FSRB Chpt 39

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==The Federated Suns Reborn - Chapter 39==
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November 3064The Battle of Caph
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===The First Prince's Last Instructions beforing Leaving for Whitting Conference===
Not withstanding the gathering forces around Terra and the pending Whitting Conference on St Ives, First Prince Victor Davion has a realm and military to run. The first order of the day was to meet with the High Command and discuss what to do with the upcoming class of graduates from the various training cadres, regiments and battalions in the coming months. As usual many of the cadets who would be graduating would end up going to replace retiring soldiers and filling out holes in existing regiments, but there remained as ever a surplus that could be deployed as the various Marshals and Generals thought best although the final decision remained the First Prince and his Marshal of Armies.
Having been informed that there were roughly enough graduates (after replacement's and rebuilding damaged units) to form 3 full regiments the First Prince and his officers decided to continue their previous practise of the last few years and form a new Avalon Hussars RCT and a new Dragonlords RCT. The 4th Avalon Hussars RCT would be formed on New Valencia while the 3rd Dragonlords RCT would be formed on New Avalon. There were then lengthy discussions as to where the other graduates should be sent. A strong case was made for a further Avalon Hussars unit or for a 4th Ceti Hussars RCT to be formed. However the First Prince pointed out his promise to the Duke of Robinson and insisted that a 6th Robinson Rangers RCT should be formed. Noting that the Duke Hasek would be unhappy at being excluded from this built up a full battalion of graduates on top of the cadets being assigned from the Warrior's Halls were assigned to the 1st and 3rd Syrtis Fusiliers to bring their numbers up while the 1st Dragonlords would be released for deployment within the Capellan March as the 2nd Dragonlords shifted to Novaya Zemlya to continue their training regime. 
Just before leaving New Avalon for the summit on St. Ives, the First Prince Victor Davion has a meeting with Marshal of the Armies Jackson Davion and Marshal Roger William Waters of the Avalon Hussars. Despite his initial position at the end of 3063 that it was too soon to break off additional battalions of existing Hussar units to form new RCT's the escalating situation in the former Chaos March has the First Prince worried. Having additional commands who can be used even as cadres or to patrol less active borders while they build up to strength now seems like an extremely attractive option. As such he proposes to use a number of reinforced regiments from the brigade to form new units. The 11th Avalon Hussars is to found a new lightweight 14th Avalon Hussars RCT in a similar manner to how they founded the 12th. While the 20th Avalon Hussars busy in the Sun Jaguar worlds and former Tortuga worlds will help to form a new 23rd Avalon Hussars RCT and hopefully passing on their engineering skills to the new unit which will immedietly move to Tortuga to help build infrastructure there. Meanwhile the heavy and assault weighted units of the 42nd Avalon Hussars would be broken off to form a new 28th Avalon Hussars RCT, both the existing 42nd's heavy and assault elements and the new 28th Avalon Hussars would have priority for drawing on the production of the Crofton plant with the 42nd remaining on that world and the 28th moving to nearby Shawnee as well as receiving a number of locally sourced shipments of Marauder and Victor class battlemech's from the new GM plant on Point Barrow in addition to other assault and heavy designs from further afield. One final command was authorised by the detachment of a battalion from each of the 17th and 41st Avalon Hussars RCT's to form the core of a new 26th Avalon Hussars RCT. Both the 17th and 41st were regular rated units organised on a medium cavalry style of regiment and both serving within the Draconis March near each other. As such it was felt that forming a new unit drawn from both regiments was likely to cause little difficulties in integrating the new 26th. 
Along with the newly formed 4th Avalon Hussars RCT on New Valencia, this would bring the total number of Avalon Hussars active commands to 18. The highest number of active formations since the end of the Second Succession War and approaching the strength the Brigade fielded at the start of that war. Although a number of these commands are woefully under strength they can be used to secure secondary worlds or patrol less active borders - after all while a single battlemech battalion, aerospace wing, armour regiment and 1 or 2 infantry regiments might not be enough to take and hold a Capellan or Draconis world it is more than enough to deal with almost any pirate band or small raiding force! The thoughts behind this are also what is fuelling the formation of the 1st Tancredi Loyalist LCT to see if this is a viable anti-piracy/raiding/defensive formation moving forward. 
As well as these planned new units for the beginning of 3065 the 4th Davion Guards RCT and the 1st Crucis Lancers RCT are scheduled to be upgraded to reinforced regiments over the next 2-3 years. This will leave only the 2nd and 3rd Davion Guards RCT's as simple regiments and many expect that as soon as they reach full strength they too will be slated for upgrading to reinforced status. There are even some suggesting that with the addition of the 1st Crucis Lancers to reinforced status meaning that 5 of the 8 RCT's are now at that strength the High Command and First Prince might be planning on slowly upgrading the entire Crucis Lancers Brigade as well as the Davion Brigade of Guards to a full brigade of reinforced regiments. 
