15 January 3010
Thazi (Hegemony)
Commodore Fergus McConnell had brought his ship, SLS Yosemite, Riga Transport per his orders. He only knew the basics, that he would be taking on multiple Dropships along with the 288th Hussar Regiment for a long distance deployment. The moment he had arrived, he had been ordered to take his ship to the orbital shipyard for a maintenance check while all the various Dropships, personnel and equipment were brought in from across the Hegemony. Once the maintenance was begun, he had orders to report to the surface for a more in depth briefing about his mission.
New Port Royal (Tortuga Dominion)
Lieutenant General Braxton Myers, commander 3311st Brigade, smiled as he read the message reporting that the campaign to secure the Tortuga Dominions was complete except for random mop up and security actions. Major combat operations were complete. He wondered to himself if the Hegemony was going to actually off these people the option to join the Hegemony. Since their operations on New Port Royal had ended, he had requested additional medical personnel and supplies to treat the civilian population in an effort to win some hearts and minds, just in case.
He still had no orders for Barkers Bombers since their particular skills would only really be needed if the Dominions joined the Hegemony. Worst case, if the people of the Dominions elected to remain independent, he would gladly offer Barker and his people to join the Hegemony fully. It would give the Hegemony a core to build one of the Independent Regiments around and he was sure Barker and his folks would just love a full upgrade on all their equipment.
Versailles (Hegemony)
Since retaking Versailles from Comstar, it had taken over a century to fully "deprogram" the population. Enough local industry had been built to keep the local population quite comfortable, even by Hegemony standards. The schools and medical facilities were first rate. They had done away with Comstar's everyone around a single city and they had established several more cities on the primary continent. The massive Battlemech Factory had been installed inside a massive mountain and underground complex, along with all the supporting industries needed to support it. The only thing that had not been brought in or constructed was orbital facilities for Endo Steel.
Recruitment for the Hegemony Armed Forces had not begun until the late 2980's, and had only recently been increased. Production from the various industries along with the Battlemech Factory was kept to a low, maintain skills level. Every 4 months, a transport arrived from the Hegemony to take on and drop off cargo ships. With 24 production lines, the Battlemech Factory was capable of rivaling any complex within the Inner Sphere, but produced a mere 36 Battlemechs per year, 12 Stinger STG-3R, 12 Thunderbolt TDR-5S and 12 Archer ARC-2R models. With no official ownership outside the Hegemony Armed Forces, it was carried on the books as Reserve Industrial Complex Alpha.
Garrison for the planet was on a rotation of 2 years, which before the mobilization, had been between several RCT's. But now, the garrison had been increased to a full Independent Battlemech Regiment, currently the 201st Battle Regiment, along with a full Conventional RCT and permanent Aerospace Group of 18 Aerospace Fighters. The last supply transport had dropped off several engineers from Mitchell Industries who had spent the last few weeks going over the Battlemech Factory.
