Monkut Aftermath
En Route to Nadir Jump Point, Monkut System
Anti-Spinward and Coreward of Clan Space
Two days later I was noddle-balled in our “senate” which served for the pathetic excuse for governance we Monster Girls had. Bear in mind, my quad (along with 71 others) were the oldest existing monster girls. And we were sixteen (going on sixty if you counted our previous lives).
Very technically we were self-governing though our parents actually did the heavy lifting still, both for reasons of maturity and reasons of not having enough monster girls to actually run things properly yet. We had 72 iron wombs that each could gestate 4 monster girls at a time producing our quad sister groups, which meant that each generation of 288 Monster girls was a year younger than the previous one. Most of us were painfully young (Only two generations were out of our equivalent of middle school), so while technically we ran ourselves our parents equally technically laid a smack down on our stupider ideas and kindly redirected us to better plans.
That left us a bit short of people even though our parents were doing all the heavy lifting of raising the 3000 or so monster girls who were still essentially schoolgirls. So whatever we decided would be looked over and approved by them before we moved forward. That said, I appreciated the veneer of self-governance and I appreciated that even if we were the junior varsity of organizations, the practice probably didn't hurt.
We had a “senate” of 16, 8 voting members representing 8 major blocks of operations, and their 8 aides who were there to assist and did not vote. Very technically I was chairmonster of the group and technically we used parliamentary procedure, but that was mostly an honorary process, and with only eight voting monsters (plus our Aides, mine was Pants) in the meeting we were more of an informal discussion than a serious parliament.
First off was the cool part, discussing the spoils of war.
“So, these 'mechs were trashed even before they landed,” Pharaoh began after I recognized her, “The armor is patches on top of patches, the structure is full of weak points and spot welds, and the ammo bins were nearly empty. I'd say those bandits were counting on intimidation more than actual combat power.”
“Well it sure worked,” Pants said cheerfully, and Blammo glowered at her.
“Will you be able to get them fixed up?” I asked, ignoring their usual three-stooges byplay.
“The Thorn, probably not. It's got massive water damage in all of its limbs and leakage into the torso means the electronics are fried throughout. It'll need months of overhaul and we don't have nearly enough electronics to replace the entire computer system. Instead, I plan to cannibalize it for the few parts that are still good and use them to repair that broken down Wasp we've had mothballed since forever.”
I nodded at that, “Well we might be able to get the parts for the Thorn later, we should mothball it once you're done,” I suggested. I realized I was being a bit stupid a moment later, Pharaoh was no idiot and of course she'd save it, we'd been saving the Wasp since before I was born.
“Agreed,” Pharaoh said, kindly ignoring my gaffe beyond a pointed look, “The Catapult is in usable shape, aside from a blown leg. The electronics in that leg took some water damage but it broke at the joint so if we can machine up a new knee joint and replace the chips we should be fine, and we have enough electronics available for a single Catapult leg. It'll take a while but we have the shop and a working left leg to use as a pattern so it's just a matter of putting in the machinist time. As for the Hunchback, it's good to go, all we had to do was clean out the cockpit and replace the seating and some explosive bolts.”
“That's a serious boost to our firepower,” I said happily, “Big step up for you Blammo, going from a Spider to a Catapult.”
“Like hell,” Blammo disagreed acerbically, “Fish is the one who loves missiles so much, she's going in the Catapult. I'm taking the Hunchback for myself. That is one sexy, sexy gun on it.”
I paused. Pants opened her mouth to say something and I shook my head at her.
“That bad boy is Three-hundred-twenty-five millimeters. . .” Blammo said dreamily. This was really, really weird seeing the normal tough punk-rocker Blammo spacing out like a schoolgirl having her first crush. . . on a giant gun. I started to wonder just what was going through her mind before I stopped myself.
There's places you just don't go and ideas you don't explore if you value your sanity.
“So how hard is it going to be to keep them maintained?” I asked, turning back to Pharaoh and keeping one eye on Blammo, who's glazed over eyes suggested she was off in some kind of weird gun-porn fantasy.
