The military aggression that has been incessant and at unprecedented levels on our continent for weeks has not so much subsided as it has changed form and direction. The Kaleusthes Archipelago is no longer witness to desperate subterranean battles between Kantarian marines and Wesitarian regulars, but it has seen a substantial increase in incoming fire from both coastal artillery and a somewhat resurgent navy which is far lower in number than ours but far better repaired. Another major landing nearly 400 km from there was conducted to destroy up to 200k troops and various weapons at a secondary line of fortifications just 200 km from Kalobol. Further east, a new series of cavalry-led offensives was launched with more modest planned and actual gains, with our infantry forces having to take a larger share of the offensive components to compensate for declining cavalry strength and worsening terrain in places. The Central Front has seen more offensive actions by our forces than the preceding week, though the front is again rather stationary and should remain so for at least a couple of weeks. Overall, the enemy is noticeably anemic in its responses and seem more hopeful of the end of their ordeal being caused by mere campaign exhaustion and terrain rather than by their defensive capabilities.

Our naval forces have had extremely great and persistent demands placed upon it, and it has not been allowed much opportunity to be taken off the lines and regenerated. We have had battles of enormous scale and ferocity take place not long before this, but we at least had the chance to recuperate over a week or two afterwards. Since late February, however, any ship that has been deemed at least moderately seaworthy has been sent back on the lines, and the predominant reason for such constant exertion has been to protect Kaleusthes Archipelago and the allied personnel from naval counterattack and the constant hail of ordnance from naval and fortress cannons the enemy has rightfully maintained since the marine landings. Additionally, since the Wesitarians never had intended for it to be a substantial naval base and instead a heavily fortified obstruction to any attack on Kalobol, even if the entire system of structures and defenses had been taken intact or just surrendered peacefully, little repairing of ships could have been done there. Of course, most of the static weapon emplacements had to be destroyed or knocked offline, so we have had minimal static offensive capability AND no way to repair damage at our forward positions.

We could not protect the area with naval power alone for much longer, and we need to give our aerial forces a break as well at some point. Thus, I gave the fortification and establishment of defensive self-sufficiency of at least the main island extremely high priority, followed very closely behind by at least modest repair and resupply capabilities. Of course, this placed me in terms of personnel in a difficult position, because my extremely competent and dedicated Larien could not be assigned to both repair the fleet at Marietta and to fortify and consolidate Kaleusthes. Of course, I approached him on the matter on 2 March and started giving impossible commands.

"Hey, there, Rudderbutt! While you're here repairing the fleet from their daily functions up north, could you simultaneously repair the gun emplacements and erect the structures necessary for fleet repair over there? I want Kaleusthes to be in the same state Marietta is by 4 March!" I gleefully stated as I approached him at Marietta.

His response was predictably scornful and exasperated, "Oh, sure, I'll just clone myself so I can be at two places at once! While I'm at it, I might as well clone Lucien as well, so you two will have another playmate and so you can get even less accomplished than usual!"

I grinned and tail-swished joyfully at the ludicrous plan, "That would be so useful! Clone me while you're at it!"

"NO! Our planet cannot contend with two of you, let alone our country, or I!" he exclaimed in pretended horror.

"Yeah, I guess that would make the universe collapse or something similarly terrible. I wonder if I would yiff myself if there were two of me. I've pawed off in a mirror before and thought I was so adorable, but I don't know if I would want myself as a mate..." I casually pondered aloud, giving no consideration to such trivial matters as productivity or professionalism.

"I'm sure you can work that out yourself at some point, preferably not here with me. Anyway, did you have anything intelligent to report or ask me?"

"Not really... Oh, yes! I actually need you to help organize a convoy to Kaleusthes with whatever materials and personnel you need to make the base operational, and then go there immediately and start doing that. The capital turrets need to be installed or repaired and brought online first. We cannot keep protecting a base which cannot assist in its own defense above field weapons."

"Yes, I already knew this and was wondering when you were going to reassign me. When do you need those turrets and other critical defensive systems operational? I remind you we also need a functioning communications system, as well as fire control, secondary weapons, etc. The place is in a terrible state right now, and I don't just mean casualties and bodies."

"By the afternoon of 4 March." I stated regretfully, knowing that would be a most impressive feat to actually achieve. "Do whatever repairs to the flagship and whatever else you can, and we will depart en masse to ensure the stuff makes it there and isn't blown up on the beaches."

My friend groaned and rubbed his lutrine muzzle as he pondered what I asked, "We might not sleep for the next 48 hours if that is the case... It might be doable, however. I need a lot of construction personnel. Experienced personnel. We don't have many of those who are not already assigned to important duties. Of course, we need even more protection there since many of the construction troops will have to be above ground."

