Turn 17 - Advisors
The reorganization of the Pee-Wee Racing League is quickly completed, with it being split into two divisions which will run alternating heats at competition events.
One, called SuperSpec, has league-provided chassis and engine combinations along with very tight limitations on modifications. The spec equipment comes from the small number of manufacturers who agreed to provide the equipment to the league in exchange for sponsorship decals on the fan shroud.
The other division is called ‘Unlimited’, and has the same rules and regulations as before. Like the SuperSpec division sponsorship decals are limited to the fan shroud, but racers are free to pursue any sponsorship deals they’d like (with League approval). Modification and customization are far looser, so long as the safety rules aren’t breached.
Thanh is obviously going to be in the Unlimited division, what with insisting on using Big Brothers racer. The twins, however, get together and then cheerfully announce that they’d rather compete in SuperSpec.
Given that they’d have to give up their customized hovercraft, you are a bit confused as to why they’d do that until a light bulb goes off in your head. They don’t want to be competing against their little sister.
Jeremy has moved up to the Junior League and you are in the strange position of having an avalanche of sponsorship requests come descending on your desk like a blizzard of paperwork. This is obviously Willis’ fault. It seems like every single corporation on the planet wants their logo on his racer.
You sort out those who want to sponsor him for his racing abilities from those who just want an association with the Crown as well as separating out inappropriate sponsorships (seriously, a whiskey company wants to sponsor a Junior League racer? REALLY?). But from there…
[] Let your son decide which of the sponsorships from the approved list to actually accept
[] You decide which sponsorship to accept
[] It is inappropriate for the Royal Family to accept any sponsorship
QM Note - This is a very important decision point, please think carefully about it and give your reasoning for voting the way you do.
You arrange for the suitcase nukes to be properly secured, with one of them being given over, under high security, to the university labs for reverse-engineering purposes.
Parliament has actually been behaving themselves for a change, with no actual shenanigans coming on that front for an entire year now. You check with Dominique to see if she’s got anything for you but find that she’s quite occupied with her two ‘tigers. Evidently the cub is rather… rambunctious.
You share ‘tiger cub stories for a few hours.
And you make a note that Dominique really needs to find a good husband and have kids, good sense like that needs to be encouraged.
Then you realize what you just did and stare at the note for a few minutes. Good lord, you are becoming like bà… you are too young to become like bà. It’s probably all Willis’ fault, giving you grey hairs by letting your kids race hovercraft. You conveniently pretend that you hadn’t approved of this.
Not that this stops you from thinking about matchmaking your ‘official opposition’, of course.
It’s a much more interesting topic than your alleged adrenaline junkie tendencies. You aren’t an ASF pilot, after all, you are a sensible infantrywoman, and not even mechanized. You marched everywhere on your own two feet.
That’s your story, and you are sticking to it. Ignore the VIP Chasseur-derived hovercraft you routinely drive yourself.
Then it's budget time. It’s like Miller time, but without bad beer.
General Potter is first, as always, his basso profundo voice rumbling like a volcano erupting. “We were fortunate in being able to expedite repairs of the Gyrfalcon factory, Your Majesty. Production is disrupted this year, but the spare parts lines are up and running and there will be no operational issues.”
He glances down at his notes. “For this year, with the Battlemech factory online, I would like to get our first lance of mechs in the hands of the training brigade. As Colonel Brewer is now in charge of the AeroTraining Wing, we have placed Colonel Hines in command of the Aerie Cadre. Now they just need equipment. The Ambush should be a decent training mech, although we will want to get a jump capable design optimized for training in the future.”
A turn of the page, the gravelly voice continues rumbling. “In conjunction with the cadre, I strongly recommend building out the Mechwarrior Training Center at the Annex.” a sip of water. “This will allow us to maximize the initial training of mechwarriors and technicians.”
He turns to another page, frowning. “I do not know if they ever covered it when you were in Basic, Your Majesty, but the reason we have never issued vibro-bayonets is that they simply do not provide enough utility over and above regular knives to be worth the added expense. We have some requests to change that, due to the recent unpleasantness.”
“It might also be advantageous to build out the Vehicle Training Center for the Annex, or the Infantry Training Center. That would be an expensive combination, however.” he concludes.
Bridget is as energetic and bouncy as ever. As ever, you are having to resist having all of your ‘mom’ instincts fire off whenever she enters the room.
You were never that bouncy as a girl, even when you were little. The videos of it are all fabrications by your enemies.
“We got a couple projects that should be ending this year, Your Majesty!” she starts, bouncing… “And we’ve got so many things we could be doing for the future. We have a location all picked out with the ‘tigers…” she beams over at Sekhmet, who responds with a rumbling purr. “For a new battlemech factory!”
You take a sip of coffee, you need the caffeine just to keep up.
“And then we’ve got all these port sites on Pollux that we can open up! And we can build the titanium mines now that we’ve got the anti-dire penguin fence lines and defenses up! And we can build a factory for that awesome new dropship the engineering types came up with! And we can implement stronger environmental regulations to protect habitats and such. The grifftigers really approve of that one, Your Majesty, we should do it! And we can do some more orbital resource surveys and find new places to expand because we have an entire continent we’ve barely looked at sure it may be cold and dry and surrounded by mountains but who knows maybe there’s something really good up there and we can then go there.”
She’s babbling… good God she’s babbling. She makes Janet seem like a staid librarian. And you are pretty certain she didn’t breath a single time in that entire last section.
Dr Young is looking at her far younger colleague indulgently, then turns to you. “Nothing new from last year, Your Majesty, we’re ready to start the anti-drug campaign whenever you want, but the PR campaign for the expanded cities is really not anything we can start until after we’re certain they are in place, and I’d recommend first extending governmental authority before going there.”
Professor Chapman nods in agreement. “Agreed, Your Majesty, once the ports are in place we can go about setting up governmental structures and such, but carts, horses, put together in the right order.” she smiles a bit, as she watches Bridget still bouncing in excitement.
Dr Porter is teleconferencing from her lab office. “Your Majesty, we have plenty of free researchers at this time. The only thing I’d strongly recommend we get started on is designing a spheroid dropship, but other than that. We have so many options, and I know budgets are tight but I’d like to see more basic research and us getting started on some of the new munitions.” she glances down at her notes. “And, Your Majesty, I have the biology and genetics departments practically begging for funds to recreate the human genome project, we have so many areas of medicine that we could pursue if we had good genetic data, but that section of the datacores is completely scrambled and unusable.”
Harry Owens is looking grim. “Your Majesty, we’ve gone from too few projects to too many. Right now I have multiple priorities and only so many qualified staffers. What I’d like to do is temporarily stop the surveillance on the expatriate community and shift them to hunting for any other possible DEST teams on the planet, while also intensively interrogating our lone prisoner in the most carefully controlled circumstances we can manage.”
Janet is a lifesaver. She has brought the espresso, the cappuccino, and the mocha.
“Your Majesty… four words. Royal. Grifftiger. Mounted. Police.” she says cheerfully then grins wickedly. “They’ll always get their man!”
Your palm meets your face in a loving yet forbidden romance.