“Well we're going to be short on basic integrated circuits and electronic parts after fixing the Catapult,” she began, “We probably need to use most of our factory's output to build replacement parts for a few weeks just to get them running. We also don't have the ability to make munitions that large without stopping for a few months to deploy a factory, so we're going to have to find a trading partner to sell us ammo, not an easy task. But we're flush on metals for now, and we need to jump well away from this godforsaken place anyway, I think it'll be good as far as the bodywork goes.”
“What about the Endosteel manufacturing station?” I asked, “How long would it take to get it operational and replace the structure on the 'mechs?”
“A new skeleton would be great, I already asked Lanky about that,” Pharaoh agreed, referring to our Wukong chief engineer on the JumpShip, “And we should totally do that. . . when we have about five months to wait around getting the station in working order again.”
“Oh,” I answered, a bit dismayed at that time frame. We hadn't had five months to spend safely in one spot. . . ever. Even here at the edge of clan space a patrol ship would usually happen by every six months or so and we couldn't trust that we'd be at the outer edge of that time frame.. It was critical to keep moving and only stop to gather a few resources and run.
“And do you have anything else to add?” I asked, bringing Pharaoh's part to a close.
“Yes, the Astechs are going to need more people,” Pharaoh suggested, “I have enough folks under me to keep the Spider running. That's going to turn into four 'mechs over the next year, most of them bigger and more maintenance intensive than the Spider though looking at it, the Catapult is going to be a joy to work on. There aren't enough of us to maintain them all. I move that we close the questioning section in regards to 'mechs,”
“I second the motion,” I said agreeably, quivering just a touch inside as my turn got closer, “A show of hands in favor?”
Pretty much everybody raised their hand, it wasn't exactly a hard question. “Motion passed, okay Astechs then. The next batch of monsters graduating high school is in about three months. Probably most of them have already been snatched up by Lanky to work on the ships but you might be able to recruit a few, I say we should let her. The next class is a year behind that, we can absolutely get more of them on the 'mech tech track before graduation. You'll probably have to do some retraining though.”
“A year's a long time to wait, those 'mechs won't fix themselves,” Pharoah complained.
I shrugged, “We've only got two fully trained MechWarriors anyway,” I pointed out, “Blammo, there's an apprentice too isn't there?”
“Yeah,” my sister answered, snapping out of her gun-induced haze, “Stampy's just getting started but she's not ready for combat yet, maybe in another few months.”
At the farther point of the table, a gargoyle, normally quite quiet, raised one hand for attention. It was the most movement I'd seen out of Nails in the entire meeting.
“Ah, the chair recognizes Nails,” I belatedly said. At some level I recognized that our informal approach to parliamentary procedure would bite us in the ass when we expanded and there were dozens of us arguing but right now it was faster to just go through the motions.
“One of my pilots, Robber, was signed up as a Mechwarrior apprentice before she realized she had a better chance of getting in an actual machine in the aerospace corps and switched over to my forces. She is, however, also qualified on a 'mech. She'd probably need some refresher courses but she can do it.”
I paused, “Okay I'm wrong,” I admitted, “We do have more Mechwarriors. Friday, how much of an advantage will our ground forces have if we concentrate on getting the 'mechs running as soon as possible?” I could have asked Blammo, but she, being a Mechwarrior, was more likely prejudiced in favor of more 'mechs.
Friday pursed her lips and closed her eye as she considered, “Honestly it'd be light years ahead. My infantry can fight and win against a 'mech, just look at how Grizzly's Sappers took down the ones we have now, but that relies on having time to prepare, a bag of dirty tricks available, and a lot of luck. But 'mechs of our own can actually fight back even if we're the ones being ambushed. More than that, 'mechs command respect. Enemies that will attack us if they see infantry are more likely to back off if they see 'mechs.”
“Well then,” I said, “Based on Friday's analysis I think we need to get the 'mechs working sooner rather than later. All in favor?”
Pretty much every hand went up. I sighed, this was going to piss off Nails and I didn't really want that, “Okay then, we need more Astechs working on 'mechs. Nails, can you spare any from the Aerospace Astechs?”
Nails didn't move for a moment, then drummed her fingers once on the table as she thought it over. For the phlegmatic gargoyle, that was close to pacing the room in thought, “I have enough apprentices close to being full Astechs that. . . I could probably give up two without compromising maintenance on the fighters, as long as we don't run into combat before we get the next set of apprentices up to speed,” she decided reluctantly.