"The fleet can function more or less as it has been until the morning of the 5th. After that, it must stand down or we start risking irreparable losses in very large numbers. We have already lost many vessels playing this game so long."

"I see. I suppose this means after this afternoon I'm officially being transferred from Marietta to Kaleusthes. I really hope you didn't make your stupid plushie the mascot of the base as well as the namesake." he looked at me sternly, his ability to convey false emotions and ideas to me so great a casual observer would think he hated me.

I responded with feigned indignation and shock as I brandished the aforementioned plushie, "He is not stupid! He is just silent and misunderstood!" I turned him towards me and petted his head, "Don't let him hurt your feelings. He's just angry I outrank him."

"May I just resign today instead?" he wearily retorted.

What he stated on the difficulty of this I had already known. I don't feel anyone but him and his personnel are capable of repairing and installing 30 capital turrets and making operational the other related systems within a mere 48 hours. I had already through the council put senior officers on notice to allocate our best construction and repair personnel to this and compensate accordingly, but we were doing virtually everything in a very expedited and somewhat improvised manner. The fighting lasted somewhat longer than we had hoped and the amount of firepower directed at the islands exceeded what we expected, and even now the latter hasn't abated. The massive damage to the Procyonidae the day before just placed more demand on our limited capabilities, and if we were going to be at Kaleusthes for this entire period and for the planned landings on the 4th, the damage would have to be repaired extremely expeditiously. Larien and I had a very candid discussion on that matter after the Kaleusthes matter was discussed.

"If we were not needing to set up a new fortress shipyard and chase a retreating enemy, I would have ordered your ship drydocked for keel repairs. I kept telling you time had to be set aside for that, that we cannot fully maintain that section through regular overnight repairs. I have no clue how a delicate and yiffy prancer like you can manage to be so aggressive at sea that you ignore even my cautions, but somehow you have achieved that."

"Well, remember that I established our military's doctrine years ago, and I felt we needed an offensive blitzkrieg-style doctrine due to various strengths and factors. Me putting off non-essential repairs is only a natural consequence of that. Though, it's easier to do that when the only thing we really feel on the bridge is high-yield nukes."

"Those repairs ARE essential! You're not just putting off non-essential ones. All you allowed enough chance to repair were the structures at and under the main turrets, and those are starting to warp again. You can't just rely on speed and emergency systems to save you after a torpedo impact! You barely allowed me enough time to repair the external damage even now!" he castigated with very sincere anger this time.

I flattened my ears as my friend and subordinate scolded me, "There's just been so much that has needed to be done, and I couldn't take our flagship off the lines for long to do what you rightfully demand."

He sighed heavily as he noticed his words were having more effect than he intended, "Promise me, after we make our new base fully operational, you will allow me enough time to make sufficient repairs to every section of your ship, internal and external. The enemy has been mauled pretty badly and we can afford to take a week or two off."

I changed my outward countenance since I didn't like the urgent and strained tone this conversation had taken, giggling and grinning mischievously, "Only if you let me dress Lucien up as a girl and pose for erotic pictures. He would make a wonderful cub erotic model and he wants to try his paw at it!"

The father otter smacked his paw across his forehead and groaned, "I just... Since when did you ever feel you needed my permission for anything, anyway, you insatiable cub-chasing lunatic?"

The amusing conversation would be the last we would have for a while. Assembling the convoy would take longer than expected, repairing the damage we incurred would also take longer than predicted, and we thus left far later than predicted to reinforce and supply the garrison. In fact, we actually didn't arrive until 03:00, and almost had been delayed further. Larien was hard at work there for hours before we arrived, though. The combat marines had made the place more presentable and accessible since we were there on Revolution Day, and he toured the main complex above and below ground again. While we had incurred substantial delays on our end, he reported unexpectedly good news on his: the main communications and fire control arrays were not seriously damaged and would likely be operational upon our arrival, which would lead to unexpectedly rapid progress restoring those turrets which were salvageable.

One factor that both hindered us and gave us some periods of safety was the enemy dead. Obviously, they needed to be removed from the tunnels and such, and then handled in a variety of ways depending upon the wishes of the soldier and/or their family. Some on Takomen couldn't care less about what happens after death and just had wanted their body to be incinerated. Others had wanted to be buried in the general area they fell. Others still had wished to be taken to their families where they would have a burial service. There needs to be ample cooperation between the two sides to conduct the latter, and that necessitates ceasefires to allow teams from the enemy side to cross over and claim the bodies or vice versa, though usually the onus is on the losing side to come to the victor's territory. Thus, there were numerous pauses in the bombardment during 2-4 March to allow the Wesitarian envoys to safely come here and return with their fallen. During these sad but necessary and routine actions, there was no anger or animosity. The squads from both sides saluted each other respectfully and speedily concluded their business. It is not part of the Karamesh Convention that we must halt whatever else we are doing at a given area while ceasefires are in effect, so we did benefit from this rather macabre and inevitable feature of warfare.

