So, this has roots in Fitzgerald's CYOA Battletech idea, except that we had a play by post game...
And what a mess it became... (Battletech CYOA)
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Chapter 1 - Start
So, this has roots in Fitzgerald's CYOA Battletech idea, except that we had a play by post game with several CYOAs in the same universe running for a few months. It was fun, but the game died some time ago.
Now, what I'm writing here isn't a narrative retelling of that game. While that might've been amusing, I am not personally interested in doing that. Instead, it is based on (most of) the characters that were there. The primary perspective is my own character, Ayeka Masaki. But I also keep track of, and show, scenes with the other characters in the shared world. I'll note that some of the early stuff is almost if not outright straight from said game - events diverge early on but a few things are common enough. I also had to nerf/change some of the caches/inheritances said CYOAs get, compared to the original game, just because they were overpowered to hell and back. Just, don't ask how overpowered. The characters are still their former selves, though... young overachieving 80's Action Heroes! Or is it villains? Well, there is that saying that the victor is the one who writes history, so who can tell until all the dust is settled?
I already have the first chapter all written up but since it's quite big, I'll post it in chunks. Feedback is most welcome, as I still consider everything a WIP and changes and additions are very much a possibility. Plus I want to see how people react to certain scenes...
So, without further ado, let's get started...
----------------------------------
Chapter 1 - Let the Great Game begin!
1st Jan 3015
Dreams could be weird sometimes. I rarely ever remembered what I dreamt about in my sleep, so when I did it tended to stick out to me. Dreaming a life not my own, in what seemed to be a neo-feudal Japan with high tech definitely was on the higher end of weird. It wasn't until I dreamt I was piloting a Land-Air-Mech that I actually started to catch on, however, that for some reason I was dreaming about Battletech. Though I couldn't rule out Macross entirely, but there didn't seem to be any singing bullshit.
Then again, I wasn't sure that was a dream or a nightmare anymore, chased by a pair of aerospace fighters and shot down. I kept dreaming about Auntie Florimel… Uncle Subhash… Cousin Takashi… huh, so that's what he looked like? And Theodore, who in no way was crushing hard on me. Nope, no siree.
Did I mention this was a really weird dream?
I woke up to a soft knocking on the door.
"Ma'am, your aunt Florimel and Director Indrahar are here to see you, and there is a summons for you to a highly ranked lawyer in town at your convenience."
I recognized the voice as my normal servant, but my mind was rebelling. While the names evoked all the right feeling of familiarity and affection, I knew it was all wrong. I couldn't be there, in what my mind supplied to me as being Unity Palace, listening to and understanding my servant's perfect japanese… and when did I even get a servant in the first place?
Still, I had to say something, so the first thing that came to mind it was. "Alright. Please entertain them for a few minutes and prepare some tea while I get dressed."
I sat up, letting the blankets fall down and took a look at myself. Yep, I gained boobs. Generous enough but not too big… just right? Oh, right… what was my name again… Ayeka. Ayeka Masaki. Daughter of Minako Masaki and Giacomo Raventhir. That man… later, I thought, as he evoked memories of what looked like Kamen Rider and surely that was just crossed wires in my head. Third cousin to the Coordinator, on the wrong side of the sheets… not that it mattered much. Mom was an Order of the Five Pillars member and working on the administrative side… me… uh, right, something like a protege of… Auntie and Uncle both. I even already had a nickname on ISF.
Deathwing.
I wasn't sure if that was just a coincidence or whatever kami put me there was having a fine joke at my expense. To the bathroom I went, both to freshen up and to get a good look at myself in the mirror.
Purple-hair… which my mind supplied to me was somehow my natural hair color… I knew the carpet matched the drapes but chose not to actually confirm it yet. C-cup breasts, fair-skin beauty with practically an hourglass figure. I'd've hit that. In fact, any hot-blooded male would, unless he was either an eunuch or had no interest whatsoever on the female of the species. Of course, I had been male before this… by whatever means… but I had to cut my mental train short. Two of the most powerful Combine officials were waiting for me, it would not be a good thing to keep them waiting. Even if we were like family.
It might have sounded wrong to admit to myself that I was in a fictional world, somehow, but I had to do it as it felt all too real.
A few minutes later I stepped out of the bedroom, freshened up and wearing a yukata in a tasteful cream with purple floral patterns. The quality was typical of high ranking nobility, too, but easy to put on by myself, unlike the full court kimonos, yet quite adequate to receive my guests. My mind supplied to me how I'd managed to afford it, despite being merely twenty and my mom definitely not having the kind of income that could explain it... my Clan had bequeathed upon me a share of a tea agri-business, as long as I did my share of helping run it, and I hadn't disappointed.
I found them both, the Director of ISF, Subhash Indrahar, and Florimel Kurita, waiting for me. Subhash turned to me with a smile and offered a full bow.
"Good morning, my soon to be apprentice," the Director, Subhash Indrahar, said to me with an unholy gleam in his eyes. That tickled my mind, there was another shoe about to drop…
Florimel approached me instead while he took the bow and gave me a hug and a smile which I briefly returned, before she whipped around at Subhash's claim of apprenticeship with a frown and a gleam of her own. "Your apprentice! We both know her place in the Order is assured!"
I sighed internally as I recalled belatedly why everyone covertly tried to keep the two apart outside of work or official duties. I'd have to make a choice soon, but for now I still kind of had the best of both worlds… I momentarily thought about snarking with 'Why not both?' but I reconsidered that avenue as I realised they might just take it seriously… and then I noticed Auntie had a letter in her hand addressed to me.
Hmm, she was too distracted arguing with uncle to give it to me so I carefully put my sleight of hand skill to good use and took it for myself. Opening it was trivial, but when I read the words within and comprehended them, it felt like I'd just been body-slammed. I was not even sure how I made to the nearest seat without falling over, but by the time I was done reading the letter I was in shock, my hand over my mouth.
I had wanted to meet him for years, had saved money and even put some time into tracking down where he was and had been concocting a plan to take a trip in a few months to find him and actually get to know him… but it seemed fate had other ideas. I wanted to rage at the injustice, cry in sorrow at the tragedy… but all I could do was sit in shock, staring at the letter with tears slowly dripping down my face. It wasn't until a servant announced that Theodore wanted to come in that I jolted out of it. Still, all I managed to croak out was "Father's dead…"
The lump that had formed in my throat was very effective.
I found myself under auntie's hug once again, argument effectively over, and uncle frowned, clearly worried. The hug was nice and warm and reassuring… I really felt like I needed it.
"I must apologize, my princess," Subhash said, quietly, "we intended to try and distract you and ease the news to you, however all we did was distract ourselves. Once you are ready, I will be pleased to help you deal with the legal details of this issue."
"Darling, you're going to get past this. We're here for you and you're my niece!", Florimel proclaimed with certainty.
I wasn't so sure I was going to be fine, at least for a while, but I could hang on to their support as my anchor. At least for now.
Kami, I thought, what unholy mess was I in?
---
Well, as it turned out, both less messy and more. Theodore had decided not to intrude when I was crying, which was definitely good for him and me. The lawyering stuff was kind of straightforward, but given my emotions were shot to hell, I was glad to have uncle and auntie helping me through it. In the end, I just had to sign the papers and I owned all of Giacomo's stuff that he'd left behind for me.
