IS: Chapter 65

My Victory against the Von Strangs won, I returned to administration as Thirty-Twenty-Eight got underway properly. The very first thing that happened was that I received a message from Rasalhague. Apparently, First, Second, and Third Drakøns were still working up on their new equipment, but they were already seeing major results compared to the hodgepodge of DCMS and LCAF Castoffs that they had previously been using. Meanwhile, Swedenborg Heavy Industries and Gorton, Kingsley, and Thorpe Enterprises had both taken up the contracts for supplying spare parts and munitions for the KungsArmé, under the supervision of technical advisors from Buccaneer Arms.

Erica Cortez-Centrella was already proving her worth as a Corporate Liason, as she'd managed to sort out the transfer of schematics, talent, and equipment to the teams assisting Swedenborg and GKT efficiently enough while I was dealing with Von Strang's World that production of Spare Parts for the KungsArmé was scheduled to begin by the end of January Thirty-Twenty-Eight. She'd also sent over a plan for my perusal that was tailored toward giving Swedenborg and GKT Enterprises time to familiarize themselves with the production processes well enough on spare parts that they could begin producing runs of Rifleman Twos, Upgraded Griffins, Rampage Assault Mechs, the various Combat Vehicles, and even JumpShips and Pocket WarShips by the time thirty-thirty-two started.

Honestly, it was all very five-year plan to me, which was something you tended to see more in the Industrial Sector of places like the Capellan Confederation, but it seemed reasonable enough, and if these projections she'd put together were at all right, could provide a large amount, if not all of, the fix that the Rasalhagian Economy and Military needed in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Of course, I was worried about diversification being the Achilles Heel there, but that was fixed by employing Star League-Era Agricultural Processes and Medical Technologies. I would need to check with Minister O'Neill to see what we could afford to part with there, but I wasn't foreseeing much in the way of problems there. Most of my worlds got their Medical and Agricultural Infrastructure upgraded as part of a first pass by the Health and Education Ministry, along with building schools.

Of course, aside from that, there were other issues. We had to rebuild more than one factory on Von Strang's World. A few had sustained damage from the fighting in the Plains Towns or near the Suburbs and at least two in Amaris City which had been building Rampages and Vulcan Heavy Fighters had been sabotaged on the Orders of Stepan Von Strang. Those two were, apparently, the only Factories that had been building more of the tech that the Von Strangs had pulled out of the Project: Redoubt Cache they had found, hinting at an extremely limited Memory Core Dump from the Cache.

Of course, when you starve your technicians like the Von Strangs tended to do to everyone that wasn't either them, their Wardens, or high officers in their Guard Division, you would get failures like that. It was a completely wasteful way to govern and the fact that the Von Strangs had lasted as long as they had as rulers of their planet was a testament to just how effective the propaganda they had been feeding their populace could be. If I read these reports correctly, the majority of the people of Von Strang's World had been convinced that we would put the boots to them harder than the Von Strangs ever could if we managed to occupy the Planet. Apparently, there had been early instances of food hoarding and a few riots that Minister Jonnson's Enforcers had to put down. Minister O'Neill had immediately requested we send food aid to reassure the people of Von Strang's World that they weren't about to collapse into famine just because we had won. I immediately approved the request.

Then there was the rebuilding of First, Second, and Third Guards. They'd gotten mauled taking Von Strang's World, and while this wasn't as bad as it could have been, it would still take time to get replacements through the Academy and Basic Training, plus work them up to sufficient proficiency and supply them with equipment. Projections were that I would be looking at at least two years before they could be deployed again, possibly more like three. They'd just done too much campaigning in too short a time span and needed time to re-equip and reorganize. On the bright side, Fourth and Fifth Guards had redeployed back to base and would be receiving their new equipment at the end of the month, which meant I could redistribute their old equipment to Fourth and Fifth Drakøns while they trained up on the new stuff.

The equipment would honestly be the easy part of all that. I had factories coming online in Givrodat and Elsewhere in the next month, as well as factories that already existed to produce equipment losses. The bigger issue was going to be personnel and training, which couldn't be handled just by building some more factories. It took time to train a Soldier and even more time to train an Aerospace Fighter Pilot or Mechwarrior. Then, training new officers took even more time. I could probably forget about the earliest estimates to get First, Second, and Third Guards back up to Snuff. It would likely be closer to three years than two, especially if the Officers couldn't be drawn from the currently graduating Academy Classes at the needed rates. There were a lot of officers going to the Academy for Naval Stuff in the current class, after all.

Of course, that brought me to the Naval and Aerospace Fighter Losses I had to contend with. The Surprise Nukes the Von Strangs deployed in orbit had seriously damaged First Guards Aerospace Flotilla and they needed time to re-equip and reorganize as well, which would be where those Naval Officer Cadets would graduate into. Unfortunately, that was only part of the problem. The other part was material losses and that was complicated by the fact that the LCAF was still using slips of the Iron Land Facility's Naval Docks to repair and refurbish their Mako-class Corvette Hulks. Thus far, of the Eight Hulks they had sitting in boneyards, they'd been able to repair three last year, with four more to be repaired this year and the last in the first months of next year. That meant that my ability to produce new ships for First Guards Aerospace Flotilla would be limited for the near future, though the GKT Yards over Rasalhague would begin producing Spare Parts for various Pocket WarShips to repair battle damage this year, which was something, at least.

