That addresses the issues with undermining his position with Olivetti, but does nothing about how it undermines his position on Catchan. Unless they make the entire thing public knowledge on Catchan (which despite it being a closed military system sounds like begging the DC to find out) this would go against the need to not only uphold his duty, but to be seen doing so in order to establish a tradition of doing so which was a big deal in the last chapter.
I have a feeling a large part of this is going to be cultural and turn out to be no where near as much a problem as he, or we, think it would be.
No corruption doesn't necessarily mean literally no favorably sales or "gifts" in some cultures. There are levels to it that start there and go to the extreme example in this story of Lockheed actively sabotaging their nations war fighting capability.
I have a feeling that the people on Catachan finding out the Boss had taken a side a few mechs to sell specially to important people will just shrug and not care or think its just good sense to make sure the right people think well of us.
A lot of the more interesting plot points in this story have been around Weber's culture clashes with the nation he finds himself a part of really.
Partially this, but also, as noted, LIC operatives or those cleared for the knowledge would be doing the moving, in secret. This keeps people who shouldn’t know from finding out and lets them assign someone who they know is a Drac spy to the job, so it leaks to the Combine.
hmmmm it does seem to me that if at all possible instead of going for a retooling for the XLFE 380 line they should look into making a 95 ton ASF that isn't the Orca . Or retool it to another 300 xl line and get a license for the Eagle and if possible either the Stuka or Thunderbird or alternatively set up a Stingray line or if possible set up 3 lines
Also nice to see some of the Pinto's guns are going to be used to make any attacking force regret their life choices. Shame the third laser and 3 of the 4 missile launchers aren't intact though.
On another note are the garrison units keeping their dropships that are usually assigned to them or did they just get shipped in?
Also it does occur to me that if the Gauss line won't work well due to the increased gravity on Catachan the logical solution is to simply sell it to either TharHes or Defiance for a bunch of cash which can be used to speed up other projects estimated completion time
hmmmm it does seem to me that if at all possible instead of going for a retooling for the XLFE 380 line they should look into making a 95 ton ASF that isn't the Orca . Or retool it to another 300 xl line
In order, you are underestimating the difficulty of designing an ASF from scratch with like 5 people, and you are seriously overestimating the adaptability range of the hardware. Look at the weight difference between a 300 and a 380. Even a 340 is pushing it.
I know I certainly hadn’t been expecting them for at least another couple weeks at the earliest, but apparently Katrina’s reputation was extremely favorable among the less prestigious branches of the armed forces. It was the only reason I could come up with for why the 47th Arcturan Heavy Armor Regiment and the 132nd Arcturan Panzergrenadiers had put on such a hustle getting to an extremely out of the way duty station.
Or, at least, that had been my assumption as someone who knew nothing about the history of the units in question. Fortunately, I had a Julia to fill me in.
Nice to see that the planetary garrison's en-route. A regiment of heavy tanks and another of mechanized infantry will help Catachan a lot, especially since the local wildlife can handle perimeter security.
“-rom the time when Arcturus was still the capital of the Commonwealth,” she continued, giving me the Cliff Notes version of the 47th’s history. “It’s something they’re justifiably proud of. Despite frequently deploying alongside the Arcturan Guard, they have an unbroken service record. It’s been a near thing a couple times, but the unit has always been rebuilt rather than retired in the face of losses. Their current commander is Colonel Walter Maier who is known for his defense of Nuevo Madrid on Fatima.
“He repelled an assault by the 6th Benjamin Regulars and inflicted ruinous losses on them. The entire unit had to be pulled back to Benjamin for rebuilding in the aftermath and inflicted only light losses on his Heavy and Assault-weight tanks. His SRM carriers took the worst of it, as I recall.”
I nodded along. Neither of those was an unexpected result. When a regiment of Light ‘Mechs accidentally found themselves assaulting well dug in combat vehicles that outweighed them by around three times, they were going to get hammered. And when a Quikscam product found itself in serious combat, they were going to take more losses than their better-built compatriots.
“I know less about them. I believe their transports are hover APCs, but don’t quote me on that,” she said as she started hungrily flipping through some of the dispatches that had been transmitted from the JumpShips. It made sense, since Julia was much less accustomed than the rest of us to being out of the Commonwealth’s communications loop for weeks at a time.
“Um, in the last data package, the LCAF included some extra information on their attachments. They’ve got a bunch of auditors from the Ministry of Finance with them,” the young man relayed, clearly nervous.
Since the MoF was regarded more or less the same way the IRS had been back in the 21st Century, I took some pity on him.
“They’re earlier than expected,” I said with a shrug, “But it isn’t a big deal.” After all, we’d known the change was coming even if I’d been hoping to argue the Archon into favorable rates for the first ten or fifteen years. The deal we’d gotten was actually better for us in the long term, and my accountants had been calculating what we’d owe for this quarter as well as making sure that an easily understood flier had been circulated among the citizenry.
