The King sat in his library, diet coke by his side and a copy of David Weber's, A Short Victorious War, in his lap when Fleet Admiral Marco Braley lightly tapped on the open door to get his attention. "Sire, I thought that you would like to hear the news before it was released to the public." The Admiral had a grin on his face so it couldn't be too bad.
"What is it Marco? Did the Republic decide to merge with us?"
"No Sire, but nearly as good. We have a reported connection between our two warp chains! Our colonies won't be cut off if Sol gets denied to them."The Republic was almost done with refits on their fleet and were building yet more of their new Sukhoi class cruisers. Added to this the Kingdoms unwillingness to sell the Republic the finished research on the advanced research methodologies that the Kingdom had spent nearly two years on and the fact that the Imperium had traded its new taxation structures for it, and neither had offered anything to the Republic. The Republic had responded by announcing new weapons research and the establishment of a new squadron of fighters. Fighter craft capable of taking off from a planet and loaded with anti-shipping missiles. For the first time the Kingdom felt it no longer had near space superiority or even equivalency in Sol. For the past 6 months, all industrial production has been loaded up and sent out system to either Washington or the newly established colony in New York. Chicago had been left on its own to produce its industrial base with what it had already had.
"Excellent!, What is the chain?"
" Its Sol, Washington, San Fransico, Salt Lake, St Paul and then into the other chain through Des Moines, Honolulu, New York, and Sol again. Though Des Moines is still being surveyed for warp points." His face had a wry grin. " You have no idea how surprised Captain Endel was when the DSS Marc Aaronson appeared only 207 thousand kilometers from him."
The king laughed. "I can imagine!Come to dinner Marco. I want to go over the naval expansion plans again."
*****
The Kingdom has three extra solar colonies with roughly 20 million people between them.
Earth(Havertian)
Population: 359.12m
Naval Academy: Level 1
Shipyards: 5
Construction Factories: 305
Ordnance Factories: 42
Fighter Factories: 42
Fuel Refineries: 79 (3 moved to New York)
Mines: 249
Automated Mines: 22
Research Facilities: 21
Ground Force TF: 2
Missile Silos: 21
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Station: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 13.307m
Mars Colony
Population: 11.09m
Construction Factories: 48
Fuel Refineries: 2
Mines:30
Automated Mines: 26
Terraforming:1
Deep Space Tracking Station: 1
Fuel: 470k(not used, but being built up as an emergency reserve.)
Venus Mining Colony
Automated Mines: 46
Washington A III Colony
Population: 8.03m
Construction Factories: 53 (+8 engineers)
Mines: 15
Deep Space Tracking Station: 1
Terraforming: 2
Fuel: 166k(regular dumping of fuel from Exxon convoy only reason why this is not zero!)
Washington A VIII Moon 1 Mining Colony
Automated Mines: 40
Chicago A III
Population: 1.05m
Construction Factories: 7
Automated Mines: 10
New York A II Colony
Population: 1.1m
Infrastructure:1000 (4.03 million supported)
Construction Factories: 1(+2 engineers)
Automated Mines: 18
Fuel: 650k (two dumps from Texaco tankers)
Our new designs are as follows:
Navajo Scout class Scout 3950 tons 360 Crew 406 BP Signature 79-200
2531 km/s Armour 1 Shields 10-300 Sensors 6/6/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 5
Nuclear Pulse Engine EE1 AR-0 (5) Power 40 Engine Efficiency 1.00 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 54.7 billion km (250 days at full power)
Gamma R300/20 Shields (5) Total Fuel Cost 100 Litres per day
10cm C2 Visible Light Laser (2) Range 60,000km TS: 2531 km/s Power 3-2 RM 2 ROF 10 3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S08 40-3200 (1) Max Range: 80,000 km TS: 3200 km/s 88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (1) Total Power Output 12 Armour 0 Exp 5%
High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT3-6 (1) Strength 6 Detect Signature 100: 6m km
Gravitational Pulse Sensor GP3-6 (1) Strength 6 Detect Size 100: 6m km
Grav Pulse Detection Sensor PD3-6 (1) Strength 6 Detect Strength 10: 60m km
This class will have one assigned to each battle fleet and, in time, to each survey fleet.
Bulk Carrier: 12 +1 building
Jump Construction: 1
Enterprise: 3 (slowly undergoing refits as current survey operations are finished. Two are in Sol and will be refit when yard space opens up in two months)
Enterprise Mk II: 9
Hamdon Collier Mk II: 1
Iron Fist Transports: 2 (awaiting refit, still....)
Luminus Mk II: 3
Navajo Scout: 0 (next to build)
Portland Cruiser MkII: 3 + 1 building
Spruance Mk V: 8 +2 building
Texaco: 1
Texaco MkII: 2 +1 building