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The Tancredi Provisional LCT at this stage is fully activated from it's role as a training command and becomes the 1st Tancredi Loyalist LCT. Some thought was given to numbering it the 7th, but it was decided to start the Brigade with the 1st, although any future units will prioritise the reformation of the 7th, 10th, 11th, and 13th regiments.
Once the arrangements have been made for the AFFS to begin forming the new units and shuffling men and materials to the required worlds the First Prince leaves for St Ives. Given the turmoil breaking out around Terra he is in constant contact with his trusted Marshal of Armies on New Avalon.
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===Sun Jaguars Escort Princess===
Princess Yvonne Steiner-Davion and Baron Tancred Sandoval leave Defiance having spent 3 weeks there and begin heading for the Tortuga worlds. As per their journey to Defiance they are escorted by a full 2 companies of the 2nd Robinson Rangers and by the FSS Fox. Added to their security detail is a point of Elemental bodyguards at the saKhan's own orders. 
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===Developments in Industry===
Robinson Standard BattleWorks announces in November that it will be adding a Black Knight line to both it's flagship production facility on Robinson itself and also to it's secondary plant on Woodbine. The plant on Robinson will also see a further expansion of a second Sagittaire line. Demand for the hugely popular Sagittairre has far outstripped production and James Sandoval is even beginning to consider a purpose built new plant to produce only this design on either Alta Vista, Clovis or Milligan. He has also entered into discussions with some of the other major military industrial firms to add factories and plants within his March. While increasing production from his own Robinson Standard BattleWork's plants is his preferred way to expand his March's production his resources are not unlimited and drawing in outside investment would help tremendously. GM, Achernar and Kallon Industries have all been approached. 
On June the Lightning class aerospace fighter line goes into production. Prior to Victor Davion's industrial reforms the planet had had no real military industrial output but now it has 2 Stuka lines, a Hellcat line, and a Lightning line of aerospace production at the Lycomb-Davion plant and a line of Valkyrie battlemechs with a Centurion line building and a semi-automated factory for Musketeers hover tanks also building at the Corean facility. 
Lycomb-Davion isn't only expanding their production on the Outback world of June either. On New Avalon itself their first battlemech line in centuries comes online and the Guillotine enters production within the Federated Suns. As per the First Princes's deal with the Precentor Martial a number of Guillotines are offered for sale to the ComGuards. These will be the first major sales to the ComGuards from a Federated Suns firm.
StarCorp Industries formally protest to the courts against the unwarranted harassment and arrest of their corporate officers. Given the seriousness of the charges the matter is referred to the Court of the Old Bailey on New Avalon itself and is scheduled to start in January 3065.
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===Betrayal in the Dark Void of Caph===
Even as new regiments are ordered into being and billets filled while factories continue to produce war material and expand the fighting continues within the worlds of the former Chaos March...
On the 2nd of November, slightly delayed due to some unforeseen malfunctions in a number of ships jump engines, the ComGuard's 1st Fleet jumps to Caph. Only swift cancellations of the jump on the 1st prevented half the fleet from jumping and the other half not jumping and wrecking their jump drives. Led by the CSV Invisible Truth the combined 1st Fleet and 2nd Independent Squadron head inwards to face the still battered ships of the WOB task force which routed the Wolf's Dragoon's warships. 
Forming up around the WoBS Immortal Spirit the other 2 Aegis class cruisers, 2 Essex destroyers and the WoBS Blake's Redemption, the single surviving Vincent corvette in system. Against these 6 WOB warships are arrayed 14 ComGuard's ships. On the face of it the fresh ComGuard's ships are clearly the superior force, yet the WOB ships continue forward at the best speed their damaged ships can manage. 
Just as the two forces are approaching combat ranges an HPG on the WoBS Immortal Spirit sends out a message and behind the ComGuard's fleet a new force of WOB warships jumps in. Leading the way is the WoBS Blake's Sword, a huge McKenna class battleship. Following her are the 2 Black Lion battlecruisers the WoBS Blake Ascendant and WoBS Ray's of Enlightenment with an additional Aegis cruiser alongside them the WoBS Herald of Retribution. Along with them came 2 Lola III destroyers and 5 Zechetinu II corvettes. This turns the balance of force from 6 WOB ships to 14 ComGuards ships to 17 WOB warships vs 14 ComGuards vessels. Worse the WOB fleet has a large number of heavier cruisers and even a battleship in their numbers. 
