Despite Max's suspicions about the true role of Nico's father in the family, and even in the Kepler Empire, the dinner went fairly smoothly, with only minimal commentary on his relationship status, thanks to the revelation of General Yaakov's upcoming retirement and marriage.
Because the news was leaked at dinner, General Yaakov decided to move up the morning briefing to right after the meal, calling every member of the Command Staff to his office so that he could tell everyone in person. Since he told them that it was very important, everyone brought their Adjutant and Technician, assuming that it was related to a large-scale Regimental Operation.
In a way it was, but not quite the way that they expected.
"Welcome everyone. I would like to introduce you to Miss Gwen Tarith. An exceptional structural engineer, and my bride-to-be. We have decided to make Rae 5 my last official stop as an active duty General in the Kepler Fleet, and I will be retiring as soon as we have disembarked.
The wedding will be on the planet, and open to everyone who wishes to be present.
After the wedding, we will be setting up a restaurant, selling the diverse delicacies of the Kepler Empire, and enjoying our time together." General Yaakov explained.
The Command Staff burst into applause for him and his new bride, and someone brought out a bottle of high-quality Cognac, passing it around in the bottle for the group to celebrate.
"I'm glad you found someone General." Nico congratulated him.
Max looked into the General's thoughts, certain that he had once mentioned a close family, not just an extended one, and found a predictable sadness in his recent memories. He did indeed have a wife before this until his trusted subordinates determined that she had been turning his household to the Rebel faction.
But that was something that he had in common with Gwen Tarith, who had assassinated her own husband at the start of the civil war on Kepler Terminus. In a twisted way, the two grieving widows were an amazing match, and Max could see that their personalities instantly meshed when they met, this wasn't just a marriage of convenience or a rushed rebound relationship.
It might be both of those things, but not just them. Though Max wondered how the General was going to react to her views on family. He had a number of children of his own, all grown now and married themselves, but she did not, and Gwen felt a lot like Mary Tarith about children. The more the merrier. Though she did temper herself somewhat and her thoughts showed Max that she would be happy with just four or five.
"But now that we've made our way through a bottle of the good stuff, we should get down to business. By regulation, Colonel Max will become the interim Regimental leader until such time as the Emperor sees fit to make a permanent assignment. If anyone has an issue with that, please speak now." General Yaakov instructed them.
"I don't see an issue. He's the best choice as a face for the Regiment, and I am NOT getting involved in the Imperial Politics involved in Regimental Command." Colonel Klinger, the most experienced among them declared.
That was a sentiment that most of them shared. Battalion Commanders were as high as most Pilots wanted to ascend. Beyond that, you would most likely never see combat inside a Mecha again, as you would have too many other responsibilities to take care of to be on the front lines unless you were a Super Heavy Mecha pilot.
They all were at the moment, but that was only due to the unique nature of their Regiment, and still General Yaakov wasn't a Pilot, at least not anymore.
So, they were happy to let Max take over the duty, and he could deal with the Imperial Court and their demands once this mission was over and they were back in regular contact with the Empire, assuming that their tour of duty wasn't over by then.
Most of them already planned to retire and keep this lovely Colony Ship, after hearing Max and Nico joking about it, so they honestly hoped that their redeployment orders didn't come too quickly, or that they would at least allow them to keep this cover story up and not rejoin a regular regiment with old pattern mecha.
There hadn't been any word of new pattern machines on the battlefield, and they all knew about the message that General Chen Lu had sent, announcing that all data relating to their project had been destroyed to keep it out of rebel hands, so it was likely that there wouldn't be any more Regiments like theirs for the time being.
That was both a good thing and a bad thing. It meant that the Rebels wouldn't have easily produced Super Heavy Mecha, since the old patterns were strictly guarded top secret information they would have to manually scan and compile to make a full one with a standard Material Printer, but it also meant that trying to crush the Rebellion would be even harder since the Kepler Fleet wouldn't have the new Mecha either.
"For now, we keep this among us. Once we get to Rae 5 I will make all the official announcements and turn over control of the Regiment. Then I hope you will all stay until the wedding." General Yaakov finished.
"Remember, we still need to deploy our residents and possibly build them an entire city, since we don't know how the progress on the planet is coming. Then we will need to be on location while the initial stages of the Orbital base are completed until it is a habitable space for the workers to live in while they finish mining the asteroid hollow and building the base. At my best guess, we will need at least a month before we go anywhere unless there is an emergency." Max reminded everyone.
That was a lot of things to do, but unless they volunteered to help with their Mecha, none of those things were for them personally to do, so they could be spending a lot of time on the ship practicing their piloting skills in the limited number of training simulators that they had available.
Max saw those thoughts in their minds and sent a memo to both Nico and Major Miller so that they could requisition time to build more training units. Enough for the Regiment, but also enough that they could take in trainees at a later date and expand their capabilities with new pilots.
You never knew when an opportunity would present itself after all, and there were a lot of refugees in the galaxy with military training.
