Part XLVI- Section 2 of 2----------
"The High Associator will see you now, General Hallis" the receptionist spoke up, breaking Hallis away from his thoughts. "Um… don't mention the desk" she advised awkwardly.
Wondering what exactly she meant by that Hallis made his way up to the High Associator's office, something he had done dozens of times before when it was his turn to brief them on behalf of the Joint Chiefs, and after told to just knock and enter by his secretary sat outside he did so.
At which point the 'desk' thing made perfect sense because newly-elected High Associator James Murray wasn't in fact sat at a desk, he was sat behind a folding-table situated where Giles Olson's very nice desk used to be.
"Good Afternoon, Sir" Hallis announced himself, stopping to salute while waiting for an invitation to sit down. In front of the folding table.
"You're probably wondering about the desk" Murray said, sounding rather aggrieved about the furniture situation judging by his tone of voice.
"I wasn't going to say" Hallis replied honestly, he certainly would have done if not for the warning though.
"Olson took his desk with him" Murray said bitterly. "Private property apparently."
"I see" Hallis replied comprehendingly, it
was a very nice piece of furniture after all.
"They're trying to find the old desk that used to be here before he replaced it, the government owned one" Murray told him. "If they can't I'll have to get a new one made" he added with a sigh.
"Oh, I think that went to Admiral Bremman. It's in his office at Navy HQ by the spaceport" Hallis replied, instantly regretting saying it.
"Ah ha!" Murray exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in his chair. "Please tell him I want it brought back" he requested, tone indicating that it was not actually a 'request' so much as a command from on high.
"Will do, Sir" Hallis replied. Jacob was going to be
really annoyed about this Hallis knew. The admiral had only gotten the desk because he had always gotten on very well with Giles Olson, they even socialised outside of work Bremman claiming that Olson was a surprisingly good rapper when he had a few drinks in him.
Hallis had never really gotten the 'rap' thing even though it was big on Niops. Listening to a nerd on the radio rhyming about thermodynamics wasn't his idea of a good time. Given him good old fashioned classical dubstep any time.
"Take a seat General, at least Olson left
those behind" Murray said, sounding a
little happier now he thought he might have a proper desk to sit behind soon. "I thought it might be General Romanov that gave me my first briefing?" he queried.
"General Romanov was injured yesterday morning; she's supposed to stay off her feet for a few days" Hallis explained her absence. That was the reason he was here now instead of at home looking after Judith even though he was supposed to be off duty this weekend. Fortunately Frederick was available to babysit his little sister, the boy had his uses even if he was still almost as such of a sarcastic pain-in-the-ass now as he had been in his teens. "The General offers her sincere apologies for not being able to attend."
"Injured how? Nothing too serious I hope?" Murray asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
"Running an assault course" Hallis explained, trying not to laugh. "The General doesn't seem to have mentally adjusted to the fact that she is over a hundred years old now and her ability to leap over obstacles isn't what it was when she was only eighty."
"Good grief. I'll have a word with her about that" Murray replied, rolling his eyes. "I know you Terra-born people are long-lived but you're not immortal."
"You're a third-generation Niops citizen yourself I believe?" Hallis noted.
"Third generation astronomer too, although I was the first in the family to go into politics" Murray replied. "But enough about me, I believe you have some updates regarding military deployments and developments?" he asked, looking down at his notes.
Hallis nodded. "The expanded training mission to Illyria progresses according to schedule" he began. "A number of the candidates for mechwarrior training picked out from the ranks of the Palatinate militia show sufficient promise that they should be able to field a combat-effective battlemech lance alongside their tank formations by the end of the year."
"They're using battlemechs captured from the Black Warriors correct?"
"Correct Sir" Hallis confirmed. "We repaired the battle damage they took ahead of receiving the reparation payments from Circinus in order to speed up the process of getting them operationally ready and available to take the field in needed."
"At which point we can withdraw our ongoing commitment there presumably?"
"Yes. It hasn't been too taxing logistically supplying a small expeditionary force in the Palatinate, we already had jumpships operating between Niops and Illyria hauling cargo and people seeking work on Alphard, but we never intended the commitment there to last quite
this long. Mostly because we never expected somebody to attack Illyria while we were there, particularly not anyone that was a lot more formidable than your regular band of pirates."
"Very well" Murray replied. "Battlemech production on Alphard progresses as expected?"
"A few teething troubles with some of the plant and machinery, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a new factory that's still ramping up production" Hallis told him. "We're ahead of the game in terms of training mechwarriors on Alphard so while we will want to maintain a garrison of our own there to protect what will increasingly become the industrial heartland of the Hegemony, we can restrict that to no more than regimental size rather than up it to a full brigade as would have been necessary otherwise."
"I was under the impression that most of the Alphard Militia is still infantry and that will remain the case even once they start receiving battlemechs?" Murray responded quizzically.
"If fighting a defensive battle and properly dug in infantry shouldn't be underestimated Sir, but in any case our long-term plans for the various planetary militias don't just revolve around handing them a few mechs" Hallis replied. "We're already looking into putting the old
Ballista self-propelled-gun into large-scale production to give the planetary guard units some useful artillery support and the Magistracy would be only too happy to sell us more
Manticore tanks if there's room in the budget to push some more in the direction of the militias."