By 04:00 on 3 March, the electronics spoken of earlier were made operational along with a few turrets which were not difficult to repair. By 09:00, about 10 turrets 600-700 mm in size were made functional along with 15 300 mm secondaries. Various subterranean warehouse sections were made accessible and usable- and existing sections of the complex improvised to serve such a role- throughout the day and into the next. By 09:00 on 4 March, the entire complex was reconnected and made sufficiently accessible, another 5 capital turrets restored and another 3 installed from our own stocks. On noon on the same day more supplies and personnel arrived from Likuria, which made the restoration of the base even more rapid. 30 primary turrets and 40 secondary turrets were made operational by 17:00 that day. The pace of installation and restoration of the defensive works practically stopped over the end of the 4th and most of the 5th, the crews having worked 48 hours with no sleep and burned through most of the parts we ferried over to bring about such a rise in defensibility. They have since started substantial work on the secondary islands immediately adjacent to the primary base, though the withdrawal of much of our fleet makes this work somewhat more perilous.

Several rudimentary facilities were erected over this period so that some resupply could be conducted on ships that were located there, but only 5 small ships per hour could be serviced by the end of the 3rd, 10 by the end of the 4th, 13 by the end of the next day mainly because of the Likurians. Currently we only have the ability to resupply 20 Tier 2 and 10 Tier 3 ships per hour, and larger ships can't get close enough to be resupplied at all by regular means. Even as I write this on the 9th, we have only just begun to do dredging and large structure installation on the main island. It won't serve its intended role of fleet-level servicing probably until at least 15 March, and even by the start of April it will have a fraction of the capability of Marietta because we need to fortify it extensively due to its proximity to enemy positions. We hope by the 15th of April it will start to approach the capabilities of our long-standing base to the south.

During much of this period, we gave the enemy something else to shoot at, in the form of a marine assault and simultaneous ground invasion from the south. We were able to support one final major landing before we would have to begin allowing our military in general to regenerate from the vigorous campaigning across the Western Front, and we decided to mount one of moderate size and ambition to cause further damage to the enemy. Some officers really didn't support sending our battered fleets against invasion zones after they have had to intercept on behalf of our inchoate base for so long, but I and the majority saw little reason to abolish this last part of our plans. While the majority of the crews would be asleep because they were working so hard to do what I and our nation asked of them, and thus they didn't achieve much construction with the break from the shelling and bombing the invasion granted them, this offensive was designed largely to decrease the pressure it was under.

Because of the need to protect convoys which arrived and finished their tasks late, the preparatory bombardment was shortened and the landings started later than designed. Finally, on 21:00, the transports reached their target beaches and unloaded all of our 300 serviceable Pathforgers, about 900 Commanders, and 50k infantry and other personnel, while about 1,000 panzers and 250k infantry attacked from their recently captured positions, all with the goal of capturing or otherwise destroying the opposing force roughly 300k in size. Because of the delays, our intentions being very obvious, and the lack of desire by the enemy to retain their positions at all costs, they immediately conducted a rapid but orderly withdrawal, and we only managed to envelop and keep contained 100k troops. On the other paw, we weren't struck by any nuclear torpedoes or mines this time and our casualties were far lower than what we need to stay ahead. Practically all of the personnel aboard the warships were in some significant state of sleep deprivation, and I was so tired I passed command early the next morning to a better rested subordinate and slept in the ship's quarters designated as mine rather than waited until returning to base.

While so many feats of heroics by construction and combat personnel were being conducted on the Western Front, some got their chance to do the same on the Central Front. The front has been under substantial pressure for quite a while, the Bengarians especially desperate to achieve whatever they could because this was the only viable front upon which they could claim success, the only mitigation to the catastrophe that had unfolded adjacent to them. We had not been able to send much at first in the way of reinforcements, and it wasn't immediately urgent we send many since what we had was able to slow them to a crawl. As further offensive actions across the adjacent front became less and less viable and thus units were freed to be sent elsewhere, the number of forces we possessed in the center grew. We have been conducting limited counteroffensive operations for over a week to attenuate both the enemy's feeling of success and our feeling of failure, and it eventually resulted in the enemy's lines receding gradually. The lines have stopped moving once again, and contests between units are usually ending inconclusively now. We want to retake some of the ground we lost again through the start of the new month, but right now so much is having to go to our new base and protecting our recently advanced ground units that we are not even trying to move again presently.