“Alright, that's a good start. Pharaoh you have three already, yes?”
“Me and Reata are the only full 'mech Astechs,” Pharaoh answered, “We've got one apprentice, Stripper, but she only just started her apprenticeship a month ago, she's nowhere near ready.”
“Hmm,” I hmmed, you typically needed two people to maintain a 'mech and about four times that to do repairs if you had a bay. “Okay, You can probably recruit one or two more from the current class. You can get with Lanky later and see if she has any apprentices to spare.”
“What about Khopesh's group?” Nails suggested, “They're off working on their big 'secret project' but there seems to be a lot of overlap with 'mechs given the supplies they've requisitioned. There's eight of them so that would give Pharaoh a big boost without looting Lanky or me of techs.”
“I'm not really in favor of that,” I argued, “We already gave them permission to move forward and I don't like yanking it back unless it's an emergency. Besides, they've been working on that project for almost a year, isn't their completion date estimate only two months away? I'd rather let them finish in hopes they really are building something useful, and then reassign them if it isn't.”
“I agree,” Friday said, “They've been requisitioning light hardware from my stores as well and I want to see if this new weapon is worth it.”
“Interesting, and they took some of our spare myomer cable a few months back,” Pharaoh noted. “I wonder if we could piece together what they're working on from their supplies?”
“Some ferro-fibrous we scavenged,” Friday began again, reading off her tablet, “Fuel Cell power plant, electronics, weapons and myomer. So they're building some kind of vehicle and it has a lot of moving parts and some small arms. Maybe a dune buggy, or a fast-track turret design?”
“Ahem,” I said as the discussion got underway, “Interesting as this is, that topic is not a part of today's meeting. Does anybody else have any suggestions for Astechs?"
"Swan Song?" Friday suggested hopefully.
Pharoah snorted, "Good luck prying her off that antique tank she takes care of. Swan Song's a hobbyist for old engines, she's happy where she is doing survey work as her day job."
Friday consulted her list, "Atomic Lotus?"
There was a brief moue of distaste from several of us. Monster Girls had weird naming conventions for sure. But though we all wound up using sort-of callsign type names, we'd didn't generally get cool ones. Except for Atomic Lotus, who had somehow managed to bull her way into demanding we call her that through sheer chuuni stubborness.
Nails didn't move but that didn't mean much, before finally raising her hand and speaking once recognized. "We can probably convince Atomic Lotus to work on 'mechs as long as we present it as something cool and amazing."
I nodded. "That will have to do then. As we have finished our discussion of Pharaoh's debriefing, it's time to discuss my own performance. As such I'm recusing myself as Chairmonster, and nominate Friday in my place.”
“I nominate Nails instead,” Pharaoh countered, “As a participant in that battle, Friday may have a skewed perspective. Additionally, she's your sister."
“Very well,” I said as calmly as I could. “All in favor of Friday? And Nails?”
Friday got only two votes (with me abstaining as I felt it was unfair) while Nails got four. Nails abstained as well.
“I stand recused,” I said more formally, “Please proceed Nails.”
This was the part I was dreading. Pharaoh had an easy task of listing her finds and the cool stuff we'd gained. I had the miserable task of having all my screwups and mistakes made pointed out. I knew it was necessary, but like having dental work done it sucked to actually do it.
Nails barely turned her head to look at me, and paused to think. I did the same and tried not to fidget, knowing it was a wasted effort. Nails could sit there motionless as a rock for longer than anybody I ever knew. She didn't even blink more than about once a minute normally. It was handy for an aerospace pilot, to be able to sit still for so long.
“Understood,” she finally began, “Then, I think we have all read Bear Rib's written after-action report?” Everybody but Pharaoh had. Which was understandable since she'd been working like crazy on her own report. “Very good. Now, you rejected the enemy's offer of complete surrender, I think we all agree that was the right choice?” a glance at the faces around the table showed it was so, “As to allocation of forces immediately after contact was made, why did you bring the unarmed submarines along with the armed models?”
“As a bluff,” I answered honestly, “I hoped they'd see only a large number of submarines and not realize most of them had no weapons.”
“Reasonable,” Nails said, “And in the initial confrontation you deployed mines at a critical choke point that proved highly effective, I see no reason for questioning on this matter as this is our normal combat doctrine and clearly the right choice given the results.”
