98

The Aurigan province of the Concordat had not only fully recovered in late 3056 from the ravages of the civil war, but in many areas had far surpassed its previous status.

All systems had modern hospitals, sufficient food, potable water, and power to ensure a standard of living equal to or higher than Coromodir had in 3023.

The number of JumpShips and DropShips operating within the province was at that time, more than three times any number recorded since before the fall of the Star League, and all systems also had an HPG for the first time ever.

Military equipment production was centered in three systems - Mechdur, Detroit and Coromodir (V), by contrast, civilian industry was fairly spread across all systems in the province.

The shipyard in Mechdur, which at the moment was building Invaders and Pintos, had an ambitious expansion underway, which by 3060, would also allow it to build Ajax class Destroyers (2 slips), and a higher number of Invaders (4 more slips to a total of 8). The construction of Pintos (4 slips) would remain unchanged.

Initially, Kamea had ambitions to build a shipyard on Coromodir V as well, but funds were not and would not be available in a reasonable time frame, and the decision was made to go for a complex capable of building several types of DropShips, civilian and military.

These included a variant of the Leopard (PW1), which had removed the 4 'Mechs bays and in their place had installed 2 SCL/3s, the first operational use of sub-capital weapons. The remaining armament had also been upgraded - 2xERPPC, 3xLRM20 with Artemis, 7xERML and 5xLPL, the armor now being Ferro-Aluminium and the Heat Sinks being upgraded to double ones. It was a relatively inexpensive Pocket WarShip, which could also be used effectively against ground targets.

Another variant (PW2), kept the advanced weapons and improved armor of the PW1, replacing the two SCL/3s with 4 Arrow IV AAM/SAM launchers and 6 AMS, both with deep magazines, as anti-ASF / escort.

The PW2 variant was ordered in large numbers, as Pocket WarShips, by the Taurian Navy, and after delicate negotiations, by the DCA (Draconis Combine Admiralty - Combine Navy) and the Magistracy Navy. Sales to the Combine and Magistracy were still in C-Bills, and not in Bulls or in their currency. Even, with the fall of Comstar, the C-Bill had not disappeared. At first, there had been theories that Earth would move on to use a currency of its own, perhaps return to the SL Dollar, but the fact was that inertia, huge replacement cost, and weight of large Earth banks, had kept the C-Bill in use for interstellar exchanges, even though it had suffered a devaluation.

Sara, having finished her military service, went on to learn the art of governing from her mother, (unlike me, the 'kid' had a natural knack for it, obviously taking after her mother for that). Meanwhile, the twins had finished the academy and had begun serving the nation, Paul in the Revenants, Peter in the Reach Guards (ex-Aurigan Royal Guards), both 'MechWarriors, and both piloting brand new Penetrators - a gift from relatives. For obvious reasons, they were not both in the same regiment.

The Capelan Confederation announced the commissioning of the first Feng Huang Heavy Cruiser in November, 12 3056. This was the first Capelan Navy WarShip in over 200 years, the Confederation being the last major nation to have WarShips - at this time there was doubt as to how many WarShips the WoB had, estimates ranged from 2 to 4 not knowing how many would be operational and to what extent.

Note: For the sake of cost (and production capacity) even though everything else was the same as the OTL class, the armor is Improved Ferro-Aluminum and not Lamellor Ferro-Carbide.

To compensate for having only one WarShip, the Capelan Navy has a robust program on Pocket WarShips, DropShips-CV and ASF, even if it was at the cost of reducing the ground forces substantially.

This slow reinforcement of forces was possible because Aerospace Fighters had become the main weapons against WarShips but at huge human cost making it impossible to maintain a continuous offensive because of the shortage of pilots and Fighters, even with the extension of all academies and priority on construction. That was the reason behind the actual lull in operations against the Clans, after the recent activities in Luthien and Twycross and some relatively small raids from the Vipers and the Bears. For now, the best estimates was that the number of ASFs in the front line was going to be enough for new offensives by mid 57 – that is if the Clans didn't launch big operations of their own.