Which, apparently, amounted to a fat bank account (two hundred and eight million c-bills!), a Monolith laden with dropships (an Union, a Titan, two Monarchs, an Aqueduct and four Mules), 12 battlemechs and 14 aerospace fighters, plus some shuttles and some assorted things.
I was no stranger to military hardware. While my military track was clearly intel, I was Samurai. I had been gifted a Stinger LAM when I was eight, the story behind it being one which greatly amused many who were involved, and I'd since truly earned it by mastering it. But now I had enough equipment to form a 'mech company with supporting aerospace assets. And kami knew where that Titan had come from, I dreaded the potential attention that would draw. It was an extinct design in the Inner Sphere at this point.
At least the good news was that Takashi wouldn't steal my inheritance from me. In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't a whole lot in the way of military hardware, even in the depleted armies and industrial capabilities of the late third succession war. It probably wasn't worth it to Takashi to risk pissing off Subhash and Florimel over that little. They were rather protective of me. And I also realised that Theodore would've sided with me, so all the more reason.
I had time to figure something out. In the meantime, however, I also had to deal with the data chips that also came with the inheritance. I opted to wait until I was back in my room and secure before looking into them.
---
The way back from the lawyer's office was rather uneventful, though I noticed the security detail was more obvious than usual. I wasn't sure why, but I felt it difficult to speculate the reasons for it. I was feeling drained and remembering why I needed a security detail at all didn't help. Bloody Jenkins clan and their stupid hatreds and prejudices.
My mind froze. Jenkins? Waaaaait a minute. Jenkins? Deathwing. Jenkins.
Really?
I resisted the urge to facepalm, I strongly suspected it would go right through my face to slam against the seats' headrest.
Still, at least it did distract me for a good long while as my mind darkly entertained itself imagining in how many ways a giant black dragon could tear apart chicken-eating plate-armored dwarfs rushing in like idiots exclaiming "Leeroy Jenkins!"
My mind was very creative. Why, I was on the count of sixty-five when the armored limo entered the security gate.
Now, what I'm writing here isn't a narrative retelling of that game. While that might've been amusing, I am not personally interested in doing that. Instead, it is based on (most of) the characters that were there. The primary perspective is my own character, Ayeka Masaki. But I also keep track of, and show, scenes with the other characters in the shared world. I'll note that some of the early stuff is almost if not outright straight from said game - events diverge early on but a few things are common enough. I also had to nerf/change some of the caches/inheritances said CYOAs get, compared to the original game, just because they were overpowered to hell and back. Just, don't ask how overpowered. The characters are still their former selves, though... young overachieving 80's Action Heroes! Or is it villains? Well, there is that saying that the victor is the one who writes history, so who can tell until all the dust is settled?
I already have the first chapter all written up but since it's quite big, I'll post it in chunks. Feedback is most welcome, as I still consider everything a WIP and changes and additions are very much a possibility. Plus I want to see how people react to certain scenes...
So, without further ado, let's get started...
----------------------------------
Chapter 1 - Let the Great Game begin!
1st Jan 3015
Dreams could be weird sometimes. I rarely ever remembered what I dreamt about in my sleep, so when I did it tended to stick out to me. Dreaming a life not my own, in what seemed to be a neo-feudal Japan with high tech definitely was on the higher end of weird. It wasn't until I dreamt I was piloting a Land-Air-Mech that I actually started to catch on, however, that for some reason I was dreaming about Battletech. Though I couldn't rule out Macross entirely, but there didn't seem to be any singing bullshit.
Then again, I wasn't sure that was a dream or a nightmare anymore, chased by a pair of aerospace fighters and shot down. I kept dreaming about Auntie Florimel… Uncle Subhash… Cousin Takashi… huh, so that's what he looked like? And Theodore, who in no way was crushing hard on me. Nope, no siree.
Did I mention this was a really weird dream?
I woke up to a soft knocking on the door.
"Ma'am, your aunt Florimel and Director Indrahar are here to see you, and there is a summons for you to a highly ranked lawyer in town at your convenience."
I recognized the voice as my normal servant, but my mind was rebelling. While the names evoked all the right feeling of familiarity and affection, I knew it was all wrong. I couldn't be there, in what my mind supplied to me as being Unity Palace, listening to and understanding my servant's perfect japanese… and when did I even get a servant in the first place?
Still, I had to say something, so the first thing that came to mind it was. "Alright. Please entertain them for a few minutes and prepare some tea while I get dressed."
I sat up, letting the blankets fall down and took a look at myself. Yep, I gained boobs. Generous enough but not too big… just right? Oh, right… what was my name again… Ayeka. Ayeka Masaki. Daughter of Minako Masaki and Giacomo Raventhir. That man… later, I thought, as he evoked memories of what looked like Kamen Rider and surely that was just crossed wires in my head. Third cousin to the Coordinator, on the wrong side of the sheets… not that it mattered much. Mom was an Order of the Five Pillars member and working on the administrative side… me… uh, right, something like a protege of… Auntie and Uncle both. I even already had a nickname on ISF.
Deathwing.
I wasn't sure if that was just a coincidence or whatever kami put me there was having a fine joke at my expense. To the bathroom I went, both to freshen up and to get a good look at myself in the mirror.
Purple-hair… which my mind supplied to me was somehow my natural hair color… I knew the carpet matched the drapes but chose not to actually confirm it yet. C-cup breasts, fair-skin beauty with practically an hourglass figure. I'd've hit that. In fact, any hot-blooded male would, unless he was either an eunuch or had no interest whatsoever on the female of the species. Of course, I had been male before this… by whatever means… but I had to cut my mental train short. Two of the most powerful Combine officials were waiting for me, it would not be a good thing to keep them waiting. Even if we were like family.
It might have sounded wrong to admit to myself that I was in a fictional world, somehow, but I had to do it as it felt all too real.
A few minutes later I stepped out of the bedroom, freshened up and wearing a yukata in a tasteful cream with purple floral patterns. The quality was typical of high ranking nobility, too, but easy to put on by myself, unlike the full court kimonos, yet quite adequate to receive my guests. My mind supplied to me how I'd managed to afford it, despite being merely twenty and my mom definitely not having the kind of income that could explain it... my Clan had bequeathed upon me a share of a tea agri-business, as long as I did my share of helping run it, and I hadn't disappointed.
I found them both, the Director of ISF, Subhash Indrahar, and Florimel Kurita, waiting for me. Subhash turned to me with a smile and offered a full bow.
"Good morning, my soon to be apprentice," the Director, Subhash Indrahar, said to me with an unholy gleam in his eyes. That tickled my mind, there was another shoe about to drop…
Florimel approached me instead while he took the bow and gave me a hug and a smile which I briefly returned, before she whipped around at Subhash's claim of apprenticeship with a frown and a gleam of her own. "Your apprentice! We both know her place in the Order is assured!"
I sighed internally as I recalled belatedly why everyone covertly tried to keep the two apart outside of work or official duties. I'd have to make a choice soon, but for now I still kind of had the best of both worlds… I momentarily thought about snarking with 'Why not both?' but I reconsidered that avenue as I realised they might just take it seriously… and then I noticed Auntie had a letter in her hand addressed to me.
