Christine glanced at her bosses' back and the perpetual pain in the backside of her clan's efforts in remaining hidden.
Already there were agents from Comstar poking around and attempting to gain access to Utility Mountain.
There were also the Molehunters that were having fun messing with the Comstar Agents as they attempted to get into the factory, having taken up a defensive post over it.
She was sure that in the new few weeks or months, there was going to be someone from LIC speaking to Huu about his new need for protection against the unsavoury elements of, whatever wanted to hurt the Commonwealth's new rising star of industry.
If they actually named names she would be surprised.
They also wouldn't mention Clan Wolverine, the idea that another intelligence agency operating on a planet like Tetersen was an impossibility in their minds. Too backward and isolated to matter.
Just how they had liked it, before Huu had blown the lid off that pot at least.
Now everyone was converging on Tetersen which was making it much harder to remain hidden.
There had been yammering in her ear from some of the more stupid of her Clan members. Those that just didn't understand how hard it was to get a handle on someone like Huu. Someone who was seemingly addicted to the idea of expanding his factory.
From a single factory line over the course of 8 months to that of, well, a space factory that was going to be producing 44 Jumpships every 6 months.
The mind boggled at the number that would have been impossible to conceive of prior.
"Are you happy now?" The CEO asked Ursula who was standing to her side. The Lyran Major having to literally in some cases, fight off those that wanted to take over her position as official LCAF liaison to Graf Vu of the Utility Corporation.
They had come to an understanding after their little frank talk, but the woman was still a bit of a pain in the ass. Naturally, it wasn't like they shared a common purpose. Such an inimical personage next to you would strain anyone.
She heard a growl in response.
Christine just shook her head.
The major had thought that it would take some time before others found out about Huu, which gave her time to get herself prepared for what may come. Not realising, of course, that he moved exponentially. The time that she had thought she had to entrench herself vanished as out of nowhere he had moved to create a consortium of jumpship manufacturers coming from across the Commonwealth, representing the vast majority of industrial concerns that supplied the Lyran Commonwealth and her armed forces.
He was now politically unassailable.
He was an asset whose level could not be matched.
He was being guarded (attache-ed) by a mere Major representing a Regional Defence Command.
In other words, he was free game for anyone that could worm their way in. Whether by superior rank or representing a more prestigious command, most claimants had the edge on her.
"I have a duel scheduled later this afternoon with a Captain Malborg from Donegal." Was the gritted growl from Ursula after she composed herself.
"Of the Ducal family?"
"Yes, the second son."
Christine hummed.
Ah, the noble houses were moving in now.
"You are aware that he needs a wife." She finally said as Ursula shook her head.
"Of course. If only to beat off all these opportunistic bastards and bitches off with a stick. He's too much of an asset to the LCAF to allow some strumpet from a minor house to work her wiles on him."
"What a way to let your prejudice show Ursula. You will need to keep your claws sheathed you know. Unless you want to aim for the position…" Christine trailed off leadingly.
Ursula looked at her and then shook her head.
"I work for him, well, not officially, but you know how he feels about rules."
Christine hummed, yes, she did.
His stickling to the rules was one of his defining traits. He followed the law or rules to the letter, no matter what it was, unless he found a major enough reason to break with it. A major reason that someone else had to suggest to him, his brain being naturally incapable of doing so on its own. Which, naturally, meant that he refused to do things like fraternise with his own staff, no matter how willing they might be.
Which meant that, so many of those that joined the Utility Company to seduce him were left out in the cold as his brain simply refused to register the idea that they might be interested in him.
It was laughable was what it was.
It also meant that she and Ursula were out of the running, working for him as they did. Even tangentially in Ursula's case.
"So we need to find him someone that is acceptable enough and forward enough to be the one that proposes to him. Because he won't initiate, you know that."
The major then looked at her.
Christine felt her gut clench.
"No, don't do that." She said.
"Yes. I think I will do that."
"He won't even notice unless you tell him to his face." Christine tried again to dissuade her from this path.
"Exactly, that's what I need to do."
"And what happens exactly when you mess up and he decides no?"
Ursula paused.
"Or if he decides that he can't handle a long distance partner?"
Another pause.