The High Associator frowned. "I thought we were already in the process of developing indigenous tank production?" he queried. "Why import them rather than simply make more for the militias?"
Hallis raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry Sir, I thought you knew about the decision to manufacture the
Von Luckner instead of the
Manticore. It was featured prominently in the briefing documentation you were sent when you won the election."
"I'm afraid I'm still working my way through a mountain of paperwork" Murray replied, truthfully although he
had opted to read it in a different order than the one suggested by his staff.
"Oh, well we
were going to put the
Manticore into production to save importing them from the Magistracy, but the opportunity to obtain a license to manufacture the
Von Luckner instead for absolute peanuts came up so we jumped at it" Hallis told him. "The company that makes them, or should I say
made them, HartfordCo Industries, just had their factory on Bryant levelled, and given their financial situation, not to mention the extreme weather conditions prevalent on the planet, they're in no position to rebuild."
"Bryant?" Murray repeated. "Isn't that the planet where Amaris destroyed the Storm Inhibitors?"
"Yes Sir" Hallis confirmed. "Without SLDoME around to fix them the planet's been gradually falling to wrack and ruin ever since" he said. "After we heard about their factory being totalled we sent HartfordCo an offer to buy a license to produce the Von Luckner and after accusing us of being vultures they agreed. Bryant is under occupation by the Capellan Confederation at present, but as we don't currently have beef with them they didn't try and block the deal."
Murray nodded his understanding. Bryant was a former world of the Terran Hegemony and hence deemed to be 'under occupation' according to Niops even if the Capellan's might not see it that way.
It was strange how the subject of orbital mirrors kept coming up in his life though, the Storm Inhibitors on, or rather over Bryant being exactly that. When extreme weather events just as hurricanes formed they would be disrupted by carefully aimed beams of reflected sunlight to dissipate them, it being just another SLDoME trick to tame planets that would otherwise be unsuitable for colonisation.
"Our armoured units operate a mix of the
Von Luckner and
Manticore tanks, the former is most effective at short-range engagements, the latter at long ranges so they complement each other very well" Hallis explained. "If our tank units on Illyria had fielded such a mix, instead of just the
Manticore alone, it would have likely led to a quicker victory with reduced losses. If we were forced to only field one design it would be the
Manticore incidentally, it's a better all-rounder, but since we can buy those from the Magistracy, while now making the
Von Luckner ourselves, we don't have to compromise."
"I assume High Associator Olson signed off on all of this?"
"Yes Sir, not long before he left office. It was all done in a rush though so it's not surprising you hadn't heard given how busy you were with the election" Hallis replied. "It was definitely one of those situations where we had to jump in and grasp the opportunity quickly before someone else might have. As I said before, we really did get the license from HartfordCo for absolute peanuts, it was even more of a steal than when we got the license to produce the
Thug after Maltex Corporation had their own factory blitzed."
Murray leaned forward in his chair. "Forgive me General Hallis, but if I recall correctly one of the selling points in the militaries proposal to build a factory producing the
Manticore was that it presented an opportunity to repurpose surplus fusion power-plants stripped out from
Stingray aerospace fighters imported from the Free Worlds League. Will that also be the case for the
Von Luckner?"
"No" Hallis admitted. "The
Von Luckner utilises a class 225 Standard Fusion Engine rather than the 240SFE powerplant of the
Stingray and
Manticore, however by the time the factory is complete we plan to have started importing
Sabre light aerospace fighters from the Magistracy which
do use a class 225 SFE so we'll modify
those to power the
Von Luckner instead."
"It's that easy?"
"Well, the VOX 225 engine in a
Von Lucker isn't exactly the same shape and size as the Nissan 225 in a
Sabre, but since we're making our own
Von Luckner tanks we'll just change the design of the engine compartment to suit" Hallis responded. "We were going to do the same with our version of the
Manticore, modify the design slightly to carry a VOX240a instead of the regular Pitban 240."
"I suppose when you get right down to it they're all just fusion reactors, it's just what the machine they're installed inside does with the power they generate that changes whether they're an aerospace fighter, a tank or a battlemech" Murray reasoned.
"Very true. We actually use a few old
Wasp powerplants as emergency generators in our bunker complex on Reykjanes Island" Hallis replied. "For what it's worth, in the longer term I
do still have a plan for the surplus engines from the Stingray, they won't go to waste. I'm hoping we'll eventually get a license to produce the
Schrek PPC carrier made by Aldis Industries, they also use a 240SFE powerplant, although since Aldis is safely headquartered on Terra we're unlikely to get the license at the bargain price we did other machines."
Importing the
Stingray and eventually the
Sabre with a standard-fusion-engine already installed by the manufacturer, and then immediately switching those engines out for superior Extra-Light Fusion Engines to turn them into 'Royal' equivalent aerospace fighter, would have been a terrible waste of money if those surplus engines weren't going to be re-purposed. As it was if those engines
were still going to be gainfully employed then the bean-counters and bureaucrats were generally willing to accept the argument made by the military as to why it was a good idea to go about it this way.
