21

Later that night at the party in the Beaudouin's mansion in the New Vandenberg capital.

God, I really hate this kind of social events. I never liked them in my past life and I still don't in the new one.

Years of experience, mostly in my past life gave me enough abilities to be able to fake sufficiently and not make a faux-pas. Circulating around and doing my damned best to escape the usual social butterflies that are attracted to this kind of events. I even had a glass of Glengarry Reserve in the hand while doing so and if I may so, this is really a good whiskey.

Josselin Beaudouin, barely 1.60m with high heels, with raven hair, large but not fat, her bone structure didn't give her any gifts and anyone would hardly call her a beautiful young woman. However the determined look in her face said that she was soon going to be an asset for her family.

After exchanging the usual platitudes with her, I was free to pursue my own agenda and start looking for Edward Calderon, to speak to him and convince him to support me and my agenda.

It took me some time to find him, as he was also trying to dodge the socialites and the kiss-ass people, attracted to people like him. This time, thank God, I wasn't the top dog in this competition.

'Lord Calderon? Funny, I never thought I would see such a high personage play the hide-and-seek game to escape the socialites. I'm Jean-Luc Bassot, at your service.'

'Please to meet you Mr. Bassot. ' He replied with a harm smile.

'Would you mind us looking for a quiet place outside of this circus?'

Having been here several times, I was now familiar with the mansion and I easily found my way to a quieter room.

Upon entering the room, Edward Calderon placed a white noise generator on the small table between the chairs and turned it on, signaling that this conversation was going to be 'off the record'.

'So, Jean-Luc' started Edward Calderon, after sitting down in a comfortable chair, 'would you care to explain to me the enigma of your actions?'

'What enigma?'

'On the one hand, you provided the Concordat with WarShips, Royal 'Mechs and top-of the line equipment that benefit our nation greatly on the military side', started Edward Calderon with a very serious look on his face 'but on the other hand, all you created on your own was in the civilian side. Do you care to explain?'

'There is no enigma at all. I provided the Concordat with the items that I found but what I really want is to improve our economy. If you enlarge the military first, you cripple the economy, but if you do it the other way around, you can easily enlarge the military at a later time while first making the civilians richer.'

'And you think that we have time to do it that way?' asked Edward with an interested look on is face.

'Sure. It is a simple multiplayer game. House Davion principal enemy is Kurita, followed by Liao. The principal enemy of House Liao is Davion and the secondary is Marik. House Marik is preoccupied with Steiner first and Liao second and House Kurita with Davion and Steiner. House Davion, because of his nascent alliance with Steiner also has to deal with Marik. In other words, all the House Lords of the Inner Sphere are too much preoccupied with each other to look towards the Periphery.

It is no coincidence that in the past hundred years nothing bigger than small raids and counter-raids has been done here.' I said with a reasonable voice.

'And the worlds that Davion took from us?' asked Edward Calderon looking at me intensely.

'After two hundred years? Let us be real. With so much time of Davion indoctrination and with much migration from other Davion worlds these are now Davion worlds, not ours under occupation. No revolts, no manifestations, no heavy troops presence. Should I go on? I don't like it, you don't like it and I'm sure your father hates it, but is the cold reality. Even if was the other way around, even if we could triplicate the power of the TDF, we still wouldn't have enough forces to take them back. House Liao, the weakest of the Inner Sphere realms is still way more powerful than us, so I'm afraid that we don' stand a chance in that area.'

'In some circles, that could be considered traitorous...' said Edward Calderon.

'If said circles don't like reality, it is their problem not mine.' I coldly answer. 'But if you want to improve our military with a small investment, just open some aerospace academies. The TDF is weak in that arm, even if VMI and Pinard produce ASFs.'

'And where would we find the instructors for said academies?' asked Edward Calderon.

'In the same place I found most of my pilots, just contract them in the Outworlds Alliance. They are not hostile to us and have a very good aerospace force.' I said.

And the look in Edward face showed me that they hadn't thought about it.

'On another topic, what are your plans for the future Jean-Luc? I don't believe you are happy with what you already got.' said Edward Calderon, conceding the point, more or less.

'Glad that you asked that. You see I have this idea...'

Several hours later heading home, I was reasonably convinced that Edward Calderon could be now counted as an ally, and maybe, with a bit of luck, he could convince his father to finance / support my space program.