"Or if he decides that he hates the idea of a failed relationship being around and becomes increasingly awkward about it?"
Christine continued to needle the other woman about the topic.
Her boss, the one vexing the clan, was, if she was being objective, a great industrialist. But a failed human being.
His words, not hers.
He had come out half-baked, like a Commando with its electrical system wired haphazardly out of the factory.
His own computational system was poorly wired and often malfunctioning.
He didn't understand other people on any level except unless he sat there for hours to, in his words, detective his way to an understanding of them through repeated analysis of past behaviour and words.
Worse still, he did not have a functional understanding of himself, having to sit down, take out a body heat chart and then identify his emotions through impersonal analysis… of himself.
He was, putting it in polite wording, not someone that understood other people and failed horrifically when he tried to.
He was not someone that should be in a relationship unless both sides understood just what his foibles were and was willing to work with them…
Oh no.
Did that make her the default option?
"But I kind of want to try anyway." Muttered Ursula, derailing her train of thought.
That moron.
+Break+
I hummed to myself.
It was a beautiful day.
Objectively speaking, the clouds were low and purple, brimming with unrealised lightning. Just crackling and ready to ruin someone's day.
The rain was about to smash down, the impending doom to many an insect colony was delicious.
The lightning would streak and the thunder would boom with the force of a thousand exploding nuclear bombs.
Yes.
Today was a beautiful day.
Except for the humidity, hated humidity.
Stupid-ass humidity, always ruining my enjoyment of thunderstorms.
"Huu, I've got the report in from the Bulk Hauler Consortium, do you want to take a look." Ah, that was Christine!
I turned around and grinned at her.
"Sure, why not. Let's see what my economic partners are doing now." I knew that they had been working to set up an industrial cooperative which was, according to my basic economic study as a child, called a consortium.
Or was it cooperative?
Eh, if they wanted to call it a consortium, who was I to judge?
I walk back into the factory through one of the smaller doors. The guards nodded at me and I nodded at them.
Caught 3 spies last week from last I heard, not that it really mattered given how easy it would be estimate my production anyway.
It's not like I hid anything, the Ute factory churned out 108 Utes per turn, 108 20 Ton Trucks per turn (which meant month), 7.5 Commandoes per turn, 5 Griffins, and 1.6 Eagles.
It would take 14.5 Months to build a Irrawaddy, 12.4 to build a Margaret, 16 to build an Una, and 5.5 to build a DC3.
Like, just use basic time measurements and have a multiplication table nearby to estimate my production numbers.
Seriously.
What was the point of sending all these spies in?
I sighed, some people were just stupid.
"What are you thinking about?" Christine asked from my right.
"Oh?" It wasn't like I could say that I was thinking about right?
Or rather, how was I going to explain that my train of thought was about the weather and then it was about spies and estimations of my production capacity?
"Spies." I decide to say, keep it simple, don't overwhelm her with your overwhelming thought process I figured.
Nobody needed to hear all of that.
"Yes, we did catch a few earlier. They said that they were here to find out how much the factory makes. If they wanted that, they could have just counted the machines being shipped out and then multiply it." Christine said.
I clap my fist into my hand.
"Right? Seriously, it's so stupid that they go to all this effort for no reason. Like, are they here to count the bolts too or something?" I say.
Christine really did understand me hah.
She would make a great partner when she decided to settle down.
It's not like anyone would want to be in a job doing mathematics all day.
Seriously, mathematics sucked ass.
Grotty ass at that, not clean and manicured ass.
I paused.
Right, let's stop letting my brain wander off before I traumatise myself again.
"Still, spies. That's something new. I wasn't expecting anyone to want to, you know, actually spy on me. Surely they can't be that bored?" I asked, thinking about just how little there was here that was new for them to learn about.
Seriously, was there anything worth learning here?
Sure there were the Battlemechs and the like, but it wasn't like these were new designs. They had been around for centuries.
The jumpships maybe, but those were being constructed in space, away from Utility Mountain.
Like… maybe they were just stupid?
Don't attribute anything to malice that might just be stupidity was a saying for a reason right?
"You don't understand how much of an impact you've made on the Commonwealth, maybe the entire Inner Sphere." Christine replied to me.