So far so good.
“However shortly afterward a second DropShip, this one Clan, appeared. You contacted the commander yourself. Why?”
I startled slightly, the surprise kind of heavy on me. That wasn't something I'd seen coming at all. “Er, why not?” I asked, quite confused.
“You have an aide who's also an extremely proficient communications officer in the form of Pants. Communicating is literally her entire job and you decided to go ahead on your own instead. This was a failure to utilize your resources efficiently. One need only look at how Pants was able to talk the Thorn pilot into surrendering to see how effective she can be.”
I. . . had not thought of that at all. “I see your point,” I finally said. There really wasn't any response I could make.
“This led to further issues when you answered Ulrich's challenge directly yourself rather than sending a Proxy. Under the circumstances, I think this was likely the correct choice,” Nails said crisply, though the others clearly were mixed in opinion and not sure where this was going, “However circumstances could have gone very differently. Had you used Pants as an intermediary you could have sent another in your place pretending to be the commander instead of your ridiculous attempt to hide your tail under a jury-rigged bell dress. Very fortunately he was amused to learn you were GeneCaste and honorable enough to merely complete the challenge-”
“Wait what?” I interrupted.
Nails gave me a long-suffering look and blinked, which was the equivalent of a hysterical screaming fit from a normal person. “You didn't realize he knew? He was aware before you reached the beach. Did you fail to notice his comments about 'I know who you really are,' or 'testing his strength against the very best,' or 'news will spread quickly once I reach clan space?'” she asked acerbically.
I felt a leaden weight settle in my stomach and felt like a fool. I hadn't caught his blatant attempts at hinting at all. Now that Nails had laid it out for me, it was so obvious he might as well have been winking at me with each line and had subtitles saying “He Knows” at the bottom of the view screen but I honestly hadn't picked it up at the time.
“This leads to, again, using your forces more wisely. You are the commander, not the entire force. Command, and let your subordinates do the work.
“Lastly we have the issue of not moving to capture the Mantis class submarines when you had the chance. This failure cost us both the chance to salvage one of those submarines and our mining base along with thirteen Monster Girls who were killed in it's attack.”
It was a fair point. “Agreed.”
“Outside of this, I believe your performance was quite acceptable. Does anybody have any other issues to discuss in relation to Bear Rib's performance?”
“Well, I see it as a bit of issue that there was hardly any actual combat. A minefield did the heavy lifting in the first encounter with no shots fired back, and then there was a single 'mech duel. It seems weird to me that we're treating this as a combat situation at all,” Dr. Wow, proxy for our actual Minister of Medicine, protested.
It was her turn to get Nails' long-suffering look, it seemed. I had been wondering about her question myself a little. Friday raised a finger and Nails recognized her to speak.
“No,” Friday said firmly, “Combat is not about shooting the enemy, it is about accomplishing your goals when violence has become an option. In this case, Bear Ribs' goals were keeping her people alive and, secondarily, preserving the mining operation and it's yields. Bear Ribs' tactics involved keeping herself and her forces from being shot at as much as possible. The fact that few Monster Girls were shot means she mostly made good decisions. Even her extremely dubious choice to personally visit the enemy DropShip was entirely because that served her goal and, although I would have taken a different path, it was successful and thus hard to argue with.”
Nails paused and waited for anybody else to move. I wished we'd picked somebody else to chair, somebody who didn't think being motionless was a virtue. “Is there anything else?” she finally asked when it was blatantly obvious there was nothing else, “Very well, I believe Bear Ribs' initial action should be considered acceptable. The issues with her performance should be noted in the log but not taken as a demerit unless repeated in command situations. . .” Blammo seconded her, “. . . movement made and seconded. All in favor?” Most were in favor.
There were no further questions and I let the weight slide off my shoulders a little.
“Movement is passed. I move we proceed. Next on the agenda is a discussion of Friday's performance as lead of the infantry.” Nails continued. I seconded her. It was unanimous, I think we were all sick of it after so much time, and just wanted this over with.
Nails nodded and the next round of questions started up, this time putting my sister in the sights of Nails' statue-like stare.
I don't know how professional politicians do it, I hoped I'd never get there. I felt way more exhausted than after three days of combat command.
