Chapter One Hundred and Three: Planning for the Future
Kentares IV, July 22nd, 3020
"Welcome back Hull," Sheppard greeted me. "I take it everything went well?"
"Relatively." I answered, "I see that Peterson and Stone returned."
"Yes sir." Sheppard replied, "And they've got full reports for review." He paused in his steps for a moment. "Take it a little easy on Stone when you get his report." Sheppard said, "He's already beating himself up over it."
"Do I want to know before I read the report?" I asked Sheppard. "Will it make me react any differently?"
"No," Sheppard said. "By all accounts he succeeded beyond our expectations at his primary objective, and did extremely well in his own personally assigned secondary objectives."
"But?" I asked.
"But, he did have higher casualties than any operation we've undertaken since we went up against the Big Mac." Sheppard said bluntly. "We're lucky we issued Mithrilout like it's candy because it limited our personnel's casualties, but we lost a third of the machines that went out with him."
"We can replace the machines, Sheppard." I reminded the man. "But we can't replace our people, I'll do the debrief, and I'll be running through what he did right, as well as what can be done better on his next op." I sighed, "But, I will be chewing him out for self assigning a mission that might have required a different task force."
"I get it Mark." Sheppard said, "I was just informing you here before you reviewed the reports."
"You know Sheppard," I said as I turned around. "You can't defend your students forever."
"I'll damned well try though." Sheppard laughed. "Now get moving old man, it's past your bedtime."
"You're only five years younger than me, Sheppard." I said with a chuckle, "One day you'll start turning gray too."
"I'm not closer to fifty than you are though." Sheppard said as he walked away.
July 23rd, 3020
"Stone, take a seat." I told the younger officer. "I have some things to discuss with you."
"If this is about the people that died…" Stone started before I cut him off.
"No," I said. "Those people knew what they had signed up to do, I'm here to discuss you assigning yourself side objectives." I stopped him before he could start talking again. "I don't care that they were successful." I sighed. "I'm grateful that we have another aerospace factory, but if you had been hired by any other employer, you would be blacklisted or have an MRB rating drop."
"You're being busted down to Major." I told Stone, "Until you can learn some restraint you won't be promoted beyond battalion commander again."
"What about the men and women under my command?" Stone asked, "What discipline is being applied to them?"
"Blaze is getting off with a slap on the wrist." I stated. "Given the way his and Wardog's contract is worded I'm not allowed to actually do all that much to them, but the 2nd Marksman are being put under Colonel Peterson's leadership for a while. And Sheppard will be serving as the 1st Marksman CO while Major Natasha fills in for him at the Marksman Academy."
"I won't let you down sir." Now Major Stone saluted. "And something like this won't happen ever again."
"I know Stone, now sit back down, I'm not done with you yet." I said. "We still need to go over what you did right."
"But I didn't do anything right." Stone said, "I got a third of our machines downed, and ended up with more wounded than the Marksman have had in years."
"Yes, but you also managed to hold off two regiments with one while simultaneously stealing an aerospace fighter factory out from underneath them." I praised, "I've met maybe a couple of people who could have pulled that kind of thing off." I smiled, "And I've hired as many of them as I possibly could, you did good Stone, you just need a little longer to season before you're ready to be CO again."
"Thank you sir." Stone said, "I'll get better
July 24th, 3020
"Dr. Rogers." I greeted the woman as she entered my office. "I take it you either started or finished the refits on the factories we bought or moved?"
"Finished actually." She sent the files over to my slate wirelessly. "Take a look."
"Hmm." I said while looking at them. "Turning the Swordsman into a smaller Shadow Hawk?" I asked, "What was the logic behind that?"
"There are no current manufacturers of the Shadow Hawk in the Federated Suns right now." She said with a shrug, "And when we updated the design, it seemed to fit extremely well into that mold."
"The Gladiator reads like a Griffin, but better in many ways." I said. "I take it this is a variant that we're going to market to garrison units?"
"Yes actually." She responded, "When you combine it with the Von Rohr's and the Swordsman it makes for a good mixed weight lance."
"Yeah, the Von Rohrs looks like a Thunderbolt, but with way more punch packed in." I said. "Do we have an estimate on how long it will take to retool and set up all of the factories we have?"
"Six months to retool." She said, "Around five hundred of the people that settled down from Clan Wolf were a part of their Technician and Scientist Castes, that'll help cut down on some of the time it takes."
"If we were to automate the factories, how long would it take to set them up then?" I asked.
"After the six months of retooling the factories to modern standards, it would take a year to two years after that to automate the process." She said, "If you want to automate these factories, we might as well do the rest of them as well."
"Alright," I said. "It'll take four to five years to get everything automated?" I asked.
"Four to five if we manage to orient the Clan people in with our engineers and R&D team." Rogers said.
"Have we made any progress on the L-F Drive addition that was on the Manassas?" I asked before she got ready to leave.
"It'll take seven years before we're ready to test it on one of our InvaderJumpships." She said. "And you'll have to get an update from Bruce on the New Rhodes shipyards."
"Alright Dr. Rogers, thanks for the updates." I said, "But before you go, I have one last thing to add to your team's plate. In fact, I want you personally to work on this one." I opened my slate to the files that I had been perusing and sent them over.
"This is the Oppenheimer Hazardous Material Recovery Vehicle," I said as she looked over the files I had sent her. "I want to build a factory for these things, and build as many of them as we can possibly manufacture, I want to donate as many of them as we manufacture to worlds around the Inner Sphere."
"These are specifically for cleaning up worlds that are irradiated or toxic due to WMD's." Dr. Rogers said after looking at the information I had sent over to her slate.
"I want them cleaning up every damaged world in the Inner Sphere." I said after a minute to let it sink in for her. "I'm going to have Sharpshooter donate them to worlds in the Periphery, the Lyran Commonwealth, the Combine, and what's left of the FWL and Capcon."
"You really want to start cleaning up the damage caused by the Succession Wars." She said after a moment.
"I want us to start with two worlds, and to try and automate the Oppie's as well, or at least make them able to be operated from a slate." I said. "We'll start with cleaning up Proserpina and Ozawa. I figure if we can clean up the damage done to those worlds, we can clean up almost anywhere else that might be affected."
"Give me six months to get the factory built." Dr. Rogers said excitedly. "This is the kind of job I've been waiting for."
July 25th, 3020
"You Mark Hull, have been avoiding me." Natasha said as I finally left my office.
"No, I haven't been avoiding you, I've been avoiding your shadows." I said. "Ever since they saw the Battlerom of the duel, it seems like they've been following me around."
"It was impressive," Natasha wrapped her arms around me before drawing me in for a kiss. "Shall I show you just how impressive I found it?"
"Of course." I smiled as I kissed her back. "We should probably take this to the bedroom unless you want to scar Mathis though."