational status in secret. Even if the enemies of House Davion launch deep strikes to take out repair facilities and naval shipyards as happened within the 1st Succession War it is hoped that this facility will remain hidden and so give the FedSuns a facility to keep it's warships operational. Even if someone finds out that there is a hidden repair slip, the location will at least be unknown. Even better for the FedSuns purposes, Arcadia is a former industrial system with huge amounts of destroyed and abandoned infrastructure. Finding a shut down and hidden repair facility that is running silent in the vastness of such a system will be nearly impossible it is felt. This repair slip is deliberately designed to be able to handle up to 1.6 million tons, allowing it to even repair an Iron Duke class battleship or up to 4 Fox corvettes at a time. 
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===Admittance of Guilt===
The First Prince meets with Lieutenant General Carrie Zetso of the Islamabad CrMM and Duke Pravin Singh of the world of Panpour and immediately realizes something is wrong. The Lieutenant General is sweating buckets and the Duke is clearly trying far to hard. He immediately has his guards step in and summons Marshal Melora Li-Vehn of MI5 and asks her to bring a team of her Relentless Hounds. As they wait he makes the offer to both individuals to come clean now before things get really bad for them. At which point Lieutenant General Zetso comes to attention and informs the First Prince that she has been being blackmailed by the Duke of Panpour since he found out that her ancestor helped invade the United Hindu Collective in support of the usurper Vanray. She informs the shocked First Prince that she is prepared to give a full and detailed confession to all actions she has taken while being blackmailed. The Duke of Panpour loudly denounces these allegations and in a fit of temper lunges at the General. For which he is rewarded with a broken arm and 3 cracked ribs as the First Prince's Elemental bodyguards wrestle him to the floor. In fury the First Prince orders him dragged out of the room to receive medical treatment: in a prison infirmary. He summons a number of other officers and several members of the Department of the Judiciary to meet with him and General Zetso who has waved the right to counsel. He sends word to the world of Panpour that Count Kirsh Larouque should take control of the planet while the matter of Duke Singh's blackmail is looked into and for Lieutenant General Willard Martin to move to Panpour and take command of the Islamabad CrMM.
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===Developments in Industry===
The Firgrove Consortium and Lycomb-Davion receive the Riever fighter design production rights and begin work on building facilities to put the assault weighted aerospace fighter into production. The Firgrove line will not go operational until July 3069, but the Lycomb-Davion line will be finished by February 3069. 
The Augusta plant for Corean Enterprises adds a Centurion line, which enters production on the 8th of April, a full week ahead of schedule. Producing one of the signature Battlemechs of the AFFS the plant is immediately granted a full order book. 
At Galax, the first of the Cargoking and Cargomaster cargo dropships are laid down. The huge sprawling megaplex has re-purposed a number of existing dropship yards while also constructing new ones to put the 2 designs into production. Even before the first dropship is laid down the AFFS has bought the production of the military Cargomaster variant for the next 5 years, while orders for the civilian Cargoking are similarly into the 3070s. 
New Damascus saw the Federated Suns Defense Industries plant adding a Phoenix Hawk line. This is the last of the Battlemech lines being constructed, although a single aerospace fighter line and a number of vehicle lines remain under construction. 
The new plant on Palmyra for Jalaster Aerospace, delayed by nearly 3 weeks due to a delayed shipment of key components from Panpour, goes online with it's first Javelin-O line. A further 3 lines for the same Omnimech are expected to go operational in the coming months.
Along with the Phoenix Hawk production line on New Damascus, a second line goes online for this popular medium cavalry mech. On Tancredi the joint Kallon-Precision factory adds this design to it's production. Equipped with the extremely high end lasers from the Precision Weaponry Plant buried in a linked artificial cavern the Phoenix Hawks produced on Tancredi will be much sought after by mechwarriors. 