It wasn't a secret that Niops was importing the
Stingray from the Free Worlds League, and it wouldn't be a secret when they started importing the
Sabre from the Magistracy of Canopus either, what
was going to be a secret was that those aerospace fighters in Niops service were going to be
much better than the regular models of each type in service elsewhere.
The advanced Extralight Fusion Engines the upgraded fighters would require would have been a problem to put into production if not for the fact that Niops
already had a couple of production lines for such engines crated up in storage. Retooling the machinery that used to produce the XL engines for the
Mercury II and
Stag II was a lot easier than having to create whole new manufacturing capability completely from scratch, and it was inordinately quicker than having to wait for Project Workshop time to be freed up.
The line that used to make the engine for the
Pulverizer was already in the process of being re-tooled to make the powerplant for the
Thug instead. Those machines were going to be hand made in Project Workshops as and when they were available, rather than put into mass production, although the definition of 'hand made' when it came to high-tech artisanal production in a Project Workshop was a slight misnomer.
Especially with the engine being made in a separate facility a Project Workshop could 'hand build' an assault mech around an endo-steel frame, itself also made elsewhere, somewhat faster than a bunch of guys in a garage could have managed.
Eventually when he had a Project Workshop of his very own working for the army full-time Hallis was aiming towards round-the clock production of 'hand-built' assault mechs, not just the
Thug but also the
King Crab if they could get the license. The
Devastator and the
Rifleman II wouldn't
need a license, nobody was making them anyway and as far as Hallis was concerned the designs were SLDF/Hegemony property in any case.
"I believe that construction of the dropship maintenance facility has begun?" Murray checked.
"Yes Sir, once completed the Alliance Station now being assembled in orbit will not only be able to service our existing dropship fleet but we'll be able to put the CargoKing into production" Hallis confirmed. "It's coming at a useful moment, we're starting to suffer from a shortage of available cargo transportation as our interstellar trade increases and they're automated enough not to put as much of a strain on our labour resources as older types such as the Mule would. The military model, the CargoMaster, will also help us out a lot logistically as the Hegemony expands."
"Admiral Bremman is pleased I'm sure" Murray surmised.
"He is, Sir" Hallis replied. "Though I don't think he'll be happy until we get the first orbital shipyard built over Niops VIII, or maybe not even until the second over Niops IX."
Murray's eye twitched. "By 'Niops VIII' and 'Niops IX' I assume you mean the astronomical objects known as Elizabeth as Helena which are situated in the Niops asteroid belt?" he asked coldly.
"Yes" Hallis replied, slightly vexed by the man's reaction and manner.
"Those are Dwarf Planets, merely large asteroids" the High Associator stated firmly. "As such they are
not to be designated as Niops VIII and IX."
Hallis raised his eyebrows. "But they're actually round and both well over fifteen-hundred klicks in diameter, Helena is closer to two-thousand..."
"Nevertheless, they are Dwarf Planets according to the official criteria established for such by the Niops Astronomical Union" Murray told him sternly, cutting him off mid-sentence. "I suppose you're one of those people that thinks Pluto in the Sol system is a planet too?" he asked sarcastically.
"Well, it is isn't it?" Hallis replied, confused.
The High Associator stared at him. "GET OUT AND DON'T COME BACK!" he bellowed, jumping to his feet and pointing at the door.
Since it was a direct order General Frankin Hallis immediately shot out of his chair to comply even if the entire situation was insane as far as he was concerned.
"No, wait" the High Associator said more quietly, sitting back down. "Get out and come back with my ****** desk" he corrected himself.
Later, while Franklin Hallis explained how his day went to his wife back at home Barbara had stared at him. "You called Pluto a
planet?" she asked in horror, staring at her husband aghast and making him wonder if
he was the mad one or if everyone born in this system was completely nuts.
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Note from the Author:Our first look at High Associator James Murray PhD, although we've met Captain James Murray MEng before in Part XIX (in universe the two men having the same name is a coincidence). James Murray was originally an astronomer who ran for political office becoming a member of the Association Council and now the High Associator, meanwhile James Murray worked for the Star League Department of Mega Engineering (SLDoME) and then the SLDF. They have very different opinions on the subject of Orbital Mirrors.
Niops uses a Two Round Voting system to elect the High Associator (France uses it to elect their President too). In an election with multiple candidates it stops someone getting elected that a clear majority don't like on a fraction of the vote (which can easily happen in First Past the Post elections with three or more candidates).
The Storm Inhibitors used on Bryant (and other worlds) kept the severe weather in check there until Amaris and the Rim Worlds Republic blew them up. With their planet a mess HartfordCo Industries manufacturer of the Von Luckner tank was unable to rebuild their factory after it was destroyed in 2840.
In the universe of Battletech Pluto retained its status as a planet (a political decision no doubt, regarding it as a Dwarf Planet is more logical given the other rocks floating out there in the outer Solar System). On Niops however during their isolation the astronomers had their way. Like Ceres in our own asteroid belt Elizabeth and Helena in the Niops asteroid belt are also dwarf planets.
High Associator James Murray has a berserk button or two, Hallis hit one of them square on!