O ver the next several days, Kris's strike fleet docked and initiated basic maintenance while staying ready to sortie on an hour's notice. However, no relief battle fleet came charging through a jump. The battlecruisers and battleships from GGE-3 looped past the sun and began to boost for Jump Point Gamma.
They never even got close to GGE-4.
The battlecruisers from GGE-4 detached from the planet's five space stations and, along with five battleships of state, boosted for the same jump.
No sooner had the rebels evacuated than local clan managers on GGE-3 established communications with a board of similar men on GGE-4. Per their reports, Kris dispatched a task unit of eight flotillas and three ships of state to GGE-4 with troopships carrying a quarter of a million soldiers.
Kris was cautious, but it was worth the risk.
Meanwhile, she found the local industrial base on GGE-3 eager to do her bidding. Before the clan bosses fled, orders were given to destroy all naval stores and ships under construction. Battlecruisers, even those almost complete, were programmed to return to just one lump of Smart MetalTM . Kris walked through one yard where a dozen lumps of basic metal floated in space docks.
However, not all naval stores had been as equally destroyed. One factory had, indeed, destroyed all its battle lasers that were complete or under-constructed. That one got a visit from a clan boss and one clan lordling found himself out of a job.
The workers at several other plants, however, were not all that interested in going unpaid for their work. As often happened, the clan lordlings that managed the foundry were not all that informed regarding what took place on the many factory floors. There were nooks and crannies where workers could hide several dozen 24-inch lasers without management being any the wiser.
Kris was offered some twelve hundred of the latest naval lasers for a quite reasonable price. She bought all the available lasers, then placed orders for more. She invited the yard workers to report back to work. They quickly began the work of re-spinning those lumps of Smart MetalTM back into battlecruisers. Kris aimed to get the yards back to producing a hundred battlecruisers a month in six weeks’ time, at the most.
Other yards took in a flotilla of Kris's captured 22-inch battlecruisers and split them open. They quickly converted their armament from twenty of the smaller lasers to sixteen 24-inch lasers.
The total economy began to recover from the speed bump that accompanied the change in management. Ships were dispatched to the asteroids and commerce returned.
This left Kris time to begin planning the assault on her next target. She'd brought down two rebel systems; three if you counted the minor one she cut her teeth on. Now she was ready to take on the largest and most productive rebel system closest to the Imperial Iteeche Capital.
Before Kris could launch her next invasion, however, she needed more troops as well as more clan personnel to take over the ruling of the recaptured planet.
At the same time Kris had sortied her strike force for the Glorious Golden Eel system, she had dispatched Ron back to the capital. He wanted to report to his chooser, the Chief of the We clan, as well as rustle up another couple of million troops for occupation duty.
Kris expected him back any time now.
Thus, she was not surprised when his flagship, The Reach in the Dark, showed up with a dozen flotillas. What did surprise her was the lack of any battleships of state loaded with clan lords. There were also no troopships. Not one single infantryman had come with Ron.
Kris dispatched a noncommittal greeting and got a noncommittal response. Not at all sure what the problem was, she concluded that this was something they could only settle face to face. Kris set about keeping herself busy while she waited for whatever new instructions were headed her way from the Imperial Capital.