If MoF wanted to pour money into a hole auditing us, I’m sure they could dig up something, but I was equally certain it would be something minor.
But that was still a lot of bureaucrats, and it wasn’t even counting the members of the Quartermaster Corps, Transport Corps, and the LCAF IG that were inbound to make sure our ‘Mechs went where they were supposed to go. Besides, whatever spies LIC must have, inevitably, already snuck onto Catachan could now file their reports.
“So, anything interesting in the news, Julia?” I inquired as I turned back to my LCAF liaison to find her holding the printouts like they’d personally insulted her.
No, that was an understatement. Julia was trying to set the printouts on fire with nothing but her glare.
“Das kannste laut sagen1,” she spat the words out in a voice trembling on the edge of control.
It took my brain a second to hop languages. German wasn’t one I’d known before I got poured into the Alistair-suit, but the coldy cutting tone of her response was enough to send me to DEFCON 3.
I stepped closer and lowered my voice.
“What’s wrong?”
Julia’s blazing eyes narrowed and it was like she’d barely noticed me.
She really didn't, mainly because she is trying not to lose her shit in public. Julia in specific, and the Steiners in general tend to be a case of still waters running very VERY deep here.
“Bei Nutten kriegt man wenigstens was für dein Geld….2” Her white-knuckled fist crumpled the papers before tossing them to the ground. She cut herself off and took a deep breath while she visibly locked away whatever was eating her.
“I apologize. I need to clear my head,” she informed me through clenched teeth and turned on her heel, marching out of the room with flawless, almost robotic, military precision.
I reached down and picked up the half-crumpled papers. The headline for the news report screamed: Lockheed CBM implicated in sabotage of rivals. Government sources suggest plot ‘goes back nearly a century.’
I thought about what Julia had said about her House and the pride she took in their history of service and bit back a wince. Talk about rubbing salt in a wound …
Perhaps twenty-five minutes later, I got a call from Sarah, Julia’s right-hand woman, asking that I drop by the townhouse on the sixth terrace she had purchased to serve as her residence on Catachan.
Now, I'll note here that this was Sarah being a good wingman (and a shipper). Julia had given Sarah standing approval to invite Alistair over to see Pissed!Julia (when she wasn't pissed at him), but Julia was in no state to tell Sarah to 'have him come over now'. Instead Sarah is doing this invitation on her own judgement while knowing that Julia will retroactively approve her decisions here.
Since I’d already canceled my meetings for the next few hours, I had no reason not to do as I was asked. Besides, I was curious about what subtle detail Julia had noticed in the report that I’d apparently missed.
“Welcome, Your Grace. Mistress Julia is in the gym and she wanted you to be sent right in when you arrived.”
That seemed a bit out of character. Why would Julia have gone to the gym if she was expecting me to stop by for a meeting? Sarah must have noticed my confusion, because she began to explain as she led me down the hall.
“My Lady left standing orders for me,” she explained. “Since she had seen under the mask you wear in public, she felt that it was only fair that you be afforded the same opportunity.”
Yeah, this is Sarah giving the CYA spiel here. Julia right now has no clue that Alistair's coming over, in large part because she's too furious at Lockheed CBM to think very clearly.
Of course it was still concerning to me, because it implied that the news had affected her a lot more seriously than I’d suspected.
While I was considering what she’d said, Sarah arrived outside a wooden door and pulled it open, stepping aside so I could enter. I could hear something that sounded like impacts as I entered the room, but I wasn’t prepared for the scene. Julia was coated in sweat and dressed in a sports bra, boxing shorts, and padded wraps covering her hands and shins. And she was beating the hell out of a sand-filled heavy punching bag with her lips drawn back in a snarl fit for a pissed off lioness.
I was left staring in shock at the sight of the usually composed blonde before my memory dredged up the rumor that General Nondi Steiner had been known to go full Patton on her subordinates when given sufficient cause. Seemed the temper ran in the family, not that I was one to talk. I’d been angry when Julia told me that I needed to give the Jaspers their new ‘Mech publicly for political reasons; she hadn’t yet seen me when I was enraged to the point I couldn’t speak.
Yeah, this really isn't the side of her that he's used to seeing. And yes, the temper runs int eh family, although that's more nurture than nature in a lot of ways. You have to set the example....
I turned back to Sarah as she stepped inside the room, closing the door quietly behind her, waiting for an explanation. Julia didn’t appear to have noticed us and was in no shape to have a reasonable conversation in any event.
“If you are to have a relationship,” the Asian woman said quietly, “then it is only fair that you see her at her worst. She’s been bottling this up ever since she got the news about Lockheed-CBM’s bribery of LCAF Aerospace Corps officers.”
Sarah sighed, and I could feel her frustration. Clearly, Julia had taken that hard and there was nothing Sarah could do to help.
“She keeps a lid on her temper until she can vent in private so that she doesn’t harm those who rely on her to provide leadership and set an example.”