Speaking of costs, I had to address our Parliament on the matter of the economy recently, because the level of spending all of this action necessitates is undoing the limited progress we made on our economic status over the winter. There has been only a voluntary remobilization to industry in effect to sustain our campaign since the people will do enough when I ask them to and asking is far preferable to commanding. However, all of these things- campaigning in the Western and Central Fronts, building a fleet-level naval base almost from scratch, carrying out planned and unplanned celebrations, etc- is requiring higher taxation and spending levels to cope monetarily. The combination of both types of remobilization have had a very serious effect on our medium-term economic projections. We don't have enough industrial output to keep up with civilian concerns, and the people couldn't well afford what they might want or need had it been possible to produce such commodities anyway. Kantaria was in a poor condition industrially and economically when this war started, and our extreme needs to survive and catch up early on has only served to exacerbate these problems and retard our consolidation. I do not think our people have to be impoverished and technologically stunted in order to prevail, but so far we still are behind the rest of the planet in such matters by significant margins. At this rate, the need for the enemy to further mobilize rather than our rising prosperity will be what brings parity between the two sides, and I don't find this acceptable. However, I didn't have extremely reassuring words for them or the nation on how we could achieve both victory and more rapid development at home, either. I did say now that the bulk of the campaign is completed, we can return to normal levels rather soon, even slightly below that.

We had some additional expenses yesterday, though they pale in comparison to what turrets cost to make and transport. My capable marshal of Marietta formally was transferred to Kaleusthes yesterday. He was technically the commander of both bases for a week because it was imperative the base was solidified ASAP and him being the commander of both (his deputy was overseeing Marietta while he was away, of course) would minimize complications with transferring supplies from one base to another. Since most of the supplies and equipment that he will need for the previous and current phases have been completed, I have formally made him commander of Kaleusthes alone. I had the KMO authorize a rather lavish party to celebrate both his change in post (I suppose he technically was demoted since he used to be the supreme officer for two bases) and the intended change of the Kantarian 1st Fleet's home base. Of course, Lucien was there to bask in his father's and the fleet's glory, and to amusedly listen to a speech which largely consisted of the various drawbacks and aggravations of working with and under me. I stood up afterwards and responded to many of his accusations with equal humor and insincerity, often asserting what he accused me of wasn't as severe as was the reality. I also remarked on how wonderful the cake was and how we should serve cake as our sole ration for the entire army, and eventually I got around to serious commentary on what this and other events portend for the health of our fleet. I returned to the topic on how much I like cake with massive amounts of frosting, then let Larien return to the podium to explain what the next phase of construction should entail.

"If Daddy is over at Kaleusthes, where will Mommy and I live?" the concerned cub inquired into my ear as his father explained what I already knew to the assembled staff.

I actually hadn't contemplated the matter very much, and he and I hadn't discussed an answer to that problem, and his question made it obvious he hadn't discussed it with him either. "Uhh, well, I think the same place you have been, which is near Marietta. He can easily embark on a very quick shuttle to get from Kaleusthes to Marietta in under 20 mins. I doubt you two will be living in a highly militarized frontal base, unless you like bunkers." I responded with as little perceivable confusion or uncertainty as I could muster.

"How will we meet if you're at Kaleusthes all the time? You're heading there with Daddy permanently after this, right? Who will fly to whom?" he further questioned, his question quite legitimate.

I grinned to him and scritched under his chin, "Either way. They won't argue with me if I have a shuttle used to ferry a cute cub to me. And, I can go wherever I want, anyway."

Lucien chirred and smiled reflexively, "The council won't object to a shuttle being used for me so we can play games and yiff?"

I burst into laughter and shook my head as I moved the scritching to one of his rounded ears, "Nope! Maybe one or two will object, but everyone else won't care. I'm extremely awesome and they know I need lots of affection."

His countenance brightened considerably as my responses allayed his fears, and he slid closer to me, "I didn't know they let you get away with so much!" He gave me a mischievous grin as he leaned in, took one of my paws in his, and started massaging my very sensitive pawpads, "Will they let you get away with leaving in the middle of his presentation so I can be your ottergirl?"

I murred in arousal both at his physical affection and his idea, "You're worse than I am! I'll let you do this only if I can be the needy schoolgirl first. You're not on top often enough."

"Yes, fine! Let's change into girly clothes and yiff!" he more or less commanded as he and I got up and left hurriedly together. I had truly been instrumental in creating a prancer that was as concupiscent as I was, I realized at that moment as I was led by the younger boy. And, yes, we indeed dressed up as yiffy schoolgirls and proceeded to fornicate, if the reader is wondering whether we were being serious. As the militaries of the four nations were exhausted and our offensive operations for the winter were coming to a close, I would have substantially more opportunity to play with him and my other friends. The repairs to the keel could soon be carried out as a result, which I'm sure would make Lucien's father quite happy (or at least less agitated).