Chapter 2The Aurigan attempt to gather its neighbors had resulted in data packets being generated on the various independent worlds, but by the time the gathering had been adjourned indescivively the next big event had taken place on the subject matter. Luxen had suffered a second pirate raid, and this one definitively associated with Black Jack McGirk's band of pirates.
The raid had been successful though it did suggest somewhat less clear control, more typical of the usual control a pirate king had on his followers. Luxen's precentor had managed to beam out a final message pleading for aid a message which had ended with Olaf Fredericksen getting clubbed in the head by a strung out looking pirate before dragging the Precentor off camera.
The Pirates had done a lot of damage and then left.
Precentor Fredericksen might be alive, he might be dead. There was no way to be sure.. but at least he had gotten a word off even if it had been a shot in all directions through the network. Not that he knew exactly what worlds it had bounced through, but it didn't really matter. The point was it had happened, and fuck if ComStar wasn't going to play up this horrible thing since they couldn't conceal that it had happened.
It was all the more reason that Espinosa demanded reforms be undertaken. That the need for unanimous consensus among the council to deploy forces federally simply was not practical. That the threat being what it was was not something that could be solved by proposed half measures of creating federal regions ala the Davion March system... but even that which was the closest to be accepted was unpopular.
The councilors in opposition still maintained that the expense entailed supporting such forces was too much to yield. Heron wouldn't have minded a constitutional solution if he thought there was time to work one out... but the attack on Luxen could have been anywhere in the Reach. There was also the fact that the previous Aurigan Coalition JumpShip situation was no longer a valid complaint to raise to stymie large scale military deployment... though paying, training, and equipping troops was.
The opposition under House Parata wasn't being contrary just for the sake of being contrary. There was a very real issue of funding a large scale expansion of the Reach's military. Pay roll and training weren't going to be cheap and nor would procurement and acquisition contracts even if they weren't to Aurigan businesses.
Thus they remained deadlocked, stuck at a seeming insurmountable difference of opinions. He had no good point of comparison to make the political deadlock. Nothing immediately sprang to mind because the Aurigan state was young and small.
The New Dallas native shook his head, his stetson resting on his knee, "We have no options. Remobilization is not practical." A mech company in theory was capable of operating in the field with about sixty people total. That included support like techs and logistics. That wasn't true even of HAF Infantry that operated with small seven man squads, and it certainly wasn't true of tank companies where a squadron was 4 vehicles each of which had a crew to contend with. Furloughing troops and demobilizing them was a key part of colonizing the March worlds. They certainly couldn't be recalled quickly to then redeploy off world, especially since part of that demobilization had been the planned reallocation of their units space lift capacity for commercial purposes.
Castle Brians were unfeasible at this stage, but fortifications didn't have to be full Castles on that scale. "We could make improvements on the Outpost Castles. Significantly reinforce their turret layout, admittedly." The Nirasaki native shook her head, "If we begin deploying ground combat vehicle drones someone is bound to notice but autonomous weapon platforms were intended to maximize the value of every terran soldier on the field. That more than ever is a maxim we should consider."
There was no disagreement from around the table.
Aea was the first obvious choice for that option. Katinka and Artru already had existed Castle Outposts built by CID that would help them conserve resources. The addition of Tarragona raised the number of Aurigan Coalition worlds to 23, but once operations there were completed they could trade the world for consolidated space for the interim... so Aea first.
Regis Roost, and Qalzi after.
Expand the defenses of Katinka beyond what were in place following that, as time and resources allowed them to muster. The problem was Black Jack was either authorizing attacks across the Rimward periphery expanding to include targets like Luxen in the Magistracy of Canopus... or his command and control was insufficient to prevent attacks from being carried out by individual sub units within his kingdom of cut throats.
Both of those were bad in different ways.
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For Santiago Espinosa his opposition to the proposed codification of the March System was no that it was an attempt to emulate the Federated Suns. Rather, his opposition stemmed from that it established a poor precedent to work from. The Arsacid March made sense. It was true he was mildly jealous prospect of someone who could call on that kind of military power using personal forces. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that any attempt to create a northern march would inevitably reward bad behavior by worlds that did not meaningfully contributed to the coalition military...
... that wasn't to say that Santiago believed the Mechdur was a drain on coalition resources far from it, but that it made the most sense for a central planning position. Guldra provided a better Jump point than Coromodir... so no he opposed the proposed compromise of Federal Military deployment, but he especially opposed it without a realistic expansion of the Coalition's military budget. It was patently absurd that House Parata could not see these things, and it was ridiculous to expect that the full burden of military deployment and the majority of funding to support troops should fall to those worlds with noble lords at their helm.