This, very much this. Julia is a case of having a volcano under all the cold glacial ice in some ways. And yes, Sarah worries about Julia a lot (to her Julia is kind of the idiot kid sister).
This is also letting Alistair pretty far inside the onion in terms of trust Julia and Sarah are showing in him.
Because, even if she didn’t lash out at them personally like her aunt sometimes did, it would still harm their confidence in her and her judgement. I watched as Julia landed another combo on the bag that would have left an opponent trying to decide whether to clutch their ribs or, given that knee strike, cover their privates, but she was panting for air now, wind completely blown.
“How long?”
Sarah glanced at a clock. “Eight minutes. This is a bad one for her, among the worst I have seen in my twenty years of service.”
Considering that this was under rather more gravity than she was used to, I was surprised even a trained Mechwarrion had managed to keep up that level of effort for so long.
Some context for Sarah's statement. She's literally known Julia since Julia was in diapers. Sarah's mother and uncle served much the same role for Iris and was tabbed early to serve as Julia's assistant/maid. She's very much Alfred to Julia's Bruce Wayne here in the 'old retainer' role.
So when she says that this is one of the worst temper tantrums she has ever seen, this includes dealing with Julia as a teenager hitting puberty, for instance.
“Heads up,” I called when I was maybe five feet away. Julia’s eyes shot to me, momentarily surprised, before she reached up to snatch the towel out of the air. For perhaps the first time since I’d met her, Julia actually looked flustered as she wiped the worst of the sweat off her face.
Julia did NOT expect him to be here, so yeah, he caught her off guard. She rapidly figured out that Sarah used her initiative in interpreting Julia's wish to allow Alistair to see her not-nice side.
And elsewhere. I was trying not to react, but Julia was one of those girls who looked really pretty when she was angry, all flashing eyes and passion, and the minimal clothing she was wearing just accented that. My brain tried to suggest other activities that could make her sweaty, but I kicked than thought in the shin and pushed it over a cliff while it was distracted.
Trying not to blush, I cracked the seal on the bottle and handed it over when she was finished with the cloth. She guzzled about half the bottle, not meeting my eyes.
Poor guy has to deal with a hot blonde in MMA togs. Truly Battletech is a dangerous universe.
Some context here. Normally Julia is acting to present a certain impression with everyone she meets and thinks out how to handle things if at all possible. See her earlier chats with Alistair where she tends to come in with a thought through agenda like 'argue him into X for his own good'.
This is her with her guard totally down and she's unsure what to say since he's got her cornered off any script that she might have planned (and she's still in emotional turmoil and not 'at her best').
Julia’s eyes shot back to me, eyes squinted as she worked to catch her breath after the bout of frenzied exercise. After a moment, she seemed to decide that I wasn’t bullshitting her because she went back to drinking and occasionally wiping up the sweat that was still popping up on her brow.
“... do you think Katrina is going to break Lockheed up?” I asked instead.
Julia scowled and finished draining the bottle before she answered.
“Maybe she will, but even with what has already leaked to the media it would cost a very large amount of political capital to actually break up such a massive company. It would set a precedent, and none of the Commonwealth’s other Interstellar Corporations would favor such a move,” she explained with a sigh. “Unfortunately, as Steiners, what we have to do is not always the same as what we’d like to do. If it was up to me, personally, I’d order a firing squad and sow the graves with salt. But Aunt Katrina will do what’s best for the Commonwealth.”
“More likely, she’ll do something similar to what happened with Coventry Metal Works and Trellshire Heavy Industries following the Trellshire Scandal. At least the corrupt LCAF officers can be held accountable more easily with capital court-martials.”
Yeah, Julia is PISSED here, but also she's worked through the emotional venting and has her brain back into gear. She tends to control her passions and not let them control her as seen here.
“Not intellectually. I got so angry because … well, there are several reasons. One is very personal. Besides that one, we’ve had a serious shortage of Aerospace Fighters in the Commonwealth, largely because we’ve had an atrocious loss rate throughout the Succession Wars. And now we’re finding out that Lockheed, not content with being the largest manufacturer of ASFs in the Commonwealth, sabotaged at least one of its rivals.”
I’d read the article, and the author claimed that TharHes had discovered sabotaged code in the machinery they’d purchased from Bauer. And that information seized on Donegal had lined up to indicate that it had been ordered by Lockheed CBM’s board to ruin Bauer’s good name and encourage them to quit the field of military manufacture.
Yeah, notice how she has a firm line between her intellect and her emotions. A lot of that is the rulership training and knowing that anytime she is in public she is setting an example with a lot on the line since people rely on her as a symbol.
THis is also one major reason she's pissed. While a little honest graft to grease the wheels is allowable and acceptable, weakening the state as a whole is definitely not.