Realizing that his ships were in a trap, Precentor Naval Alain Beresick sent out orders for his ships to change course. They would be unable to totally avoid action, but they could limit it to a single pass of the Caph orientated force and keep out of the reach of all but the corvettes from the new arrivals. However even as the orders went out malfunctions began to appear. On the CSV Bordeaux the engines suddenly failed and left the ship coasting along on the original heading. The CSV Divine Wisdom began to spin out of control as it's manoeuvring thrusters went haywire, while the CSV Vision of Truth lost all power entirely. The two worse cases of what was obvious sabotage however were the CSV Avenging Sword that without any warning opened fire with a full broadside and utterly destroyed it's squadron's flagship the CSV Hollings York and the CSV Alacrity which swerved and at least on the face of it attempted to ram the flagship. With no other option Beresick ordered the massive battlecruiser to destroy the corvette as it drove towards his ship. 
Even as he was attempting to coordinate his suddenly shattered command the WOB warships heading towards him from Caph arrived and began pouring their fire into the individual ships they found themselves facing rather than coordinated squadrons. In what was obviously pre-planned a host of shuttles burst from the WOB ships and zeroed in on the CSV Bordeaux and the CSV Vision of Truth obviously carrying marines. Meanwhile the now obviously WoBS Avenging Sword continued to fire from within his own formations, crippling the CSV Deathblow before the CSV Fire Fang managed to combine it's fire with the single remaining ship of the 2nd Independent Squadron, the CSV Brandenburg Crusader and cripple the Avenging Sword. However, even as they were turning on the traitor, the WoBS Immortal Spirit and the WoBS Herald of Justice managed to close the range and pour point blank naval auto-cannon fire into their soon shattered hulls. 
By the time the Precentor Naval had managed to extricate his fleet from the trap he had less of a fleet and more a collection of fleeing ships with various degrees of damage. His own CSV Invisble Truth was still mostly functional but it's armour had taken a beating. His remaining ships consisted of the CSV Montpelier which by a miracle was almost totally undamaged, the CSV Anastasius Focht which was crippled, but still had functional engines & a jump drive, and the 2 Lola III's the CVS Holy Martyrdom and the CVS Strength Through Adversity both of which were damaged heavily. Behind them the now WoBS Avenging Sword would no doubt be joined by the CSV Bordeaux and CSV Vision of Truth as reports came of heavy fighting as WOB marines flooded into the crippled ships. Worse was the fact that the Vision of Truth had been carrying a large number of the attached ground forces. Many of them had managed to manually disengage but had mostly been destroyed by the heavy guns of the WOB warships. Those that remained were still far too many for his warships to take into their damaged docking collars and the remnants of over 10 ComGuards Divisions were forced to head to the planet and hope to join up with any remaining mercenary forces there or face annihilation. 
Even with the initial battle finished the horror wasn't over for the ships of the 1st ComGuard's fleet. Released from the pursuing task force the 5 Zechetinu II corvettes raced forward in a tail chase. Although they couldn't close with even the most damaged fleeing ComGuards warships they were able to get into long range for their missile batteries and began firing as the ComGuard ships slowed for jumping at the small pirate point they were fleeing too. As the missiles streamed in the sensors went berserk, indicating that each missile was clearly nuclear tipped. Only a single volley arrived before the ComGuard's ships could jump, but they were all targeted on a single vessel. The CSV Anastasius Focht. The already battered destroyer never stood a chance and died in a barrage of nuclear fire. The WOB was clearly making a point as the CSV Invisible Truth or CSV Montpelier would have been more valuable targets. 
One thing that is noted at least within the FWLN at this time is that the WOB have now displayed owning at least 8 Zechetinu II corvettes. While the League has only sold them 4 so far... 
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===Terrorist attacks on Tukayyid===
Even as the trap was springing shut on the 1st Fleet at Caph other hidden WOB operatives sprung into action. On Tukayyid a minor officer in the command staff of the 12th Army "spilled" his morning beverage and released a lethal nerve agent right in the centre of the ComGuard's command centre on the planet. Almost the entirety of the higher ranking officers within the 12th Army were killed instantly. While in orbit the CSV Blake's Vision simply blew up. Judging by the sensor recordings of nearby ships the blast started in the ammunition bunkers of the vessel. A host of suicide attacks and assassinations on ComGuards officers and Comstar officials swept the Inner Sphere, with the Precentor Martial himself narrowly avoiding an assassins explosive vest and was severely injured while on his way to St Ives, over the coming weeks. The final major casualty of this wave of assassinations was when Precentor ROM Victoria Parrdeau who was facing harsh questions as to the infiltration of the ComGuards by the WOB drew a hidden hold out pistol and shot the Primus during a heated exchange. She was herself then killed by the Primus's bodyguards. With the Precentor Martial injured, the Primus dead and much of the First Circuit in shock Precentor Gavin Dow is appointed to fill Sharilar Mori's position, initially on an interim basis. 