Hmm, she was too distracted arguing with uncle to give it to me so I carefully put my sleight of hand skill to good use and took it for myself. Opening it was trivial, but when I read the words within and comprehended them, it felt like I'd just been body-slammed. I was not even sure how I made to the nearest seat without falling over, but by the time I was done reading the letter I was in shock, my hand over my mouth.
I had wanted to meet him for years, had saved money and even put some time into tracking down where he was and had been concocting a plan to take a trip in a few months to find him and actually get to know him… but it seemed fate had other ideas. I wanted to rage at the injustice, cry in sorrow at the tragedy… but all I could do was sit in shock, staring at the letter with tears slowly dripping down my face. It wasn't until a servant announced that Theodore wanted to come in that I jolted out of it. Still, all I managed to croak out was "Father's dead…"
The lump that had formed in my throat was very effective.
I found myself under auntie's hug once again, argument effectively over, and uncle frowned, clearly worried. The hug was nice and warm and reassuring… I really felt like I needed it.
"I must apologize, my princess," Subhash said, quietly, "we intended to try and distract you and ease the news to you, however all we did was distract ourselves. Once you are ready, I will be pleased to help you deal with the legal details of this issue."
"Darling, you're going to get past this. We're here for you and you're my niece!", Florimel proclaimed with certainty.
I wasn't so sure I was going to be fine, at least for a while, but I could hang on to their support as my anchor. At least for now.
Kami, I thought, what unholy mess was I in?
---
Well, as it turned out, both less messy and more. Theodore had decided not to intrude when I was crying, which was definitely good for him and me. The lawyering stuff was kind of straightforward, but given my emotions were shot to hell, I was glad to have uncle and auntie helping me through it. In the end, I just had to sign the papers and I owned all of Giacomo's stuff that he'd left behind for me.
Which, apparently, amounted to a fat bank account (two hundred and eight million c-bills!), a Monolith laden with dropships (an Union, a Titan, two Monarchs, an Aqueduct and four Mules), 12 battlemechs and 14 aerospace fighters, plus some shuttles and some assorted things.
I was no stranger to military hardware. While my military track was clearly intel, I was Samurai. I had been gifted a Stinger LAM when I was eight, the story behind it being one which greatly amused many who were involved, and I'd since truly earned it by mastering it. But now I had enough equipment to form a 'mech company with supporting aerospace assets. And kami knew where that Titan had come from, I dreaded the potential attention that would draw. It was an extinct design in the Inner Sphere at this point.
At least the good news was that Takashi wouldn't steal my inheritance from me. In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't a whole lot in the way of military hardware, even in the depleted armies and industrial capabilities of the late third succession war. It probably wasn't worth it to Takashi to risk pissing off Subhash and Florimel over that little. They were rather protective of me. And I also realised that Theodore would've sided with me, so all the more reason.
I had time to figure something out. In the meantime, however, I also had to deal with the data chips that also came with the inheritance. I opted to wait until I was back in my room and secure before looking into them.
---
The way back from the lawyer's office was rather uneventful, though I noticed the security detail was more obvious than usual. I wasn't sure why, but I felt it difficult to speculate the reasons for it. I was feeling drained and remembering why I needed a security detail at all didn't help. Bloody Jenkins clan and their stupid hatreds and prejudices.
My mind froze. Jenkins? Waaaaait a minute. Jenkins? Deathwing. Jenkins.
Really?
I resisted the urge to facepalm, I strongly suspected it would go right through my face to slam against the seats' headrest.
Still, at least it did distract me for a good long while as my mind darkly entertained itself imagining in how many ways a giant black dragon could tear apart chicken-eating plate-armored dwarfs rushing in like idiots exclaiming "Leeroy Jenkins!"
My mind was very creative. Why, I was on the count of sixty-five when the armored limo entered the security gate.
Chapter 1 - Part 2
Aye. A very special LAM.
In fact, l was kind of kicking myself earlier for not posting more than I did. So, let me fix that...
--------------------
I was back in the privacy of my own apartment when I started going over the chips. They were both encrypted and locked to my genetic code, so it was quite trivial for me to unlock them. How Giacomo had gotten a sample to do the encryption I didn't know but I supposed it didn't matter. The first chip had an audio message that I listened to.
"Is this thing on? Blue? Why blue, it was always- well, whatever. Oh yeah, it's on all right. No, leave it. And someone get me a drink that isn't sake, I'm parched."
There was a pause, the background noise dying, broken only by soft clinking of ice in a glass and an old fashioned lighter meeting tobacco.
"My name is Giacomo Raventhir and I'm of my sane mind... though that's an oxymoron, as my sister would love to remind everyone. Anyway, like a man said to his kid after cutting his hand off 'I am your father'. Morbid but gets the point across."
Star Wars crack. Welp, I thought, this was starting to make me wonder.
"So, I've gambled, fought, loved, hated whored and rampaged... rampaged. Man, no one uses that word anymore, you know? Rampage. Ram. pa. ge. Or 'vendetta'. I wonder why? Anyway. I bet you've heard some of it, there will be people willing to spin the yarn their way, those who loved me and those who hated me alike, so let's get this out of the way - I've done good things, I've done some very bad things and a lot of stuff in between so odds are all you hear will be true, from a certain point of view. I'd genuinely like to say that I'm sorry for leaving you with this baggage but, honestly? I regret nothing. The shitty things, the great things and the middling things - all I've done I've done with full understanding, perfect clarity - if sometimes in hindsight - and not an ounce of regret. If there is one thing I really want you to take to heart it is just that - don't regret. Regret is poison, kid. Feel sad or happy and move on. Never, ever, regret. If fear is the mind-killer, regret is the soul-killer. Fuck it with a chainsaw."
A momentary pause, then the voice resumed.
"I honestly didn't expect to have kids but, well, our... mutual friend dropped me a line and here we are. Here you are. Contrary to what my sister would tell you, I didn't spend most of my life being a walking headache to the intel agencies of the Inner Sphere and an annoyance to women at large - just a nice chunk of it. But then she was always careful not to ask where did the money to support this lifestyle come from so I guess she knew me better than she let on. The cache you got is one of several I discovered during my travels and I bet my lawyers didn't waste time getting you through this part of inheritance, now did they? There is enough firepower there for you to really make some noise. Allegiance to any of those pathetic, decrepit feudal ideologies that call themselves 'successor states' ain't worth paper their propaganda is printed on. Paper. Really. Fucking primitives. This should be the golden age of technology not this pseudo-feudal fucking mess they insist on perpetuating but... well, that's one my pet peeves. You do you, kid."
He kept on going. "Now, the rest of your inheritance is something a bit more... personal. Let's not kid ourselves - I cheated. I cheated with foreknowledge, with this set of goddamn Coordinator-esque gene packages, skills and luck no normal person does or should have. And oh man, did I abuse the fuck out of this!"
A brief chuckle later, he resumed. "Our mutual friend doesn't seem to mind, given the amused hints I sometimes get but hey, you know me. For the lulz is basically all the justification I need to do anything at all."
Fosfor. I was quite sure it was him by then.