“Personally… You may remember my mentioning Great-Uncle Helmar when you read his copy of Katherine Steiner’s diary?” Her voice grew very controlled as she forced the words out. “He flew a Lucifer which had a defective ejection system. It was the best ASF that Great-grandfather -the sitting Archon’s brother!- could arrange as a personal purchase. Loss rates among our Chippewa and Seydlitz pilots are worse! New production of Eagles, Thunderbirds, Lightnings, and Hellcats is spoken for more than a decade in advance, and what salvage and capture of better birds that we get from the League or Combine are desperately needed to fill the holes in our Aerospace Wings. So….”
And here we get to the major personal reason. Lockheed's defective equipment killed a close family member to her and family loyalty is one of the big foundations of the dynasty.
I waited a moment for her to continue, only to see her shoulders shake. As she turned away, I caught a glimpse of moisture on her cheek. It still took me a couple seconds to realize that she was crying.
I wasn’t good at handling crying women. Never had been. Especially not barely clothed crying women! I-
Damn it, pull it together, dumbass! I ordered myself. So I did what I’d have done for any of my Mechwarriors in the same situation, and reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. Sometimes just reminding somebody that there was a helping hand available if it was needed was enough.
She didn’t flinch away from it, so at the very least I hadn’t made the problem worse. I steered her over to one of the workout benches and got both of us to sit down.
It took her a couple of minutes to compose herself, but eventually she raised her head.
Good for him. This is also genuine sorrow, since she never knew her great-uncle thanks to this tragedy. he's seeing the real Julia under the surface here, and some of the things she keeps hidden under the mask.
“I can’t-” she began, only for another sob to leak out past her self-control.
I reached up to again try to offer some comfort, but the bench wasn’t the largest, and we were sitting too close together for me to reach her near shoulder, so instead I laid my hand on her opposite shoulder. After a long moment, she relaxed and leaned up against me, shoulder to shoulder.
We sat that way for long minutes while I awkwardly tried not to think about the situation for fear of messing something up.
After long minutes of sitting in silence, Julia once again spoke.
“I want to make a future where situations like that are the exception, not the rule.”
Julia had excused herself after that to go get cleaned up, and Sarah had relocated me to a sitting room on the second floor of the expansive townhouse as well as provided snacks and a refreshing glass of cider.
When Julia entered, it was clear she’d had a shower, and she was thankfully back in something more than workout clothes. That helped my equilibrium quite a bit. She’d also applied just a touch of makeup to help conceal the fact that she’d been crying. Not that she really needed it.
“While you’re here, I wanted to discuss a couple of things,” she said, clearly intent on moving past any awkwardness.
“Since you didn’t address the final classical reason that divorce lawyers are a growth industry the last time we had a frank discussion, I suppose your resident ‘rich-bitch money-grubbing Steiner’ should bring up the Kroner angle.”
That wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all, either in subject or content.
Again, notice that she's coming in with a bit of an agenda and having thought through what she wants t get done here. Equally important, the agenda for this meeting is 'good of the Commonwealth'/'good of Catachan' and not 'good of Julia' because she rolls on 'the mission, the men, and then herself' priorities.
“I can’t discuss it in great detail at the moment,” I temporized, thinking over how much to say. For that matter, I didn’t have firm data yet about just how many Phoenixes we’d be able to make in a year, given the setbacks. Still …
“Barring any fresh disasters, we’ll be in the black with the sales contract, even setting aside a portion of our income for a rainy day,” I finally decided.
Julia accepted that with a nod.
“And if you needed to ship hardware farther than Sudeten or Tamar?” she inquired. Considering the distances involved …
“That would get pretty uneconomical, pretty quickly,” I admitted.
“Now, Asgard can cover some of that,” she continued, leaning in, “but if the LCAF starts paying overtly, it would be a very large clue to anyone paying attention that there was something afoot and where to strike to disrupt Asgard’s plans.”
That also made sense; as the old saying went: ‘follow the money.’
“You sound like you’ve got a solution to this problem,” I commented, playing along.
Yeah. The key is to prevent the ISF realizing the importance and sending the Sword of Light after them until they can fort up enough. Unfortunately, in order to get Catachan to full, that will take a lot of money and investment, which shines the spotlight on it....
Also he has to turn a profit as the business and some of the things the LC needs aren;t profitable conventionally.
“Ja, but it would need a bit of work to build the cover,” she warned before starting to get into the details. “The Steiner family fortune is a little bit harder to keep an eye on than official government accounts that have to have reams of paperwork to explain each transaction.
“Before I left Tharkad, Aunt Katrina gave me access to one of the family’s Black accounts. If something comes up and we need you to ship a cargo Priority to, oh, Star Corp’s factory on Loburg, I can pay for it out of that account and camouflage the purchase as, say, a Phoenix special-ordered for Cousin Ryan’s birthday with a bit of extra for the rush.”
Julai looked pleased with herself until she saw my expression.
“You know what that would look like,” I accused. “I hate that sort of corruption, and so do the vast majority of my people. It would undermine not just my position here on Catachan, but with Olivetti as well to be seen engaging in that sort of under-the-table transaction!”
Julia seemed taken aback for a moment, then shook her head.
