61

Between 3042 and 3046 much changed in the Aurigan Reach.

The reconstruction following the damages caused by the civil war and the later Capellan attack was finally completed. Many new industries started their activity, even though the vast majority of them was not even close to state of the art technology, but they provided the necessary services and products for the local economy.

While the big (relatively) industrial centers were Mechdur and Detroit, I had done my best to put as much state of the art technology, both civil and military, on the industries on Coromodir V, which were directly managed by my family, after the civil war and the end of the House Espinosa. For that, after a lot of meetings and a mix of pressure and fiscal incentives, VMI had created a filial in Coromodir V, but not for old products but for top-of-the-line ones.

Thus, the small (compared to New Vandenberg) local production of Freezers and Endo-Steel was made there, as well as the most advanced state-of-the-art electrical components.

A part of the Griffins produced in Mechdur were then modified, with their 12 Heat Sinks being replaced by 10 Double ones and 2 Medium Lasers. It was not much but at the moment we still did not have a local production for the ER PPC, which was initially planned for 3049, due to delays caused by the HPG crisis. Until that date, they had to be imported from the Concordat, for a few upgraded 'Mechs, mostly for the Royal Guards.

In Detroit, we had started the production of the Vali, which was a cheap option to increase the artillery component for various forces and therefore a good option for export, even if the buyer could not buy the Arrow IV guided version, since for now Detroit could only produce the simplest version, leaving the most advanced one to other firms like VMI.

At the other end of the scale, VMI in New Vandenberg began production of the Pantsir, the 50-tons version of the Vali, with fusion engine, network capabilities (like an early version of the C3 tech) and using the SAM version of Arrow IV. Although it was not cheap, it added for those able to pay a much needed defensive capacity against ASFs.

The news that other nations had WarShips and that at least two of them, Earth and the Federated Commonwealth, had built or were beginning to build new WarShips, led the Concordat to review its plans.

Thus, the shipyard in Taurus, instead of increasing the production of Invaders, began a much more ambitious expansion, which in 3052 would allow the Concordat to produce WarShips. In New Vandenberg, after years of studies, the second phase of expansion of the shipyard began. Instead of producing Invaders, the new program (that should be ready by 3055) would be able to produce a modernized version of the Leviathan JumpShip. With the experience gained in the maintenance of the Leviathans belonging to my companies and with the gathered data on the latest versions of the old JumpShips, which had already solved many of the problems of the old lady, a modernized and updated version, would be built in this shipyard. The first batch would be for the service of the Taurian Armed Forces, adding a much needed transport capacity. The only increase in the production of Invaders would therefore be from the shipyard in Mechdur.

These years were also good for the Revenants which expanded during this period while going through an important reorganization. All the elements that were not Taurian or Aurigan had their contracts not renewed, making the force 100% native. Kaneda Arisa, had meanwhile married one of her colleagues and obtained the Aurigan nationality. She was the commander of one of the 'Mechs companies, and continued to be by a wide margin, the best 'MechWarriors of the Revenants. At the moment she was using one of the few Toro II that the RCT had. Yes, a Regimental Combat Team. The unit had grown in number and even though it was from the beginning a combined arms unit, not only the fact that the Taurians were great supporters also of combined forces, but I particularly was a great supporter of that concept, led me to prefer the RCT format used by the Federated Commonwealth instead of following the traditional Taurian model, even if at the moment two of the 'Mech battalions were under-strength, as well as the ASF component. That also gave us the added benefit to help training the TDF against RCTs, in the hypothetical case of a war against the Federated Commonwealth. In the transportation area, unfortunately, they only had the capacity to move about one third of the forces unless they resorted to external JumpShips and DropShips. They had also changed in another area - they had discreetly dropped their mercenary classification to 1st Aurigan Guards RCT, nicknamed the Revenants. With the future JumpShips production in Mechdur and the expansion in DropShips production all around the Concordat, I was sure that in a few years the transport limitation would be over.