"After this recording ends, you should be given access to an orange industrial container that holds my collection of cutlery - swords, weapons or 'mech activator tags taken from those I dueled over my life. I'm willing you bet you're going to recognize the heraldry on those really quickly. I fully expect the former owners to come back for that and before you ask, no, you can't give it back. You, missy, are going to fight for it and enjoy every second of it if it kills you. So I hope your dueling skills are up for a challenge. I'm not an asshole about it, though - if you manage to hold on to most of the collection for a certain period of time, the second box will open. It contains the coordinates to a top secret facility that used to belong to SLDF experimental project division, code named "The Range." It doesn't have much to it - just a really overpowered simulator pod and an AI unit running it. The important part is what it does - it holds the distilled knowledge and skill of thousands of battles and duels, refined into the most advanced sim-unit the universe, distilled from battle ROMs and neural readings of the absolute creme of the crop of SLDF. It is the crown jewel of the most advanced autonomous training program ever designed - the Gunslinger Program 2.0. It is, to put it mildly, a masterpiece that lets you learn from the best and put your skills to the test against the best to become the modern day Gunslinger. It did wonders for me and I'm sure it will be just as useful for you. So fight, win and become the Gunslinger you are destined to be. You don't owe me a goddamn thing, so I'm not saying 'make me proud' but after I'm dead, you will be the last Gunslinger. Make them remember. And, as a personal favor... I never had the time but that AI... take it with you. I always felt bad given how alone she is there. She served well. Let her see the universe."
Giacomo… you never did things by halves, did you? Complete and total Fos…
"Anyway, you don't need any more ramblings from an old man and I'm running out of brandy here. All I can leave you is a heap of trouble and a lot of guns to deal with it. I'm not sorry about it. If there is advice I can give you is to live. I had an exciting, wonderful life, full of crazy and I'd not trade it for anything. It was a great run and I will make no apologies for it - I enjoyed myself too goddamn much. I hope you can say the same when the music stops. Live, love, hate fight and enjoy. All life is a stage after all. Ciao, bambina~! Giacomo Raventhir signing off!"
For a few moments there was silence but for the clinking of ice against glass before I heard his final words.
"Oh, I left you the FABULOUS SUIT and MASK that puts fear in the hearts of assholes across the entire Draconis Combine. The heroically fantastic legacy of The Suit Kamen is yours! MAKE ME PROUD! It comes with an awesome Kamen Mobile and spectacularly dapper Shadowhawk Kamen Mech (TM). And yes, that is a mech-sized sword. It is the SHADOWHAWK KAMEN MECH (TM), after all. Oh, and sue the motherfuckers that tried to sell Suit Kamen action figures - I never authorized that and the bastards never paid me my share!"
Oh, Kami-sama, I could already see that in my mind… the actual Kamen Mech… I recalled I actually had a toy-sized version of it and I clamped down on a surge of glee at the thought of owning the real deal.
The recording came to an end and an automated routine unlocked a file that, upon inspection, revealed an access code. I was certain I'd find exactly what Giacomo said in there and I paled as the implications sank in.
Mouuu, I already had enough enemies, father, why'd you have to go and set me up like this?
I put the bad thought aside and inspected the second data chip. It was interesting… the deed to a former Star League Defense Force facility in Telos IV… located on Sadib, the moon orbiting Telos IV, plus the shipyard slips orbiting it. I thought about it for a moment and I couldn't recall an active shipyard in that location so I figured it had to have died. As I continued to read, I realised I'd been right. The facility, and the slips, had been hammered by Amaris as his forces left Telos IV and the DCMS had stripped the base bare of what had survived, leaving only the ground installations that were nearly useless without a functioning orbital shipyard to protect and the frames and structural elements of the shipyard slips.
Giacomo had actually gone to the trouble to inspect those for salvageability and it looked like most of them could actually be brought back to service with moderate repairs… and completely replacing the actual equipment for shipyard work.
Needless to say, the really expensive part of building a shipyard was the equipment and tools, not the frame, but it was still cheaper to repair slips that hadn't taken serious structural damage than build anew, especially with the Inner Sphere's industrial base so badly damaged.
There was also an area in the fleet base that Giacomo had apparently refurbished and setup automated defenses on and I now had the codes to get in, plus a note telling me that the rest of my cache was in there… looked like Giacomo knew that handing me too much up front would be too much for Takashi to ignore.
Good.
Now I just had to figure out what to do and my family was about to arrive for dinner so I set those thoughts aside and stored the data chips in my safe. There would be time aplenty.
Dinner was largely uneventful, with uncle and auntie, mom, Theo and even Takashi all there, taking my mind off of my tragic loss and cheering me up. I really was grateful for the support they were displaying, but I was going to need time to get to grips with the situation… both Giacomo's demise and having two people in my head. Sort of.
---
Just as Giacomo had told me to do, I immediately set to discover the next day who had dared to produce and sell Kamen Rider merchandise without permission. Takashi, upon hearing about my efforts, allowed me to tap the Dragon's own legal team to help along with the process. It seemed he too felt offense at having family stiffed of what they were owed. Or so I thought, not knowing better. The question of what to do with the hardware I had inherited was pertinent, but nobody pressed me about it.
I did, at least, hire a crew for the jumpship and a small security team to make sure nobody tried to make off with my things. There was well over two billion ryu worth of hardware attached to the jumpship alone, if I let someone just take it all without a fight I'd feel like committing seppuku. Yes, seppuku, not sudoku. One was a suicide ritual, the other was a fancy game involving numbers. It was either hilarious or cringing, depending on how seriously you took it, whenever a foreigner made that mistake.
Did sudoku even exist in Battletech? Huh… I had to check, now that I'd thought about it. Maybe I could introduce it and make some money off it.
Further developments on the legal front would take weeks, though, so I let the lawyers have their fun while I focused on getting my money situation sorted out. The issue with having a big pile of money sitting in the bank was that idle money wasn't earning me any. But if I put it to use I had to either manage it all myself or, alternatively and more likely, hire people to manage it for me. And I also had to factor in how much money I'd need for my expenses. Which, now that I had a Monolith and nine dropships, meant that they would skyrocket.
Two hundred million was a lot of money, but maintenance plus crews was probably going to make a noticeable dent on that. Per month. I would have to get that under control in due time.
As I studied the situation, though, I came to the conclusion that the issue was inseparable from the question of what to do with the fleet base. I did not have to pay any fees or taxes on it, but I kept thinking about the shipyard and why Giacomo would get it. Sure, it was a nice place to build a base in as he seemed to have done, but there were plenty of other places. I came back to the report on the yards' condition.
The slips themselves were salvageable, if stripped of all the still working and expensive gear. The ground installations were also stripped, but other than the bunkers that had taken direct hits, they were quite intact. There could be cut-off bunkers, too, underground.
I could probably afford to repair one or more of those slips, I realised, if only I could get the damn tooling to equip it with from elsewhere. And with that, I could offer maintenance services in the very least and make money. And then I had an epiphany. I knew exactly where to go get my shipyard tooling.
Columbus.
I grinned as I realised where I was going next, even before hitting Telos IV. If I could strip Columbus, I'd get both the tooling I needed and a lot of LosTech I could sell for additional funds. Plus, I suspected there was also an HPG there and I was quite certain at least one dropship maintenance facility.