However, this is somethign we came up with to justify both 'memetic Lyran Corruption' and 'why the LC hasn't collapsed under centuries of under-the-table dealings'. This is a case where you can make it work well, just as long as you put reasonably honest people in the key spots.
“There’s a difference between real corruption and counterintelligence operations,” she asserted. “When we have to use a contingency like this, we use LIC personnel, or if they aren’t available, then people cleared for the whole story and then ‘leak’ it to the Combine or the Mariks,” she explained. “Believe me, the last thing we want to do is encourage more behavior like THI or Lockheed.
“If Duke Olivetti gets wind of something somehow and confronts you about it, you’ll be fully cleared to let him know that it was an authorized operation and his own contacts in LIC will back that up.”
Put that way, was it really any different than telling my people they could keep any bribes they were paid as long as they reported the bribe and did the requisite paperwork? I didn’t like it, but I liked the idea of the Dracs getting accurate intelligence on us even less.
“Okay, that’s fair,” I admitted, before going back to a point she’d raised earlier. “Now what do you need to help establish this cover?” I asked.
Now, that said, the ISF and SAFE do know the Steiners do this. But since the black accounts are going through a bank that they totally control and own and are using numbered accounts with no visible link between Client 18245-AA-127209 and Julia Steiner using that money for Catachan, it works well enough for the Steiners.
“We need to establish that I’m both interested and invested in the Catachan Arms Company,” she explained. “To that end, I’ll be asking you to sell me some CAC stock. That will give me a justifiable reason to ask to sit in on your business to help out. So when we need to take actions which make little business sense but lots of military sense, such as shipping advanced guns at a loss to Hesperus II for a Battlemech’s redesign, Brewer will pay for them under the table by shuffling money internally to the Furillo branch of DefHes, which Mother owns eleven percent of. Then Mother pulls that back channel payment from the corporate accounts there and deposits it in my numbered ‘black’ account so I can shift it to CAC’s coffers. Lather, rinse, and repeat for CMW or any of the other major defense contractors; we have our thumbs in their pies via the same method I will be employing for CAC. That way, when the ISF and SAFE see that kind of payment going into the Steiners’ pockets, it looks like another instance of Lyran graft and corruption making us ‘money grubbers’ even richer.
“It can also serve as a financial backstop for CAC if and when you need a sudden infusion of cold hard cash to exploit R&D breakthroughs, get a new lostech factory up and running at a sprint, or fend off a corporate takeover. I can just buy a dozen or so shares of CAC stock from you at a ridiculously marked up purchase price to move the money over, and then privately sell them back later for pfennigs on the megakroner.”
Again, it made sense, and having someone with more formal training on the board wouldn’t hurt. Neither would her connections.
Yep. This is also getting CAC 'in the club' in a sense while making sure they develop appropriately. This also helps them keep an eye on things.
(the eventual plans is that CAC share will rejoin Alistair's portfolio down the road in his joint checking account with Mrs. Weber-Steiner.)
((This said, the stock sale will be public enough so that SAFE and the ISF will note that Julia bought in, but this is also explainable by her clear interest in him.))
“Alright, but we’ll need to handle this carefully. And keep solid records, even if those remain confidential notes just between the two of us,” I shot back.
“Agreed.” She extended her hand for a shake.
Well that was simple enough.
“As for a seat on the board, you’d need to have enough shares to at least match some of the people we’ve hired on …” I trailed off thinking for a moment. “Call it five percent,” I decided, then did some mental math and quoted her the price, which made her eyes bulge. She was lucky she hadn’t been drinking any of the coffee Sarah had brought her, or it would have necessitated a serious cleaning of the room.
Offscreen, Julia had gotten her marching orders from Katrina to expedite Centurion production/upgrades using the black budget, and as such this will be financed secretly by the Steiners when her buy-in 'coincidentally' will cover those costs.
There were a few eyebrows raised when Julia, who was rocking a nice charcoal-gray business skirt-suit, walked into the conference room beside me and calmly took a seat, but before anyone could make a big deal out of it, I called the meeting to order.
This is also her putting on her businesswoman/House Steiner Representative hat here. As well, while she hasn't formally told folks who she is, the word has gotten out.
“How badly is that going to hurt the bottom line?” I asked Dave Myers, my accountant.
“Even being pessimistic on our expenses, we’re still going to be in the black, just not very far,” he responded. “Once the expenditures for the Sarissa line are no longer coming out, we’ll be on much more solid ground. Incidentally, I’m grateful you were able to cut our expenses down with Dobless.” Then he aimed a question at Baron Jones.
“Uh, got the math done on shipping 380XL engines to Hesperus for Banshee production,” one of our more recent hires, accountant Dan Sprowl, said. “It’s not economically viable long term.”
“The redesign of the torso structural members and the need to change the position of some of the components located there. Creating workarounds for the increased bulk of EndoSteel in the torso is a non-trivial process. Yes, theoretically it gives them the most extra payload for the least loss of cubage, but, in practice, it might be more trouble than it’s worth.