Clan Sun Jaguar also see it's first Battlemech production facility go operational on the 29th of April. The Guillotine IIC begins construction at the Jaguar Industries factory. The Khan immediately offers a significant proportion of the new facilities production to the AFFS at a very generous price in raw materials for her Clan. While the High Command and almost ever commanding officer within the AFFS is almost drooling at the possibility of adding these Clan Tech battlemechs to their rosters the First Prince is firm. He agrees to buy only 25% of the production and requests that the Sun Jaguars use the rest to rebuild their shattered Touman. Once they have filled their ranks they can offer more of their production for sale. With the raw materials that this trade brings in the Khan orders work restarted on the initially started and then cancelled Clint IIC. The first of the Davion's Guillotine IIC are dispatched to the 1st Davion Guards and Davion Heavy Guards.
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===Capellan Invasion of Grand Duchy of Andurien===
On the 30th of April the CCAF launches their attack upon the Grand Duchy of Andurien. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Liao Guards leave the world of Betelgeuse and jump into the Grand Duchy. The 1st and 3rd arrive at a pirate point in the Shiro III system while the 2nd and 4th arrive in the Conquista system. Each green unit has been matched up with a WOB provided veteran regiment and all 4 regiments proceed to burn towards the target worlds at full speed.
As well as this invasion the 7th and 8th Sian Dragoons leave Shiba and move on the Andurien world of Lurgatan. Both Sian Dragoon units are green but the world is known to be defended by only a militia force that is unlikely to give the Dragoons much of a fight. Meanwhile Warrior House Lu-Sann and the 3rd Sian Dragoons also leave Shiba and head for Sadurni. The 1st Capellan Chargers leave the occupied world of Furud (much to the delight of the abused populace) and head to link up with their sister unit the 2nd, who lift of from Shiba, at the world of Lopez. 
The two Sian class corvettes assigned to the attack hold back for the time being. Nobody is eager to lose even a light corvette warship against an opponent who is known to have no warships of their own. 
The 2nd Canopian Cuirassiers and the 3rd Canopian Fusiliers, both on detached duty within the Capellan Confederation also jump from Capellan space and head for their target worlds - Cursa and Leyda respectively. Openly aligning with the Capellan invasion of the Grand Duchy of Andurien. 
The 2nd Defenders of Andurien at Lopez, although not initially attacked are ordered to hold in place as the Andurien Defense Forces Command knew that further strikes were coming. They were ordered to prepare to face an invasion, and these preparations would stand them in good stead when the 1st and 2nd Capellan Chargers arrived in early May. 
The green 3rd Defenders of Andurien, on Sadurni were given no such time, facing invasions from Warrior House Lu-Sann and the 3rd Sian Dragoons. Rightly considering the Warrior House the primary danger the 3rds command staff ordered the Dragoons aerospace assets to attack the incoming formation and concentrate on Lu-Sann. Although only able to knock down a single Union dropship they did manage to destroy a full third of the Warrior Houses Mechwarriors before they landed. 
On all the other worlds targeted the invaders would find themselves facing only militia and conventional forces. On Andurien, itself the 1st Defenders and their mercenary allies Jaffray's Own held themselves ready for a headhunting strike on the capital world. While some amongst the Defenders questioned the loyalty of the previously Capellan troops of Jaffray's Own, most knew that should any of the unit fall into Capellan hands they would face immediate execution and knew that they would fight to the last. 
With the invasion now confirmed the various teams of negotiators from the Grand Duchy stepped up their efforts to hire any mercenary forces they could. In a move that frankly astounded them both the 1st Kearny Highlanders and Northwind Hussars immediately accepted the frankly poor terms on offer. What wasn't mentioned was the extremely generous "top up" payments that House Davion made to these 2 units to make up the difference in the contract price. The AFFS also quietly granted the 2 mercenary units priority of transport through it's jump stations down into the Capellan March so they could "hop" through the Capellan Confederation and join the defense forces of their new employer... During that travel they were joined by Korsakov's Cossacks. While the Cossack's would remain personally hired by Victor Davion they would be "loaned" to Dame Humphreys "for the duration of hostilities"...
The First Prince also contacted Hampton's Hessens and offers them a similar contract to the Cossacks in his own name to help defend the Grand Duchy, and makes very generous offers of payment and equipment. However the mercenary force remains on the fence about taking the offer for the time being.
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