The main question was how to pull this off. Four mules might not be enough and I'd need a lot of people to strip the place. Hmm… I'd have to hire jumpships, cargo dropships and probably a few hundred technicians and laborers to strip the place bare.
I ran numbers for the rest of the day, figuring out what kind of force I'd need and where to get it from.
---
My blood pumped as I, strapped in my Stinger LAM's seat, pushed the throttle. The reaction was almost immediate, reactor spooling up to deliver the additional thrust and pushing me against my seat that much harder, while my flight suit did its job of countering the effects of aerospace fighter mode acceleration.
Kami-sama, this alone made coming here, getting boobs and being in the middle of one of the biggest snake pits (no pun intended), totally fucking worth it.
I giggled unashamedly when I pulled the throttle some… and then started the acrobatics. Oof, the G forces were nasty. But also fun.
I totally was a thrillseeker. I blamed Giacomo for that, it had to be in his blood.
Shifting into AirMech mode in one smooth practiced motion changed the flight dynamics and I adjusted accordingly. Executing a few barrel-rolls like that was not an amateur's maneuver but true to form I did them without thinking.
My instructors had taught me well. I laughed in exhilaration as I continued to abuse the laws of physics and perform a little airshow of mine for whomever might've been watching.
The cherry on top was the fact I couldn't help but picture how my LAM looked like from the outside… pink with Hello Kitty motif.
I could totally understand and empathize with the americans packing their Hello Kitty assault rifles. Although, I also had to admit, unlike they I expected to use mine in actual battlefields.
I dropped down closer to the ground, practicing a maneuver to go nap of the earth in a rush. I kept my nerves and pulled it off nicely. My confidence in myself grew and I grinned. Yes, I really was born for this.
--------------------
More for later... enjoy. I might be like a third of the way through chapter 1 by now...
In fact, l was kind of kicking myself earlier for not posting more than I did. So, let me fix that...
--------------------
I was back in the privacy of my own apartment when I started going over the chips. They were both encrypted and locked to my genetic code, so it was quite trivial for me to unlock them. How Giacomo had gotten a sample to do the encryption I didn't know but I supposed it didn't matter. The first chip had an audio message that I listened to.
"Is this thing on? Blue? Why blue, it was always- well, whatever. Oh yeah, it's on all right. No, leave it. And someone get me a drink that isn't sake, I'm parched."
There was a pause, the background noise dying, broken only by soft clinking of ice in a glass and an old fashioned lighter meeting tobacco.
"My name is Giacomo Raventhir and I'm of my sane mind... though that's an oxymoron, as my sister would love to remind everyone. Anyway, like a man said to his kid after cutting his hand off 'I am your father'. Morbid but gets the point across."
Star Wars crack. Welp, I thought, this was starting to make me wonder.
"So, I've gambled, fought, loved, hated whored and rampaged... rampaged. Man, no one uses that word anymore, you know? Rampage. Ram. pa. ge. Or 'vendetta'. I wonder why? Anyway. I bet you've heard some of it, there will be people willing to spin the yarn their way, those who loved me and those who hated me alike, so let's get this out of the way - I've done good things, I've done some very bad things and a lot of stuff in between so odds are all you hear will be true, from a certain point of view. I'd genuinely like to say that I'm sorry for leaving you with this baggage but, honestly? I regret nothing. The shitty things, the great things and the middling things - all I've done I've done with full understanding, perfect clarity - if sometimes in hindsight - and not an ounce of regret. If there is one thing I really want you to take to heart it is just that - don't regret. Regret is poison, kid. Feel sad or happy and move on. Never, ever, regret. If fear is the mind-killer, regret is the soul-killer. Fuck it with a chainsaw."
A momentary pause, then the voice resumed.
"I honestly didn't expect to have kids but, well, our... mutual friend dropped me a line and here we are. Here you are. Contrary to what my sister would tell you, I didn't spend most of my life being a walking headache to the intel agencies of the Inner Sphere and an annoyance to women at large - just a nice chunk of it. But then she was always careful not to ask where did the money to support this lifestyle come from so I guess she knew me better than she let on. The cache you got is one of several I discovered during my travels and I bet my lawyers didn't waste time getting you through this part of inheritance, now did they? There is enough firepower there for you to really make some noise. Allegiance to any of those pathetic, decrepit feudal ideologies that call themselves 'successor states' ain't worth paper their propaganda is printed on. Paper. Really. Fucking primitives. This should be the golden age of technology not this pseudo-feudal fucking mess they insist on perpetuating but... well, that's one my pet peeves. You do you, kid."
He kept on going. "Now, the rest of your inheritance is something a bit more... personal. Let's not kid ourselves - I cheated. I cheated with foreknowledge, with this set of goddamn Coordinator-esque gene packages, skills and luck no normal person does or should have. And oh man, did I abuse the fuck out of this!"
A brief chuckle later, he resumed. "Our mutual friend doesn't seem to mind, given the amused hints I sometimes get but hey, you know me. For the lulz is basically all the justification I need to do anything at all."
Fosfor. I was quite sure it was him by then.
"After this recording ends, you should be given access to an orange industrial container that holds my collection of cutlery - swords, weapons or 'mech activator tags taken from those I dueled over my life. I'm willing you bet you're going to recognize the heraldry on those really quickly. I fully expect the former owners to come back for that and before you ask, no, you can't give it back. You, missy, are going to fight for it and enjoy every second of it if it kills you. So I hope your dueling skills are up for a challenge. I'm not an asshole about it, though - if you manage to hold on to most of the collection for a certain period of time, the second box will open. It contains the coordinates to a top secret facility that used to belong to SLDF experimental project division, code named "The Range." It doesn't have much to it - just a really overpowered simulator pod and an AI unit running it. The important part is what it does - it holds the distilled knowledge and skill of thousands of battles and duels, refined into the most advanced sim-unit the universe, distilled from battle ROMs and neural readings of the absolute creme of the crop of SLDF. It is the crown jewel of the most advanced autonomous training program ever designed - the Gunslinger Program 2.0. It is, to put it mildly, a masterpiece that lets you learn from the best and put your skills to the test against the best to become the modern day Gunslinger. It did wonders for me and I'm sure it will be just as useful for you. So fight, win and become the Gunslinger you are destined to be. You don't owe me a goddamn thing, so I'm not saying 'make me proud' but after I'm dead, you will be the last Gunslinger. Make them remember. And, as a personal favor... I never had the time but that AI... take it with you. I always felt bad given how alone she is there. She served well. Let her see the universe."
Giacomo… you never did things by halves, did you? Complete and total Fos…
"Anyway, you don't need any more ramblings from an old man and I'm running out of brandy here. All I can leave you is a heap of trouble and a lot of guns to deal with it. I'm not sorry about it. If there is advice I can give you is to live. I had an exciting, wonderful life, full of crazy and I'd not trade it for anything. It was a great run and I will make no apologies for it - I enjoyed myself too goddamn much. I hope you can say the same when the music stops. Live, love, hate fight and enjoy. All life is a stage after all. Ciao, bambina~! Giacomo Raventhir signing off!"