“Of course, they’ve got concerns with the other option, too. Between the attachment points for the armor and the increased bulk of the EndoSteel structure limiting usable space in the limbs, they aren’t at all sure that they’ll be able to fit the number of freezers they want to use into the torso. If that ends up being the case, then they’d have to go back to a standard structure, which would cost them around one and a half, two tons of payload.”
“Alright, we’ll keep that as our current assumption, then. That does, however, leave us at a bit of loose ends,” I said and then paused. “We do have a request from the Archon to get the 240XL line up and going as our next project. After the way our Aerospace wing kicked the shit out of the Dracs above Sevren, she wants Centurions refitted yesterday. And Lockheed or whatever successor comes out the far end of their current troubles will presumably be switching over to making new upteched models. That’ll mean we need to expand production of cockpit electronics, targeting systems, et cetera. What’s the prognosis on that?” I inquired, not a little trepidatiously.
Offscreen after she agreed to buy into CAC, Julia requested that Alistair invest her monies in this project and make it happen while sending her the bill to be covered by her 'stock purchase'. This is the fruits of their planning.
“Then get it started soonest. Between the improved sensors and the SLDF Neurohelmets, the electronics we can produce are one of our more subtle X-factors. And that’s without counting what they do when combined with advanced autocannon.”
There were nods around the room; everyone had been briefed in on that ASAP. Except from one corner.
“Your Grace, that’s going to be a complicated, and thus expensive project,” Mr. Sprowl objected. “I know I said we’d still be in the black, but that was without any more large expenses!”
“You may have noticed Landgrafin Steiner enter the room with me. She has recently arranged to purchase five percent of the company’s stock. We’ve got the expansion covered.”
Julia smiled and nodded at my words.
Again, the popularity of the Steiner dynasty struck. Everyone appeared to be pleased that CAC was now important enough to have attracted the interest of the ruling family, rather than being concerned that we’d had a large buy-in.
Some subtext here. it's not just the popularity of the Steiners.
It's also the fact that the Steiners are 'known' to be sharp businessmen who have a tendency to make their investments grow. So this was an implicit vote of confidence from the Steiner family at large and joining CAC into the 'Midas Touch' club of connected defense contractors that the Steiners help manage behind the scenes.
(this is especially true since there's some betting pools over when Julia snags the Duke, so again, it;s being kept in the family here)
“Alright, expanding electronics production as well as continuing work on the Sarissa chassis and final assembly lines. That’s our near-term construction priorities dealt with.
“THI makes the Battlemaster on Twycross and Red Devil makes it on Pandora. If we can retool to produce a 340XLFE, instead of a 380, we can sell the initial output locally to THI, who are bouncing back well now that the corruption trials are over. Then, as we scale up to full production we can sell spares to the LCAF and bring in Red Devil as a client.”
And getting them cleared to handle Lostech ought to be easier than getting them cleared to produce it. Red Devil Industries was going to find themselves the big loser in the upcoming decade, but Katrina had apparently concluded that she’d need to have LIC shoot half of the corporation’s management to keep the data core from being sold, and even then they’d probably be a security nightmare.
“If we can get a deal made with THI quickly, we could allow them to have improved Battlemasters walking off their lines in five years instead of ten while saving them the development costs for building their own facilities for the production of several advanced components. It would certainly help their image and prestige, and after the Trellshire Scandal, they could use the boost. Think we could get them to go for it?”
“We won’t be able to sell them ERPPCs. Certainly not at first,” Sprowl said, “But we’ll still have production capacity for ER lasers and Heavy Multimode autocannon. If we can convince them to do a refit based around one or both of those, we’d be in a very good place.”
Several others spoke up in agreement with the idea, and I nodded.
“Let’s move forward with that, then, and we can talk about details as information comes in.”
“In the end, we had to replace the PPC in the nose with a lighter weapon, in this case an extended range 8cm laser, to fix the problem. The upside, though, is that thanks to the more robust construction of the wings, we were able to replace the wing-mounted lasers with PPCs, so we’ve actually increased the firepower of the main armament as well as improving the average weapon range.”
“Note, however, that that was both the 8cm and 5cm lasers. While that might appear to be a reduction in firepower, it is not a practical loss in this case; since the 5cm lasers were originally intended to provide additional firepower at short range while the fighter was cooling, they were not typically utilized as part of an Alpha Strike. With sixteen freezers, the Stingray’s heat problems are, essentially, solved. Thus, the consistent firepower is increased notably.
“However, the original design did have a particular vulnerability to Interceptors piloted with sufficient skill. If a skilled pilot was able to remain consistently on their tails, especially in atmosphere, the Stingray’s lack of any rear-facing guns and weak aft armor were easily exploited. Since the weapons are already present, we chose to install the 5cm lasers in the tail on either side of the main thrust assembly.”
That was a smart decision and a good use of resources. One less thing for the quartermasters to spend money on might make a big difference in how a refit was received.
