SotU3 Chpt 20

=Chapter 20=
==State of the Union - Book 3==
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Dropship White Star, Clinton system
Bolan Province, Federated Commonwealth
November 15th, 3067
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The commercial route that ran from Solaris to Tharkad was struggling to keep trade moving. It wasn’t so much that there were fewer jumpships as much as there were fewer of the large large vessels.
The chartered liner taking Isis Marik and the rest of the Silver Hawks delegation had been pre-booked months in advance, so they weren’t really slowed but the shipping line had changed which Jumpship would be running the route twice between the booking and the actual journey - first from a Star Lord to an Invader (despite the martial name, one of the most ubiquitous jumpships in use) and then to a Merchant-class vessel that Isis suspected usually handled lesser routes in the region.
There were small clusters of dropships waiting for a jump collar to become available, something that Isis hadn’t seen when she made this journey in reverse, almost three years before.
“This is a major commercial route.” Galen confirmed when she mentioned it over dinner. “But it’s more of a spur of the main artery from Skye and Hesperus to Tharkad - and from the Federated Suns, really.  We’ll link up with that in a couple more jumps at Chukchi. I suspect that we’ll see much heavier shipping on those last four jumps.”
“The Federated Commonwealth is this stretched?” On one level the war seemed far from the Silver Hawks Coalition’s borders but the latest news put Clan Wolf on New Exford, only six jumps from Tharkad. They probably weren’t close enough to threaten the Whitting Conference… but there had been serious consideration of relocating it anyway. It was genuinely possible that if Vladimir Ward kept coming at this rate, he could reach the Lyran capital by Christmas. Of course, what forces he would have by that point was an open question.
Galen considered the question seriously. “I’ve seen worse.” he concluded after finishing his mouthful of the rather nice noodle dish they’d been served. “During the Clan Invasion, shipping got tied up moving dozens of Regimental Combat Teams from the Terran corridor up to the front. It was a nightmare logistically and half of them didn’t arrive until the informal truce Tyra Miraborg bought us was almost over. Peter prepositioned his forces starting a year ago to avoid that.”
“Then this is just keeping them supplied?”
He nodded. “Munitions, spare parts, replacement soldiers when they can be scraped up - and remember, he needs jumpships moving across the combat zone, distributing the supplies to where they’re needed. Getting everything to the major supply nodes is only the first step.”
Isis shook her head in disbelief. “How do the Clans manage that? Most of their military supplies still come from their homeworlds, as I understand it.”
“Clan Wolf, yes - when Phelan Kell defected, he brought with him a lot of the technicians who had been upgrading the infrastructure to support them locally. So far it doesn’t seem that their new leadership is moving forwards as quickly with that as Phelan was. The Jade Falcons are different - they poured resources into Sudeten and Twycross’ factories to provide a local source for armor, munitions and even entire ‘Mechs.”
“And then they lost Twycross.”
Galen smiled. “Again.”
Isis reached over and patted his hand. “Yes Dear, I know you were there the previous time.”
Twycross had changed hands repeatedly since the initial invasion - taken by the Jade Falcons, liberated only to be captured by Clan Steel Viper. Then the Jade Falcons and Wolves took their own war onto the world, where the Jade Falcons were victorious only to withdraw rather than claiming the world from the Steel Vipers. After the Great Refusal, the Jade Falcons and Steel Vipers had fought over their shared occupation zone with the jade Falcons emerging triumphant… only for Twycross to be liberated a second time during their abortive incursion right after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War.
She counted on her fingers. “Seven times that the world has been fought over in the last seventeen or eighteen years, counting the Hell's Horses.”
“That sounds right.” agreed Galen. “The factories make the world a valuable target. Losing it cost the Jade Falcons heavily in their ability to absorb losses. It’s possible - not definite, but possible - that they’re overstretched. With reinforcements being funneled into the fighting on Mogyorod, Blue Hole and Barcelona that’s three major battles that must be costing them lives and supplies. We know that their reserves are limited… But we aren’t sure how deep they are.”
“How is it that the Wolves are doing so much better then?” Isis enquired. “Surely their resources should be even more limited and as I understand it, their frontline forces are smaller than the Falcons.”
Galen sipped on his drink. “It’s an interesting question, and one that will probably be much debated on Tharkad. My suspicion is that there are three factors.”
“Oh?” She leant back and gestured for him to continue. While it wasn’t her field and she didn’t always enquire, she enjoyed hearing him talk about something that had his interest.
Her lover put his glass down and lifted one finger. “Firstly, they’re fighting on a narrower front - not necessarily fewer battlefields but closer packed and thus it’s easier for them to shift reserves of supplies from one world to another. The Jade Falcons are fighting on two fronts, with the Wolves between them, and taking Baker 3 has cut their occupation zone entirely in two - it doesn’t stop them from sending jumpships through uninhabited systems but that tends to be done in convoys so that they don’t risk a jumpship ending up stranded by a drive failure with no one knowing where they are.”