Well, yeah, but that wasn't me.
That was the annoying part of it. It was all the System, I was just the mouthpiece.
Sure I could do some things on my own, but they generally ended up making the situation worse than it was before.
Like that explosion with Lockheed/CBM's representative.
I'm not going to get access to their other aerospace craft now.
Ah, irritating.
"It's all the System. Seriously, I don't even need to do anything, the System does it all for me. I didn't even create it, it's just there." I say to her.
Christine doesn't reply straight away.
Like, everyone kept praising me, but it was all the System. Being praised for it was like being praised for having a really good Windows 10. Sure, it sounded nice, but you did literally nothing to code the thing so why are you proud?
"Well it's still impressive what you've done with it. I'm sure someone else would not have thought that the first thing to do was to build a plant to build civilian vehicles." She finally said.
"Eh, that was mainly because I had no idea what to build and I didn't have access to military equipment. I couldn't build military things even if I wanted to." I replied.
"What about the lack of armaments on the Utes and 20 Ton Trucks?" She asked, looking at me with raised eyebrows.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I can build more per turn with vehicles that don't have weapons. Put weapons on them and production drops through the floor."
I hear a sigh.
I wonder what the problem was.
"Just take the compliment already would you?"
I nod, "okay. What's the problem? You wouldn't be asking about this if everything was fine." I ask her, thinking that the situation might be pretty bad if she needed to ask questions, or rather, ask this many questions.
"Huu, have you thought about marriage yet? You're a Graf now, soon to be a Duke most likely when the Archon gets around to it. You're going to be inundated with all sorts of people trying to get you to marry them or to meet their children. A lot of them are probably going to threaten you over the issue as well, some will try blackmail or planting incriminating evidence. Things are going to get hectic on Tetersen over the issue." She said.
I pause.
"Really? They'd go that far? For me?" I asked her, thinking this might be a joke or something. Please tell me it was a joke or something.
I didn't want to have to deal with this, I didn't want to even have to think about this.
"Yes. You're going to need to think about getting married if only to stop the most obvious ones." Her voice was filled with what I could only think of as 'doom'.
"What do you mean by obvious ones?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"The ones that will be dissuaded by the fact that you are married. There will be a large number that won't care and try to become your mistresses and will fight over his with everything in their bodies. The others will try to get into your bed and blackmail you to give them what they want."
Ah.
Ah no.
That's worse.
That's infinitely worse.
Having to think about what everyone around me was trying to do? All day?
Aaaaaah.
"So yes. you need to start thinking about this Huu. It will make the rest of our lives easier if you were married. I can start…" I cut her off, my mouth moving before my brain could catch up.
"Can't you do it?" I asked, if she could be the one that would do all the checking and vetting and making sure I didn't have a horde of women coming after me. A me who had no idea what was going on with other humans 100% of the time, let alone those that were interested in me.
I hear nothing but silence.
Christine was looking at me.
I was looking back at her.
She was looking at me.
I look away, I can't do the looking into eyes thing.
Too much, too much.
"If you want." She said. It was a bit quieter this time though.
Huh, great.
No need to worry then!
Christine will take care of everything.
Ha, knew she was the best.
+Break+
Total RP Turn 10 2991 + 1 Year 2 Months
36 RP 12×3 Ute Factory - 3x1.5 Regiments per Factory per Turn (108 vehicles)
24 RP 12×2 20 Ton Utility Truck Factory - 2x1.5 Regiments per Factory per Turn (108 vehicles)
32 RP 16×2 Commando 1B Factory - 2x7.5 Battlemechs per turn
24 RP 12×2 Griffin 1S Factory - Newly Built - 2×5 Battlemechs per turn
~12 RP 12×1 Eagle R6 Factory - Being Built~
~12 RP 12×1 Irrawaddy Factory - Being Built~
~12 RP 12×1 Margaret Factory - Being Built~
~12 RP 12×1 Una Factory - Being Built~
~24 RP 12×2 DC3 Factory - Being Built~
RP Bonus Calculation = 0.8 (Indytech 3) + 0.3 (Lyran Bonus) + 4.4 (Economic Treaty) = 5.6
Total RP = 116×1.2 = 139.2