For a few moments there was silence but for the clinking of ice against glass before I heard his final words.
"Oh, I left you the FABULOUS SUIT and MASK that puts fear in the hearts of assholes across the entire Draconis Combine. The heroically fantastic legacy of The Suit Kamen is yours! MAKE ME PROUD! It comes with an awesome Kamen Mobile and spectacularly dapper Shadowhawk Kamen Mech (TM). And yes, that is a mech-sized sword. It is the SHADOWHAWK KAMEN MECH (TM), after all. Oh, and sue the motherfuckers that tried to sell Suit Kamen action figures - I never authorized that and the bastards never paid me my share!"
Oh, Kami-sama, I could already see that in my mind… the actual Kamen Mech… I recalled I actually had a toy-sized version of it and I clamped down on a surge of glee at the thought of owning the real deal.
The recording came to an end and an automated routine unlocked a file that, upon inspection, revealed an access code. I was certain I'd find exactly what Giacomo said in there and I paled as the implications sank in.
Mouuu, I already had enough enemies, father, why'd you have to go and set me up like this?
I put the bad thought aside and inspected the second data chip. It was interesting… the deed to a former Star League Defense Force facility in Telos IV… located on Sadib, the moon orbiting Telos IV, plus the shipyard slips orbiting it. I thought about it for a moment and I couldn't recall an active shipyard in that location so I figured it had to have died. As I continued to read, I realised I'd been right. The facility, and the slips, had been hammered by Amaris as his forces left Telos IV and the DCMS had stripped the base bare of what had survived, leaving only the ground installations that were nearly useless without a functioning orbital shipyard to protect and the frames and structural elements of the shipyard slips.
Giacomo had actually gone to the trouble to inspect those for salvageability and it looked like most of them could actually be brought back to service with moderate repairs… and completely replacing the actual equipment for shipyard work.
Needless to say, the really expensive part of building a shipyard was the equipment and tools, not the frame, but it was still cheaper to repair slips that hadn't taken serious structural damage than build anew, especially with the Inner Sphere's industrial base so badly damaged.
There was also an area in the fleet base that Giacomo had apparently refurbished and setup automated defenses on and I now had the codes to get in, plus a note telling me that the rest of my cache was in there… looked like Giacomo knew that handing me too much up front would be too much for Takashi to ignore.
Good.
Now I just had to figure out what to do and my family was about to arrive for dinner so I set those thoughts aside and stored the data chips in my safe. There would be time aplenty.
Dinner was largely uneventful, with uncle and auntie, mom, Theo and even Takashi all there, taking my mind off of my tragic loss and cheering me up. I really was grateful for the support they were displaying, but I was going to need time to get to grips with the situation… both Giacomo's demise and having two people in my head. Sort of.
---
Just as Giacomo had told me to do, I immediately set to discover the next day who had dared to produce and sell Kamen Rider merchandise without permission. Takashi, upon hearing about my efforts, allowed me to tap the Dragon's own legal team to help along with the process. It seemed he too felt offense at having family stiffed of what they were owed. Or so I thought, not knowing better. The question of what to do with the hardware I had inherited was pertinent, but nobody pressed me about it.
I did, at least, hire a crew for the jumpship and a small security team to make sure nobody tried to make off with my things. There was well over two billion ryu worth of hardware attached to the jumpship alone, if I let someone just take it all without a fight I'd feel like committing seppuku. Yes, seppuku, not sudoku. One was a suicide ritual, the other was a fancy game involving numbers. It was either hilarious or cringing, depending on how seriously you took it, whenever a foreigner made that mistake.
Did sudoku even exist in Battletech? Huh… I had to check, now that I'd thought about it. Maybe I could introduce it and make some money off it.
Further developments on the legal front would take weeks, though, so I let the lawyers have their fun while I focused on getting my money situation sorted out. The issue with having a big pile of money sitting in the bank was that idle money wasn't earning me any. But if I put it to use I had to either manage it all myself or, alternatively and more likely, hire people to manage it for me. And I also had to factor in how much money I'd need for my expenses. Which, now that I had a Monolith and nine dropships, meant that they would skyrocket.
Two hundred million was a lot of money, but maintenance plus crews was probably going to make a noticeable dent on that. Per month. I would have to get that under control in due time.
As I studied the situation, though, I came to the conclusion that the issue was inseparable from the question of what to do with the fleet base. I did not have to pay any fees or taxes on it, but I kept thinking about the shipyard and why Giacomo would get it. Sure, it was a nice place to build a base in as he seemed to have done, but there were plenty of other places. I came back to the report on the yards' condition.
The slips themselves were salvageable, if stripped of all the still working and expensive gear. The ground installations were also stripped, but other than the bunkers that had taken direct hits, they were quite intact. There could be cut-off bunkers, too, underground.
I could probably afford to repair one or more of those slips, I realised, if only I could get the damn tooling to equip it with from elsewhere. And with that, I could offer maintenance services in the very least and make money. And then I had an epiphany. I knew exactly where to go get my shipyard tooling.
Columbus.
I grinned as I realised where I was going next, even before hitting Telos IV. If I could strip Columbus, I'd get both the tooling I needed and a lot of LosTech I could sell for additional funds. Plus, I suspected there was also an HPG there and I was quite certain at least one dropship maintenance facility.
The main question was how to pull this off. Four mules might not be enough and I'd need a lot of people to strip the place. Hmm… I'd have to hire jumpships, cargo dropships and probably a few hundred technicians and laborers to strip the place bare.
I ran numbers for the rest of the day, figuring out what kind of force I'd need and where to get it from.
---
My blood pumped as I, strapped in my Stinger LAM's seat, pushed the throttle. The reaction was almost immediate, reactor spooling up to deliver the additional thrust and pushing me against my seat that much harder, while my flight suit did its job of countering the effects of aerospace fighter mode acceleration.
Kami-sama, this alone made coming here, getting boobs and being in the middle of one of the biggest snake pits (no pun intended), totally fucking worth it.
I giggled unashamedly when I pulled the throttle some… and then started the acrobatics. Oof, the G forces were nasty. But also fun.
I totally was a thrillseeker. I blamed Giacomo for that, it had to be in his blood.
Shifting into AirMech mode in one smooth practiced motion changed the flight dynamics and I adjusted accordingly. Executing a few barrel-rolls like that was not an amateur's maneuver but true to form I did them without thinking.
My instructors had taught me well. I laughed in exhilaration as I continued to abuse the laws of physics and perform a little airshow of mine for whomever might've been watching.
The cherry on top was the fact I couldn't help but picture how my LAM looked like from the outside… pink with Hello Kitty motif.
I could totally understand and empathize with the americans packing their Hello Kitty assault rifles. Although, I also had to admit, unlike they I expected to use mine in actual battlefields.
I dropped down closer to the ground, practicing a maneuver to go nap of the earth in a rush. I kept my nerves and pulled it off nicely. My confidence in myself grew and I grinned. Yes, I really was born for this.
--------------------
More for later... enjoy. I might be like a third of the way through chapter 1 by now...
Chapter 1 - Part 3
Decisions and oh my, who is that?