The next finger went up: “Secondly, because they didn’t ship machine parts and technicians from their homeworlds; so, assuming equal shipping, they had more cargo space available for military supplies. In the long term that would still leave them behind but in the short or medium term, it could mean they have more supplies.”
“And then.” he raised a third finger. “Since the Great Refusal, the Jade Falcons fought fairly heavy conflicts against the Steel Vipers and ourselves - pardon, the Federated Commonwealth.”
Isis smiled and waved off the verbal slip.
“That didn’t just cost them Twycross.” he expanded. “It also cost them a lot of their rising young warriors, supplies and equipment. Meanwhile the Wolves have only fought one significant conflict, a much smaller struggle with the Hells Horses with limited conflicts and the entire matter essentially settled by negotiations. They’ve lost much less material over that time.”
“But even that must have limits.” she pointed out. “Do you think that they really expect to reach Tharkad?”
Galen looked uncomfortable. “I’d like to say no, but we - SLDF Intelligence, that is - still don’t have a good feel for their objectives. I think they’d try for it if they could - the moral and material advantages would be huge - but however badly they have managed to tear up the Wolf-in-Exile forces, their warships took a beating when they tried to prevent the retreat from New Exford. The estimate from Star League Intelligence’s naval section is that they took serious damage to all four of the ships that tried the interception. It cost the Wolf-in-Exile fleet their only battleship, but the Werewolf mauled two battlecruisers and two cruisers before it was destroyed and the Wolves don’t have a shipyard that can handle that - there’s a jumpship yard that can do some work on smaller ships but nothing that large.”
Isis nodded in understanding. Building up the facilities to support her own realm’s tiny warship fleet was taking a great deal of time. One of her more recent concerns had been opening negotiations with her cousin Photon Brett-Marik to use the Technicron shipyards at Tamarind to carry out the next regular maintenance cycle for the smaller ships. Neither realm would have any facilities large enough for their Thera-class supercarriers for years - currently debate was ongoing on whether to risk not doing that work, or coming to some sort of terms with the Archon-Prince for access to the docks at Alarion. The latter would be an intelligence windfall for him, the chance for his engineers to look up close at a neighbor's largest warship - but if the alternative was not being able to use the Corinth at all…
“I take it that if Khan Ward sends them for repairs that they’re effectively out of the current war?”
Galen nodded. “At least six months either way, plus the repair time.”
“I see. And the Federated Commonwealth now has their new shipyard at Odessa.”
“The Werewolf may not even be salvageable, but if the Exiles’ fleet needs repairs they need only send the ships to Odessa. Their three jumps away from New Exford or Arc-Royal. Of course, by the same logic…”
“Another target.”, Isis answered his unfinished sentence.
“Exactly.” he lover answered
Isis considered what she knew of the jump routes through the area, which wasn’t a huge amount. “Am I wrong in thinking there’s something of a rift between habitable systems between Tharkad and Odessa?”
Galen nodded. “Donegal and Tharkad are two jumps apart, but the only inhabited world between them is Cameron, which is far closer to Donegal than Pherkad. There’s a military rendezvous in deep space that military convoys sometimes use, but commercial shipping generally goes around the region.”
“And Clan Wolf may not have current maps.” Isis added. “Does that mean that forces sent to Odessa wouldn’t be available for any attack on Tharkad?”
“It would make it harder.”, he told her
She studied her plate for a moment. “Given his own worlds are under attack, I can’t see why he would continue his advance. He has won glory, which may be prized among the Clans, but he is neglecting his own worlds.”
“I’ve only ever encountered him once - on Strana Mechty - and we hardly spoke. But from what Phelan tells me, it’s unlikely he sees those worlds as his in the same way that you or Peter would. Only Clan Wolf - and perhaps only their warriors, those who adhere to his Crusader beliefs - are his people.” Galen told her.
“And he hates Khan Kell?”
Galen smiled. “Oh yes. They’ve been enemies since the first time they ever met.”
Isis leant back into her chair. “Then perhaps his goal is already in reach. Have you considered that his goal may not be the Federated Commonwealth at all? It may be that he simply desires to destroy his rival, and the other half of Clan Wolf.”
Galen nodded. “If I know Victor, he’s already arranged to move command responsibilities away from Arc-Royal - and likely Phelan has been advised to evacuate whatever his Wolves don’t need immediately on hand deeper into the Federated Commonwealth. If you’re right, Vlad Ward will throw everything he has at Arc-Royal, so he can win there and then return to halt the bleeding out of his occupied worlds.”
“And if I’m wrong?”
The blond man reached over and took her hand in his. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t linger on Tharkad, once the conference is done.”
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