Turn 15 - Advisors
You glare out at the cowed crowd, ignoring the cameras that are focusing on you as you stand there, hands on your hips like an angry mother staring down errant children.
“Our enemy is out there.” you almost growl, your voice projecting well enough to be heard regardless as you jab your finger up into the sky. “Our enemy is not… here.” you gesture behind yourself.
“Our enemy thinks that they have the inherent right to rule over us, simply because they think we are too weak, too cowardly, too servile…” your voice is laden with contempt. “To resist their ‘enlightened rule’.”
You continue glaring at the crowd. “And idiocy like this only serves to help them. In Huế mới the shinto shrine was leveled to the ground and set ablaze by these so-called ‘samurai’. And here you are, ready to carry on their work. By any rational standard, I would have to consider you part of their cult of bullshit, are you?”
The crowd looks quite ashamed of themselves at this point. Good.
“I will tell you this. No Drac has ever understood Honor. No Drac has ever understood Duty. No Drac has ever understood
Service. They are nothing more than spoiled little children playing pretend.” you pace a bit. “They’ll be back, they’ve been given a bloody nose and their infantile fake honor has been ‘insulted’. And when they do, I intend to ensure that they get the spanking that their childish antics deserves.”
The crowd surprises itself with a laugh at that mental image, which you score as a strong first step.
“So, tell me, what are you going to do to spank the God Damned Dracs?” you ask rhetorically, earning a roar from the crowd that almost,
almost matches Sekhmet’s.
You go on in a similar vein for a while, pumping up the crowd and directing their animosity towards the Dracs rather than their fellow citizens. In fact, by the time you are finished you’d even managed to convince the crowd to kick in for rebuilding the shrine over in Huế mới.
You feel quite proud of yourself for that.
When you get back to your office you find that your paperwork has seemingly multiplied again. Oh well, no good deed and all that.
However there is some good news. There had been a low level design competition for a replacement for the Falcon even before this conflict. The fruits of that effort are now on your desk waiting for your decision.
| [] | Name | Cost | HP | Attack/Defense | Special |
| [] | Scorpion F1A | 820 | 32 | 8 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
| [] | Slayer F2A | 856 | 36 | 10 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
| [] | Viper Aero | 704 | 28 | 7 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
| [] | Light Laser Interceptor | 708 | 28 | 7 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
| [] | Falcon Heavy Interceptor | 816 | 32 | 8 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
| [] | Foxbat Aero | 728 | 24 | 6 | SWIFT, LIGHT |
Looking over the details, you find that the contract specifies an initial production run with attendant transition training for the entire 1st Interceptor Wing. As a consequence they would be replacing the existing Falcons in the Wing, said birds being available in reserves or to be used to create a fresh formation.
((QM Note - As a reminder, upgrading a formation’s equipment costs the total cost of the new equipment - 100 per unit. Units in reserve are not counted for upkeep and can be reactivated to a fresh formation starting at quality Green for 100 per unit.))
Parliament is actually trying to be helpful, in their own way. There’s a bill moving through both chambers that would allocate funds for hardening infrastructure to help reduce the amount of damage from future attacks. It’s expensive, at least overall, but the costs would be spread out over several years.
[] Agree - +10 support in both Commons and Lords, +1 Influence for Commons and Lords, costs 2000 a year for 10 years. Reduces damage from scorched earth attacks by enemy forces by 25%.
[] Disagree - -10 support in both Commons and Lords
You head into the meetings with your advisors, grimly aware of just how difficult juggling all the priorities this year is going to be.
General Potter is the first to speak, inheriting that distinction from General Wolf.
“I have some good news from the action review.” he says in his gravelly voice that rumbles from somewhere deep in the planet's core. “The Rocs have been well-blooded and are showing a definite improvement in overall skill, while the Interceptor wing is seeing some minor incremental improvements. The nutcases in the Chasseurs have also been fully blooded, however the Foxhound and garrison forces were not heavily enough engaged for any general improvement in ability.”
He sets down that datapad. And picks up another. You’d so hoped you’d only hear good news.
“I think I am going to surprise you, Your Majesty.” he then continues in that basso profundo of his. “I am not going to immediately ask for more forces. We need them, do not mistake me, but we also need the right forces. And the right support structure. When the enemy took over the drop port in Huế mới, we lost our primary ASF operational base in that hemisphere. This crippled our ability to remain in the fight, especially with the short legs of the Falcon. We need dispersal fields in order to allow us to better utilize our airpower, and rather than panic buying new fighters, my staff and I believe we need those first.”
He sets down another datapad. “We also need mechs of our own, even light mechs would be useful. To do that, we need a factory. Mr Lee?”
He turns to Tyler, who grins back then rises to his feet. You wince slightly, when you first met him he’d be bouncing to his feet, now he looks… old.
“I’d love nothing more than to accommodate you, General, but we have more pressing needs. Next year, we’ll have the capacity, right now though, we desperately need to start providing immediate relief and rebuilding in Huế mới. To that end, we’ve worked out plans for reconstruction that should be implemented immediately. Otherwise, the economic damage from this attack will linger far longer than any of us would desire.”
Dr Young had sent her deputy to the meeting as she was ill. “The Foreign Ministry is ready to assist with anything that we can, but we really don’t have all that much to offer at this time.”
Professor Chapman chuckles slightly. “Just remember that those bastards never even bothered trying to talk. Makes diplomacy more difficult.” she turns her attention fully to you. “There’s really nothing new from me, the speech you gave at the shrine has picked up planetary attention and so far looks like it’s playing wonderfully, I’ve got my people in the press center doing appropriate press releases and interviews. We’re in good shape over here, Your Majesty.”
Dr Palmer looks the same as she always does, excited by the prospect of Science! (the exclamation point is important). “Your Majesty, I know the budget is tight this year, but we’ve got so many things we can do! If it’s not expanding the labs, we’ve got tons of basic research opportunities!” she pulls out a datapad and starts babbling at full speed. “We’ve got vital data on the performance of dropships, so I really think we need to do that! And look at this, with the orbital labs onboard our space station we’ve got a shot at starting to actually puzzle out the details on things like LB-X autocannons and Ultra autocannons, not to mention endosteel and ferrofibrough armor!.” she looks like a little kid in a candy shop, so much candy, so little time!
“We can knock out some lower-hanging fruit too, work out the fundamentals of gauss and energy small arms should be EASY, and would give us so many other wonderful fields of research!”
Yup, she’s bouncing in her seat. Scientists, gotta love ‘em.
Harry Owens, in contrast, looks grim. “We didn’t take any prisoners, however we did find… this.”
He takes out a padded and locked case, sets it on the table, and pops it open, revealing a somewhat singed but still intact data disk.
“We have no idea what’s on this, it could be important, it could be a music collection. We just don’t know. We’d like to find out.” he says simply.
Then he pauses, twitches his shoulders. “There was absolutely no sign of any communication between the expatriates we’ve taken in and the Dracs before, during, or after the attack.”
Janet bounces in to the meeting, late as usual, in front of a cavalcade of her kids and your youngest, drops a giant mug of steaming coffee in front of you, then bounces her way back out of the office, skipping the entire time with all the kids skipping in time with her. She’d already told you that morning that she’d have nothing to report, so there is that.