An argument, that he personally found convincing was that of a defense in depth. That Coromodir, and also Katinka could be used as staging points. They were three jumps from each other, and each three jumps from Mechdur. He understood Mechdur's unwillingness to tender full control of its planetary defenses to federal control, but the merchants should have seen it was obvious that they couldn't lead the defense.
A compromise might be found in a mercenary commander of experience. Commander Markham seemed competent enough to fill this roll. The alternatives were limited. His niece Kamea as heir apparent to the realm did not have the age or experience, the same problem effected his daughter Victoria. Sir Raju as head of the Royal Guard, and royal tutor, was not option as he was needed on Coromodir.
His brother in law had jokingly suggested he take up the post of command but that was absurd. Santiago would have been ready to throttle the intransigent planetary rulers within a week he was sure... they were expected to make too many compromises, regardless of how reasonable some of them seemed on their face the threat they were faced with made such dangerous.
"Well what do you think Santiago?"
"Hmm," He stopped pacing, "Markham is really our option. I am concerned about how beholden he would be to Mechdur's leadership, even if it is the federal government signing his paychecks," So to speak, and his sister smirked at his turn of phrase, "but we have no one else really." Santiago shrugged throwing his cape back, "He has your confidence, he is really our only option."
"Is that the only problem?" Serena questioned.
"It is the only major problem," He replied. There were other worlds they were going to need to consider, but those could be kept out of council decisions. They could be made between noble houses. The protection and mutual defense of Karsosas could be conducted between noble houses... and frankly, "It will be easier to shield Karosas, and Decimis its almost ideal really Victoria and Kamea both could do with some seasoning to see the military trade." They could be deployed together or separate but it would be almost ideal to have them take the opportunity to prepare them for command... when they were adults.
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Heron's ambitions were not in ... there was not a plan for an Aurigan Renaissance. If anything he rather disliked the very idea the renaissance as a pop culture impressment on history if not out and out propaganda, but that wasn't the problem. The March needed to be strong enough to be self sufficient, not in an autarkic sense, but rather in the broadly economic sense.
What he had in mind was the sort of state hood that the Mother Doctrine was supposed to prevent... and certainly what Holy Shroud was opposed to. He hadn't contended with his fledgling colonies having to face the pirate threat... or more correctly having to face this pirate threat... and all the attention it would inevitably invite.
The data didn't add up. There weren't enough pieces, but either Black Jack had gotten much better about smashing HPG stations or ComStar was lying about the damage the pirate king had done on the Lyran Periphery. There was an ... blank space ... in activity a gap in time where it didn't seem like Black Jack had been active. He didn't seemed to, or at least there were no reports of significant activity on the Draconis periphery until 3007, and even then it was his reappearance as he continued to move rimward along the periphery borders of the great states. He had most likely hit in the outworlds alliance after but that was hard to prove... and from there eventually made his way to Tortuga.
Sometime between those points the attacks against ComStar installations had begun to tick up... with the attack on Luxen being just the most recent and most especially blatant. It was the attack on Luxen that was the particular concern. The Province of Luxen in the Magistracy of Canopus was vestigial now, like most states Canopus had been forced to shed and abandon worlds and consolidating in the regression of territorial expansion as the league came apart at the seems.
Logically if they were going to start distributing trainers then they should have gone to an Aurigan military academy first, but there was no Aurigan military institute of higher learning. The Aurigan Coalition Military had a standard -ish military curriculum which was based off of the star league manuals adapted to contend with the realities of succession war tech decline and the limits of what the economic sustain but there was no formal academy of military science.
He might have wanted to address that... but now wasn't the time.
The solid light manifested into an array of status screens.
There was an easy exploit to the Essence... well there were actually several, but he did often wonder where if anywhere sold goods ended up. The Ground mobile HPGs had no BV value but were exorbitantly expensive... and while it would noticeable if he had to summon a whole regiment of mechs... and depending on how closely they had been watching they would likely notice new units... but... he needed more Hegemony troops ... the question was what units?
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Notes: This sets up for Blackhearts equivalents, and also 'survivors' of / a revived Royal Scotts Dragoons (if you read Ghost Who Walks this is the unit killed there on Northwind during the Amaris Crisis) and thats relevant down the road. Indeed this timeline and GWW operate using a lot of the same fluff just from different perspectives and to different results.
For example Heron's hated by the Combine status will be getting addressed soon in both stories from different angles.