“The remainder of the tonnage saved by swapping in an XL engine was used to nearly double the Stingray’s effective armor, moving from eleven and a half tons of BAR10 Standard to nineteen tons of Ferro-Aluminum. There is comparatively little impact on the nose: it was already well-armored, and we didn’t want to risk straining the structural members there when we’d just finished fixing that problem. As such, much of that mass goes to the wings and tail of the fighter. Effective nose armor is only improved by about fifty percent, while the tail’s protection was more than doubled. This also finally allowed us to eliminate the ASF’s balance problem.
“We’re still converting the work we did on the mock-up into an easily understandable, quickly deployed depot-level refit kit, but in a month or two we’ll be ready to supervise the conversion on Richthofen’s bird.”
“Since Archon Steiner’s personal ride is a Warhammer, a lot of nobles have shelled out money keeping up with the Steiners. Stands to reason that they’re going to want nothing but the best for their personal toys,” Dave Myers added.
“I can confirm that,” Julia agreed, speaking up for the first time, “There will certainly be a market.”
Subtle note here. When Olivetti and/or CAC gets a Warhammer Refit Kit developed, Katrina will publicly buy one of the first ones and have it installed on her Mech to show royal support and provide a PR boost to the companies.
“It’s a wrecked Pinto,” I explained, “and we’ve been doing salvage operations on it. Quite a few things aren’t recoverable, but we managed to pull both naval PPCs and two of the naval lasers off of it intact. In exchange for the naval autocannon and the single salvageable naval grade missile launcher, Katrina is going to help us emplace the guns as an anti-dropship defense.”
Julia let out a slow whistle.
“That’s going to be a nasty surprise for the first raid that tries to land in line of sight,” she said.
That addresses the issues with undermining his position with Olivetti, but does nothing about how it undermines his position on Catchan. Unless they make the entire thing public knowledge on Catchan (which despite it being a closed military system sounds like begging the DC to find out) this would go against the need to not only uphold his duty, but to be seen doing so in order to establish a tradition of doing so which was a big deal in the last chapter.
How it will work publicly is when CAC needs a cash infusion, 'coincidentally' Julia will be buying more stock in sufficient quantities/arranging a loan with her contacts to cover the costs of whatever-it-is thanks to 'a good quarter with her investments back on Furillo'. Since the Steiners are known to be rich as hell, they will assume that she's using her personal monies to do so (which she kinda sorta IS). Also since it looks like Julia is on a glide path to Mrs. Weber status, this is keeping it 'all in the family', literally.
Will some people suspect that there's some shenanigans?
Sure, like it was no coincidence that Julia bought a seat in the boardroom right when Katrina needed a megakroner investment in new ASFs. But a lot of people will overlook it since Julia is putting her money where her mouth is, and they/CAC benefit from her under the table support of them.
In order, you are underestimating the difficulty of designing an ASF from scratch with like 5 people, and you are seriously overestimating the adaptability range of the hardware. Look at the weight difference between a 300 and a 380. Even a 340 is pushing it.
Droppers are assigned to the Regiments, so they stay with the regiments. Since they’re not Mechs, they don’t get to keep their jump ships.
well those dropships will be highly useful if nothing else in helping move stuff around the planet as needed.
And yeah I figured I was being highly optimistic at best but hey it does occur to me that if they can't figure out how to get the gauss line to work on Catachan or retool the 380 line to a 340 you could probably pay for a fair bit of stuff in terms of say either another ERPPC line or a 300xl line from scratch for what Defiance or TharHes would pay for them.
also once again I'm basically wondering why Defiance didn't use some of their piles of cash to buy out Red Devil Industries and commence massive reforms
One of the things I can't help notice was that Julia bought stock in CAC for most likely the Stenier family as a whole not her. No doubt another way for the Stenier dynasty to bind Catachan to the Commonwealth.
Flood gates are opening, but the capabilities of Catachan are very limited and while Weber&friends are doing the best they can, expectations of them are high and will get even higher.
Also, opening the MegaMekLab at the mention of the upteched variants really lengthens the reading process.
One of the things I can't help notice was that Julia bought stock in CAC for most likely the Stenier family as a whole not her. No doubt another way for the Stenier dynasty to bind Catachan to the Commonwealth.
Well, to be fair, the Steiners will probably bind Catachan to them dynastically via the mechanism of the next Duke/Duchess of Catachan being <Insert Kid Name> Weber-Steiner.
That said, I'd expect that Julia might stipulate that her 5% voting share of CAC stock goes to the Archon or the like in her last will and testament so that the throne has access to the resulting insight into Catachan with her kid(s) getting Weber's controlling share of CAC. Or some mechanism like that; the Steiners have been doing this for centuries, so have a very developed playbook on how to gain and hold power in the business sphere. It should also be noted that normally CAC wouldn't be nearly big enough to mandate a Steiner buy-in as an Angel Investor, but the combination of 'producing Lostech' and 'gave us the Catachan Core' stipulated that they are getting this financial shot in the arm to get them established (and prevent... oh Margaret Doons, say, from swooping in and buying them up before they get their feet under them).