--------------------
I relaxed under the shower-head sprinkling hot water over my head. The flight was awesome, but it certainly had left me in need of the services a shower stall could provide. My mind, instead of basking in the glorious feelings I had during my Hello Kitty outing, wandered over to Theodore Kurita.
I knew his feelings well. I wasn't entirely sure when he started developing them, but his teen crush on me had not abated one iota since. In fact, I was sure if anything else they'd grown stronger and more refined as he aged. I recalled how he reacted when I was shot down at fifteen and spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from my wounds.
Takashi had been livid that anyone had dared to do it and Subhash had been very efficient at removing the stench of treachery from the Otomo when it became obvious someone in it had been responsible for the attempt. Theodore, on the other hand, stayed by my side, watching over me, at least as long as he could get away with it. And even sometimes he couldn't, but still did it anyway.
Such devotion was heartwarming, but also awkward for me. I didn't return his feelings. Oh, I liked, if not loved, that boy, but not as a romantic prospect. Knowing his deepest desire was to sweep me off my feet and take me to the altar always lurked in the back of my mind - I had to keep from making things worse, after all.
I knew Takashi didn't disapprove of me as a suitor for Theo, but I had no illusions regarding my standing. I was several steps down whoever he might be considering. Until I'd landed in Ayeka's head, at least, and inherited all that stuff? I was most likely going to end up as a field agent, doing stuff for uncle and auntie. Why would Takashi let me marry Theo? I didn't bring much, other than bigoted enemies. Even now, with the jumpship, dropships and my budding plan to revive a shipyard I would still be a far cry. I thought my assets would at best cancel out my political enemies.
No, if Takashi let any relationship actually develop between me and Theo, it'd almost certainly be one akin to the one that led to my share of Kurita blood - on the wrong side of the sheets.
I'd need to do something spectacular like bury Katrina under a few thousand metric tons of rocks to get his absolute approval to be wed to Theodore. I chuckled at the thought. How likely was that? Heh. Just fine by me, though, I didn't want to marry anybody anytime soon, and Theo had to produce heirs as soon as possible.
Well, I got my hands on the shampoo and started working my hair. No more thinking about Theo, girl, get going. You have work to do.
---
Days later, I stood before Takashi and Subhash, waiting as they read the plan I'd laid out for them to read.
"How confident are you of this intelligence, niece?"
"Confident enough to give it a shot that will put me in the comforts of a jumpship for several months," I replied.
"From here, that would be five months just to get to this Columbus. Even if you turn back immediately upon arriving there, you'll not be back at the edge of Combine space in less than eight months," he continued.
I nodded at uncle Subhash. "I am aware of the timings. And realistically I will probably need at least a month to strip the place, so I might take closer to ten months. Still, the potential reward is too much for me to pass up on. Giacomo must've had this in mind himself and left it for me to carry it through."
"Restoring a shipyard by looting another," interrupted Takashi. "If this Columbus exists. Why shouldn't we use Columbus instead, cousin?"
"Because the logistics are horrible. It is well beyond our borders and all the closest worlds to it are backyard worlds with little industry to help support it with. While it might take me around an year and a half just to get there and then get to Telos, once I am there I should have at least some shipyard capability restored within an year, two tops. And then the sky is the limit, with plenty of wealthy industrial worlds around to provide goods and services to the shipyard. If we try to use Columbus, we've got a very long logistical tail tying up lots of jumpships, no capability to communicate through HPG and no local population and industrial base to work with. I understand the remoteness may have its own benefits, but they do not in this case outweigh the disadvantages. We are not the Star League, capable of supporting a major base out in the boonies."
I knew I'd just won that argument as I observed Takashi. In truth, I also had another major concern but I couldn't say it out loud… Comstar would find Columbus in a few years and for that reason alone I had to loot it sooner rather than later and I couldn't keep it.
Not that I really wanted a base out in the boonies in any case. Well, it could be useful as a staging ground against the Clans but that was about it, really.
"Very well, cousin. I am willing to expend some effort in aiding you in this expedition. Should you find what you seek, I expect you to send us a coded message with your findings. If you do indeed recover shipyard tooling, I will expedite your journey to Telos IV and arrange for whatever assistance may be required to put it to good use."
Takashi then addressed Subhash. "Any concerns with the 'Hasegawa' angle?"
"The identity of Yuriko Hasegawa is rock solid. She was a terran who moved to the Combine with her parents at an early age and died to an accident. She had next to no surviving kin and had a remarkable resemblance to my niece here. For those reasons we co-opted her and crafted the rest of her life for Ayeka to use if needed. It will stand up to long term scrutiny. The greater risk is her enemies, who know her well enough to recognize her, seeing Hasegawa and connecting the dots. But, in principle, it should work and will allow her to work much more freely."
The question of whether it would be honorable to pretend to be someone else entirely for years in order to dodge all the assassins that would be sent Ayeka's way, as well as all the annoying honor challenges, was set aside. Realistically I didn't really mind the prospect of bashing some heads in in honor duels, but I couldn't do those and avoid the assassins as well. And if my enemies heard that I was inheriting a freaking shipyard and restoring it, they'd flip into murderfrenzy mode.
Yeah, I did not want to deal with that crap. I'd suffered two assassination attempts already, the recent events would send everybody out of the woodwork after me. I would've rather shacked up with Theo until he knocked me preggers and then said 'Yes' than put up with that. So, the plan was to adopt Yuriko Hasegawa as my new persona while getting Telos IV fixed up and operating under a new company named JuraiTech, owned by Hasegawa herself.
Yeah, it wasn't going to be all fun and games to do what amounted to a long term infiltration mission, but meh. Very few people would actually know enough to recognize me by who I really was and even if some people could recognize me by seeing me in the palace, as long as they could not place exactly who I was I had cover stories for that eventuality.
"In that case… Cousin, you may proceed. Confer with Subhash and Florimel regarding your specific needs. As long as they are reasonable, they will be met."
I smiled. I had approval. All that I needed now was to actually implement the plan.
---
Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, waved at a table as he approached the living spaces and office areas of the Palace in New Avalon, his visitors in tow. Said visitors were his sisters, Marie and Evangeline, plus his niece Sasha Margret-Davion.
"It's your choice, business before dinner or during."
Sasha, not even one hour away from having found out about her own inheritance, made her choice. "Dinner is for family, let's get this out of the way shall we?"
She had no intention of giving the Fox more time to plan.
He nodded, leading the group to his private office. "Sit," he said as he slid into his own seat. "Details. And what are you thinking?"
"I found out thirty minutes before I came here. I found out my father is a pig, and probably needed pummeled. And he left a damn regiment in battlegear to me as my inheritance. Plus a few things that are less sticky," she said. After a few moments, she added. "A couple regiments of gear, actually."
"He's dead," Hanse said, rubbing his chin. "I correct Hell's handling him. Exactly what else besides… a couple of regiments in what sense?"
Sasha began ticking off the list. "Jumpers. Mule Dropships. The other drops are military-grade. Four battalions of Infantry equipment, around two hundred vees, forty-four mechs, Thirty-six-ish Aeros and a Partridge in a Pear tree."
Hanse gave a low, pained whistle. "That's going to sting. Dare I hope you're at least willing to consider MSRP, not fair market?"
