Turn 28 - Ride the Tiger
The Tai-sa returns to Griffin V, stating that while he has the authority to accept the terms he will need to ratify them. A week later the Excalber that was on the planet departs for the jump point along with the Aqueduct and Mule. The jump out on one of the Tramps.
A month later the Tramp returns, carrying three Mammoth cargo haulers, which burn towards Griffin V. Upon their arrival, Sarah notes large numbers of civilians being herded off of the dropships, entire family units clustered together, and to the prefab housing that had been built.
In the weeks that follow, a mix of loading and unloading operations occur, with mountains of supplies being offloaded, and military equipment being loaded. Three of the Leopard CVs depart for the jump point and are taken out of the system. A day later a much more massive jumpship, which Sarah helpfully identifies as a Monolith arrives empty accompanied by an empty Star Lord.
Tai-sa Gustavson contacts you shortly after the arrival of the two jumpships. The message is terse, the terms had been accepted and the DCMS forces were withdrawing. Pursuant to the deal they’d entered with you no DCMS units will enter the system for the next 20 years. He then sent an addendum, the Buccaneer-class dropship had suffered ‘drive failures’ that made it ‘unsafe to operate’, and thus he was leaving the vessel behind as scrap.
Sarah confirms that it appears that the dropship in question is indeed not flight worthy, and is evidently being used to provide power to the settlement on an ad-hoc basis.
The remaining DCMS vessels then boost for the jump point and depart. Scans show no lingering units attempting any funny business.
Parliament sends you a note asking if now would be an appropriate time for a bit of a party in celebration?
[] Yes - +1% Tax this year, +1% POP gain, -.5% GDP
[] No - Killjoy
And then it’s that time of year again… not party time. Not Miller time.
Budget time.
General Swanson starts things off. “I know our budget is tight this year, but we still really need to continue to expand our forces. 20 years seems like a long time, but even after 25 years of expansion we weren’t nearly ready to deal decisively with the Dracs. Therefore, we recommend continuing the military build up. For ground forces, we recommend working on finishing off the Mechanized regiment, along with continuing full mech production. We also recommend building a factory for the new Trooper mech.”
General Reyes smoothly takes over. “For our aerospace forces, we need to assign ASF units permanently to our first production Harris, I recommend a flight of Eagles. Otherwise we should continue to bulk out our ASF forces.”
Admiral Kirk had been replaced by Admiral Luc Benjamin, the CO of Home Fleet. “Your Majesty, I would recommend laying down the second Defiant and Harris class dropships. We recommend the names USS Intrepid and USS Zeilin for the two vessels.”
General Potter then takes over. “While I endorse all the recommendations of my colleagues, I am fully aware that we are in a bit of a budget crunch at this time. Our priorities should start with the dropships and go from there.”
Bridget is extra bouncy today, even though you have it on absolute authority that she’s only had decaf. “Your Majesty with the new armistice and the DCMS leaving all those poor people on Griffin V we’ve got a golden opportunity to really do some good and do well in the process so I really think we need to take advantage of that over everything else because it’s both the right and smart thing to do to that end we’re ready to start shipping relief supplies although that would require us to use the Harris as a freighter so maybe think about allowing the private sector to build droppers for commercial use which would be a big boost to the economy on all sorts of fronts.”
Isoroku glances over at his hyper colleague, then a slight smile twitches his lips. “Two things, Your Majesty, first we’ll want to establish actual contact with the former slaves and establish that we are coming to help them, not to re-enslave them, then do the above. Also, may I humbly request that we put on the benefit concert, perhaps with the theme of raising funds for the victims of Drac aggression?”
Jake nods “Indeed, and if we are going to be working with the folks on Griffin V, I daresay that we’ll eventually wind up absorbing them. Together we’ll be stronger and more able to deal with the Dracs, after all. I’d recommend we start actually planning for the establishment of a… guess the word Imperial would work best, or perhaps Federal, I’m not sure… system to govern a larger entity than our planet alone.”
Dr Palmer is still in the hospital, but she’s able to join you via teleconference. “Your Majesty, I know we have a lot of very expensive research going on. Recreating the most advanced achievements of the Star League is hard but we’re hopeful we’ll manage it. I strongly urge you to stay the course with the current projects, we’ll finish them soon enough, God Willing.”
Harry is actually smiling, which is rare for him. “We caught one lucky break in all of this.” he says, his smile becoming almost as predatory as a grifftiger’s. “The good tai-sa let slip a potentially critical piece of intel. Did you know that neither the ISF nor the O5P have any agents who speak Polish? And every native of Nowa Warszawa is completely fluent in Polish? We can easily sort through the folks on Griffin V and ferret out any stay-behinds.”
Jane is busy dealing with some legal issues involving the hovercraft league, but sends a message that her office is considering the challenges involved in shifting to an Imperial footing and will have recommendations ‘soon’, but that they shouldn’t cost much if anything.