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===Seige of NorthWind===
Even as the 1st ComGuard's Fleet is fighting over Caph, Colonel William MacLeod launches his bold attempt to break through to Northwind and help relieve the pressure on Colonel Stirling's Fusiliers regiment. His dropships are soon heading for the planet at an insanely fast maximum burn, splintering into smaller groups to try and confuse the blockading warships. This is helped by the fact that the 2 corvettes in system have taken up positions at the 2 main jump points leaving the inner system only covered by the WoBS Guarded Knowledge. However even this single Lola III destroyer is more than enough to lunge forward and begin picking off Highlander dropships as they attempt to break past it. When his own command dropship the Fortress class, Edinburgh Castle, is dealt a glancing blow that leaves it crippled the Colonel orders his unit to continue to make for Northwind while he buys them some time. Ordering the Edinburgh Castle and what's left of the MacLeod Aero Wing into a suicidal attack upon the WoBS Guarded Knowledge he is nearly successful in ramming the warship. A last minute and desperate volley of naval lasers destroys the dropship, but even destroyed large chunks of it smash into the destroyer going at considerable speed and cause heavy damage to it's entire starboard side. This allows the remaining dropships to reach Northwind. Roughly 6 companies of assorted troops have made planet fall and are soon taken in hand by Lt Colonel Aria Jacobs of the Regimental Old Guard. Ordering the unit to disperse into lance and demi-company sized formations the MacLeod's begin preparing to launch a guerrilla campaign against the WOB Militia besieging Stirling's Fusiliers within The Fort.
===Drama at the Whitting Conference===
On St Ives the various Successor Lords meet and are faced with the prospect of no Comstar representative. However the interim-Primus Dow sends word that Precentor St Ives will represent the order. The Whitting Conference is then called to session with First Lord Kai Allard-Liao standing down. A new vote is then called on who should be the next First Lord. Thomas Marik and Sun-Tzu Liao throw their weight behind Theodore Kurita while in a surprise move Victor Davion votes for Christian Mansdottir. Almost immedietly he is joined by his brother and Kai Allard-Liao in this nomination. Seeing which way the wind is blowing Theodore Kurita shifts his own vote to supporting the Elected Prince Regent. With the Elected Prince Regent then agreeing with his own nomination the vote is cast and passed unanimously in the end. 
Even before the situation between the WOB and Comstar can be discussed, Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao immedietly announces that he is demanding that the Star League return the worlds of Mitchel, Jackson and Yuris to the Confederation. Almost embarrassed the new First Lord explains that that matter is dealt with and outwith the jurisdiction of the Star League at this time. Sun-Tzu however promises to bring it up at every future Whitting Conference until he obtains satisfaction. Picking up on his word choice Kai Allard-Liao offers to change the laws on dueling on St Ives so that he can obtain "satisfaction" from the Davion First Prince if he so wishes... An offer that is met with a hate filled glares from Sun-Tzu and his advisers and chuckles from the St Ives, Steiner and Davion contingents. 
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The recent fighting at Caph and Northwind are finally, however addressed. Captain-General Thomas Marik offers to mediate between the two "Comstar/Blakist" factions but is turned down as nobody trusts his impartiality. The unprecedented naval bombardments, naval fighting and use of nuclear weapons however does demand some action be taken. As such the First Lord requests that the First Prince Davion take up his former command as Commanding General and form an international force to bring peace to the region. However the First Prince respectfully declined. He had taken that role once before and neglected his realm in doing so, he couldn't make the same mistake twice. He did however recommend none other than Hohiro Kurita for the post as a finer warrior he had never met. Coordinator Kurita informed the Conference that his son who was currently on Luthien would no doubt be honored to take up the charge, however he would require a great deal of time to assemble a suitable force unless large scale contributions were made by the various member states. That point was one that none of the attendee's wished to make any firm promises on. The best that anyone would promise is that they would once home discuss the matter with their various military staffs and see what forces and funds they could release for SLDF service. Victor did point out that the Nova Cats should be contacted by the new Commanding General as they were pledged to the SLDF and had a large naval fleet in particular. 
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On the final day nominations are opened for prospective new members of the Second Star League. Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao surprises everyone when he doesn't nominate the Magistracy, but instead nominates the Taurian Concordant for entry into the League. In other circumstances the fact that the Captain General does not nominate the WOB for entry would be a surprise but with the recent incidents and battles nobody is surprised by his silence. 
A final point that is raised by Captain-General Thomas Marik is the growing military might of the Federated Suns. He points out that the First Prince is risking escalating the situation into an arms race with his neighbours if he continues to expand the AFFS in the manner he is doing. First Prince Victor Davion swiftly points out that it wasn't his realm that has invaded his neighbors, but points out that within the last 10 years the FWLM, DCMS, and CCAF have all crossed his borders and attacked his worlds. His actions are as a result of these attacks.
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