After that, there was the matter of the fortresses. Did I want to repair all of them and update them with my technology? If so, that would also be something of a drain on the treasury. Could I get away with scrapping the First and Second Lines against the Clans? Would that be sufficient to hold them at bay along with my upgraded Regiments? I had no real way to know either way. After all, it wasn't as if I had contact with the Clans to ask, now was it? Nor were the clans my only foreign worry. The Kuritas were already using the funds I sent them as War Reparations for the Oberon War to rebuild their Shattered Military Forces. They'd also formed an alliance with Maximilian Liao and Janos Marik, one which, if this dispatch from Minister Kowalski was accurate, now included Frederick Steiner out on the Rim.

"They'll be looking to attack the Lyrans from South, East, and West all at once, no doubt. Trying to split their forces and rip them apart, that's clever. More Clever than I gave Takashi Kurita, Janos Marik, and Maximilian Liao credit for." I mused.

As the clock in my study chimed one in the morning, however, I realized there was no way that I was going to puzzle out a counter for that strategy now. I'd been up for thirty-six hours straight since I'd returned, dealing with various items on the Agendas of both Rasalhague and New Ålborg. Even the stimulants I'd taken to get to this point had their limits. I rubbed my face as I felt the first stirrings of actual fatigue coming on, powering down my Personal Terminal with a sigh, intent on getting some sleep.

"It's true what they say, heavy lies the head that wears the crown." I muttered to myself.

I didn't remember getting into the shower or changing into my pajamas, as the fatigue made everything a blur. Honestly, the only thing I remembered from the period between me powering down my Personal Terminal and climbing into bed was setting my alarm to wake me at one PM, roughly one hour before I had to attend a Council Meeting and twelve hours after climbing into my bed.

Once I had climbed into bed, I was out like a light, sleeping the sleep of the dead. . .

XXXX

I woke blearily to a finger poking my cheek, cracking a single eye open to see Suzie standing over me. She had a frown on her face and moved to poke my cheek again. I tried to tell her to cut it out, but it wound up coming out as an unintelligible grumble. My Adopted Kid Sister seemed to get the hint, though, because the finger withdrew out of biting range fairly quickly afterward.

"Good, you're not dead. I was worried I was gonna have to call a Doc or something." Smirked Suzie.

"Suzie. Why aren't you in school?" I questioned, somewhat more intelligably.

"It's Saturday? Did you work so hard you forgot what day it was or something?" Queried Suzie.

I didn't have much answer to that. Honestly, I could probably use a personal assistant or something. I had the work to warrant it, but that ran into clearance issues. After all, who exactly could I trust with that sort of thing? They'd have to be completely incorruptible because access to the decisions of the Head of State for two nations at once would be way too tempting a target for certain agencies.

"Stop that!" Grumbled Suzie, bopping me gently on the nose and causing me to blink.

"I wasn't doing anything, what do you want me to stop?" I asked.

"You were thinking too hard again! That's what put you in a coma like that, to begin with." Huffed Suzie.

"You know, you're lucky you're my Kid Sister. Bopping the Prince of Rasalhague and Grand Duke of New Ålborg on the nose like that is a punishable offense." I groused.

"Nuh-uh, you're gonna take it easy today. If you die, then what'll I do? It's not like I can go back to Star's End, after all." Insisted Suzie.

"Suzie, I have a Council Meeting today. I can't cancel that." I pointed out.

"You're the Grand Duke, you can do whatever you want!" Protested Suzie.

"Not when stuff is time-sensitive, I can't. Some of this is literally life or death, sometimes for millions of people." I refused.

"Do I have to sedate you?" Questioned Suzie.

"Do you even know what that means?" I queried.

"I don't have to, I can get people who know what it means to do it." Intoned Suzie.

"All right, how about this? Aside from the Council Meeting, no more work today. Does that sound like a decent compromise?" I asked.

"Fine. You'd better mean that." Frowned Suzie.

"I promise." I vowed.

"Good." Nodded Suzie.

Then, my Adoptive Twin Sister turned on her heel and began to stride out of my bedroom. She paused when she got to the door though, as if remembering something, then turned back around to tell me.

"I almost forgot. Your Girlfriend sent you a message. She's coming over at the start of next month to talk about something. She wanted me to tell you when you woke up." Informed Suzie.

Katrina wanted to come to New Ålborg and talk with me? That was either really good news or really bad news and I wasn't sure which would be worse. Instead of commenting, I just grunted and rolled over in my bed again, noncommittally. Suzie must have realized that the conversation was over because she just shrugged and walked out of my bedroom past the Guards who were clearly trying not to laugh at my predicament, the traitors. The Guards closed the door to my bedroom and I looked over at my alarm clock. I still had three hours before I had to wake up.

Shrugging at the whole situation, I laid back down, shut my eyes, and went back to sleep. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. Jozef is working a bit too hard and using stimulants to keep up with the pace of memos and requests that cross his desk. It's resulted in him collapsing into bed and practically falling into a coma, much to Suzie's annoyance. Fortunately, he's not worked hard enough to cause major problems just yet, and Suzie is trying to make sure he doesn't do that. He has a Council Meeting, but that's all she's letting him do today.

Katrina wanting to come to New Ålborg and talk is foreshadowing one more mini-arc for this part of the timeline. Once that Arc is over, I plan to do a bit of a time skip to around Thirty-Thirty-Four or so. It's an unfortunate fact of reality that there are large stretches of time in Battletech where literally nothing happens. Fortunately, I can just do a timeskip to the next exciting part, though I'll be summarizing it in a chapter so things don't come out of left field.

At any rate, the next chapter will involve the first Council Meeting of Thirty-Twenty-Eight, and then we'll get another Interlude showing how the Lyrans and FedSuns are doing before the last Arc of the Thirty-Twenties kicks off.

Stay tuned. . .