That said, effectively the 'seed money' was coming from her legally (pay no attention to the big fat check she got from Mom/Aunt Katrina for Christmas) so the 5% share is all hers.
also once again I'm basically wondering why Defiance didn't use some of their piles of cash to buy out Red Devil Industries and commence massive reforms
Keep in mind that Defiance is spending money to make money by doing things such as 'repair production lines damaged by the Dracs in the 3SW kamikaze raid on Hesperus II'. Contrary to popular belief, companies generally don't have a Scrooge McDuck-esque vault piled high with gold, kroner, C-bills, or what have you.
So for Julia, she would have liquidated some of her investments (such as the fur farm that makes her coats) and/or gotten a bank loan to buy into CAC (using said investments, properties, and the like as collateral). For Defiance to take over Red Devil would be very very expensive and to reform it, even more so.
(For example, I'd expect when the news of Lockheed-CBM being dirty hit Katrina, the Steiners took steps to quietly liquidate their investment there, probably sold the company short (through third parties) to turn a further profit to boot, and have placed a 'future buy order' to get a seat on the board for LCBM... at about 2/3 to 1/2 the pre-scandal stock price. Since LCBM stock is tanking massively* now that the scandal broke, they are going to massively profit for pfennig on the kroner going and coming. In modern securities law context, this is known as 'insider trading' -- just like Julia buying in privately during the Angel Investor/IPO stage of a company's evolution into a business that she knows has several licenses to print kroner for the foreseeable future.)
*The boardroom's getting arrested for bribery, kickbacks, and treason, and the baleful eye of the Archon is looking at their contracts to supply the LCAF with ASFs, which will probably be nullified on grounds of corruption and sabotage. Enron has nothing on these guys' financial troubles. While LCBM is 'too big to fail/jail' they're in for some rough times, will probably have to divest some subsidiaries to survive, and otherwise will be bleeding money for the next few years**. So yeah, their stock prices have crashed like its 1929, while the Steiners will profit from their misfortune by getting out before their stock shares fell off a cliff, possibly kicking them further down said cliff with short-selling as the slide starts, and then buying in once their share prices hit rock bottom since they will eventually get their shit together and rebound, at which point in time said investment will produce profit.
**see: Trellshire Heavy Industries, who is now in the 'rebound' phase of this cycle. Where do you think that the folks who swooped in to turn the company around and clean it up got their financial support to ride in as a White Knight, hmmm?
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag nabbit. That's a glitch. It has way more than 10 freezers.
Edit: Heat sinks patched to reflect both actual number and tonnage. Correct sinking is 16 [32]. Also fixed the structural integrity, which was for some reason showing as zero. Why you do this to me, MML?
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag nabbit. That's a glitch. It has way more than 10 freezers.
Edit: Heat sinks patched to reflect both actual number and tonnage. Correct sinking is 16 [32]. Also fixed the structural integrity, which was for some reason showing as zero. Why you do this to me, MML?
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag nabbit. That's a glitch. It has way more than 10 freezers.
Edit: Heat sinks patched to reflect both actual number and tonnage. Correct sinking is 16 [32]. Also fixed the structural integrity, which was for some reason showing as zero. Why you do this to me, MML?
Yeah, it's a nasty NASTY beast now. The only way to overheat it is with full front and aft alphas or engine crits, and it's got the most armor of anything not named Eisensturm or Hyaspedes. You could possibly even dropper chop with it (it's got more armor than a Stuka or Slayer and comparable firepower to the Slayer)
Yeah, also Eisensturm-level armor (granted the Eis has the firepower edge, but then 95 ton Level 2 optimized death machine built around twin Gauss rifles/Large lasers). I'd match it up against some Clanner Omnifighter designs as a cointoss. 28 damage on demand is no joke in Level 1 meta.
Sadly, the downside is that the Lyrans don't produce the Stingray, so I'd expect some industrial espionage might be in order.
Yeah, it's a nasty NASTY beast now. The only way to overheat it is with full front and aft alphas or engine crits, and it's got the most armor of anything not named Eisensturm or Hyaspedes. You could possibly even dropper chop with it (it's got more armor than a Stuka or Slayer and comparable firepower to the Slayer)
Its definitely a solid design that someone in the Lyran Commonwealth should be building and not just refit kits but new units by the 4th Succession War even if it's not the CAC. Albeit they'd certainly get royalties like they will for that Banshee variant.
If Weber wants to fix the problems with the gauss rifle production line he could always put it into orbit. Also, did Weber's people find any interesting fighters or small craft in the Pinto?
Moving a factory/production line to orbit is not an easy thing - for now. Viable, yes, but not easy nor fast. And I bet a number of new problems appear if you do that until the (local) people gain experience with that particular skill set.
