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« Last post by Cannonshop on 20 May 2024, 21:28:18 »
"Well, you managed to scavenge...
...blackmail, bribe, and bully your way here on time." They were relatively private-only Her Majesty's guards were present, two of them equipped with high-intensity flamers and one in a new model medium suit carrying what Her Majesty called an 'incendiary needler'. "I told you two years ago, Elizabeth, you're my Monster. That means you stay in the bloody box until called for."
"You posted enough orders to have those pirates-"
"Oh, this isn't about your initiatives, it's about reminding you who's in charge. I would have approved your operations along that front ahead of time-if you bothered to tell me." Melissa stepped from behind her desk. "So, you're going to explain your moves, assume nothing about what I know or don't, and don't try to sugar coat it, do you understand why, or has becoming a regenerating blood-sucking monster addled your wit?" Melissa used the same tone on the girl, that she used when disciplining Yvonne.
Liz looked to the floor for the first time, ashamed. How does she do that? "We've established maintenance bases in four systems outlying from Kowloon, officially they're corporate but unofficially, they're set up as a public resource, and I managed to get permissions from the dukes in those systems in exchange for the output from Camp John's vehicle factories and Ia Drang aerospace." she began.
"What's the goal?"
"Reducing the logistical support for bandits and pirates along the periphery theater, Your Majesty. see, they hire a lot of the transports they hijack, and the operators are easily duped because the infrastructure for maintenance and support just...isn't there." she looked up, "So, too, is the infrastructure for patrols and protection, makes it hard for small operators to stay in the bounds of the law regarding insurance and bonds. that makes illegal traffic a survival issue for them. by making it cheaper to take legitimate cargo, and helping ease up the insurance and bonds by issuing to them, I believe we can cut illegal traffic by something around ninety percent in the next ten years. Cut the traffic, you strangle the black markets, strangle the black markets and it's harder for deserters and madmen to get ships to go a-plundering with."
"Okay, that's your long termeffort, did you think it up?"
Liz shook her head, "I asked...one of my 'old veterans' what she thought would work, then bounced it off Alicia Li and a couple of minor nobles by text. secure routes are profitable routes, profitable routes means small operators aren't taking black or gray jobs. lower their maintenance costs and they don't have to take black-bag or questionable cargo, and the presence of patrols raises the risk on contraband for the ones who get off on it, makes them easier to catch."
"winnows out the incompetent, you mean."
"Smugglers gonna smuggle." liz agreed, "But most of the ships guys like Morrison get ahold of? they'd be in the 'amatuer to opportunist' camp-desperate or underfunded, unprotected, vulnerable."
"and the task I set you to?"
"We're in field trials with the 172nd." Liz acknowledged, "running them on Herbania for now, since it's not monitored by the Communications Ministry and most of the field combat they're likely to see is bandit hunting."
"Human?"
"Almost completely, will be, once we have enough officers and leaders established in the unit to pull the Old Veterans back to the one-seven-one."
"Why? your 'old veterans' were a right terror, and still are." Melissa asked, "Why human troops?"
"They have to be able to be deployed." Liz said simply, "That is, deployed with other human units. They have to be able to work with Coventry Province Militia and Melissia Theater, Timbuktu, and so on-most normal people don't just get squicked when...when certain things happen, it's a visceral reaction and blue-on-blue is never good color combo...also, I don't want to wake up all my Old Veterans at once, the human cost would be...ugly. things good people should not contemplate, never mind do."
"Arthur and Katherine figured out what you are doing." Melissa said, "You were unsubtle."
Elizabeth shrugged, "I can't hide something that big, I'm not that smart-it takes a LOT of experience and intelligence to pull of the 'Regiment from nothing' game without leaving a trail like a buffalo in a chinaware shop. the best I could manage was trying to keep the negative impacts minimal and turn a logistics profit for the Realm."
"How many of those compact-core ships do you have?"
"The trackers? we've got three under build at Boojum Yards, I can maybe squeeze five into the field in a year's time." Elizabeth answered, "It could be more, but my first priority has to be raising funding, and that means selling most of the raw materials we're prospecting out."
"Do you have a plan to increase that output??"
"Yes'm. THAT part, is part of needing more capital-I'm floating business startup loans and venture capital into deep space mining and prospecting, but the processor equipment is an expensive build and it isn't going to be invisible."
"What's the problem?"
"We can maybe secure the sites, but OUR security is going to raise issues that are probably already being raised, Your Highness. I can't afford the kind of visible security efforts that would be needed, and I don't trust the Mercenary market, also, it's a pull on resources to do all of this at once the way you want me to."
"I'll fix the capitalization problem for you, but those facilities? will belong to the realm."
"Yes Your Majesty."
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