The others started snickering. Evangeline and Marie both knew no-one in the room would give an inch they didn't have to.
"And which of the spinning plates will you have to de-fund to afford that, Uncle?", Sasha asked, worried that he might need to take funds away from efforts like NAIS. On her personal list of things that needed to happen, NAIS had been right on top.
"I'll figure that out, which is my job. If nothing else, I can delay a purchase or two, and if you're willing to take payments... if needs be, I'll conquer another planet or two," he said with a grin and a facepalm from Marie.
Evangeline just laughed.
Sasha then decided it was time to put a chunk of her cards on the table. "Hell I hadn't even decided what I want to do with that battlegear. Bluntly the jumpers and Mules I can put to work as a business. Those are mine, Yes, I know those are the sticking point that you really want, more than any of the wargear. Now guess what I'm inclined to use them for."
He sighed. "You know the laws, as well as I do. And your mother and aunt know sure as hell I'm not really fond of adding more household regiments to the AFFS's rolls and working hard to clean out the Warrior's cabal, which is what they try with their household troops."
Sasha was in agreement there. "The Cabals can go to hell, I'd rather deal with the kind of professionals the academies are churning out now, and I was speaking of what I want to do with the the jumpers, Uncle, not the mechs. The mechs and such... Do I want to use them? Oh yes, yes I do. I really do. But I need to formulate a functional purpose proposal, not just another 'Household Guard'. I agree, you need another of those like you need a hole in the head."
"Depends on who says," he shot back. "I'm sure Mad Max or Takashi would love an additional hole in all our heads."
He snorted. "Exactly what do you have in mind, then? Use it similar to how Ian used a windfall to develop the Armored Cav?"
Sasha took a breath and responded. "No, more military history. Going back to Star League, and old armies and wet navies back on Terra."
He raised an eyebrow. Davions were weaned on military history. Even Sasha's mother, the medical doctor who's never picked up a rifle, knew more about military history than most doctorates. Sasha was relatively certain both Ian and Hanse Davion had written some of the tactical doctrine books that were used in the academies under pseudonyms.
"Deep Strikes, Heavy Raiders, Forward assault tactics that haven't been used since the SLDF went out the window. You know, the book that had to be abandoned for Skirmish warfare over the past 300 years. If I recall the SLDF drew heavily from various old earth Doctrines such as Marine Raiders, Rangers, SAS, Spetznaz, the works."
"Not quite true, they abandoned the deep strike concept, daughter", corrected her mother. "The concept of hard fast assault on the other hand, was their Striker concept, yes," she added with a Dramatic Pause. "The issue with deep strike, correct me if I'm wrong, Hanse, is tying up the assets for that long."
Marie nodded and added her own two cents. "We can't afford to have an RCT or even a third of one, or a good merc unit off the line for that long."
Hanse picked up the thread nodding once. "They're right, though the reason why people abandoned the deep strike doctrine, was the Reunification war, though there were efforts during the 1st and 2nd succession war, by all parties, to target military important assets." He shrugged and, spreading his hands, concluded with "Insanity, but, we were just as insane."
He leaned back in his chair. "Strategically, the militaries of the Inner sphere are skirmishers, no question. Though tactically, I'd argue we practice Shock, but, I'll admit, we do count the cost," he continued before nodding once. "At this time, niece, I like the idea."
Sasha felt encouraged. "I'm thinking more along the lines of how the Armored Cav don't stick around to get bogged down. Deep Striking long-term supply line is a tangled mess, and even trying to figure out how to do the logistics is almost as expensive as carrying them out, right? Get in, cause focused havoc to disrupt supply, command and support chains in support of other offensives."
"Depends on the exact unit, though ammunition you can often get on site, if you pick your targets wisely."
"If the tactics work, get to training other units to utilize and refine the doctrine further," Sasha added.
"And of course not on the Cav," he said, leaning back against the chair more. "I said I like the idea, niece. In fact, didn't your Mil Theory II class discuss this? I believe it's in one of the books they are assigned… At least in base concept. Pitcairn discussed this at NAMA, when he founded it. And why the SLDF abandoned the mindset that we thought before the RUW would be decisive in interstellar war between an outmatched foe and it's superior enemy."
He finally shook his head. "But the issue I'm referring to. I like the idea. But I'm not at this time in a position to authorize it, Either as a new household unit, or as a full up AFFS unit, with a core of dedicated equipment donated by you. Putting aside the issues of those jumpships being needed either for our logistics, or the civilian economy, badly, it is this simple. We are somewhat meeting replacement needs for our units. Strategy is all good. Operational concepts are all good. But the logistics of a dedicated deep strike unit, is the killer. You want to create a unit that will eat at equipment. We're barely meeting expansion goals now, adding your unit as an active hard strike would throw replacement systems out of whack."
"I know. That's one of the reasons why I wish I had the time to generate a definitive proposal before I had to throw it at you", Sasha admitted, giving Marie a light glare, which she simply returned with a smug smirk. "Spitballing doesn't do much."
He nodded. "And then there is the politics. Putting aside a new household regiment issues, there is the simple fact, that politically, I can't commit, ever, without clear proof we're growing stronger, to sending a unit off for 6 plus months on it's own, the basic plan is solid. The politics are the killer, really."
"Household units have more flexibility, by and large, in that regard," he added, shrugging, "but… then there are those politics. Sell me on at least forming a Household unit, Without encouraging the Cabals. Oh, and accept that it's quite likely you'll waste these mechs and equipment. Just do not get too many men killed for an idea that while good, isn't practical at this time."
Anyone who doesn't think Uncle is deadly serious when he admonishes someone not to waste lives is an idiot, Sasha thought.
"I will address your last concern in a moment."
He raised an eyebrow and then Sasha began. "A Household unit? Without encouraging the cabals? Make a statement and staff it with competent officers raised from outside the nobility. I have no title, The cabals are the 'warrior elite' of the noble houses? I would imagine that would be quite the opposite of encouragement, don't you think?"
She continued, "And as for wasting lives, How do you keep rookie officers in line Uncle? You inflict an experienced noncom on him or her. If I tried to do something like this by myself you would be entirely justified in writing me off as crazy. Competent officers with something I, personally lack with my grasp of the theorem and logistics and all of that. Experience in actual combat and running a unit. That also ensures that the men and women in the command won't be concerned that they might be under some glory-seeking nitwit who considers them to be expandable pawns on the path to glory."
"Oh, given. But... if I was to raise a new regiment, under my own authority as First Prince, it'd be the 6th Guards, niece", he said with a smile. The cheeky bastard, Sasha thought. "But I'm sure that given how slow advancement is, a lot of junior and stuck in their current units would leap to join a unit by a noble who's clearly of the same mind as I am, and that the AFFS considers a 'training assignment'"
Sasha was quite sure her mother couldn't have gotten stiffer… or that Hanse's head wouldn't have exploded if looks could kill. So she decided to be blunt.
"And would ensure complete lack of anything resembling what I'd suggested. We're coming into new times, You're strengthening the Realm as you go and you're even doing something no one has had the time or inclination in the founding of the NAIS to improve the education and knowledge base. And it's not like you don't have units exploring new methods, tactics and operational doctrines off the books. At least, if you didn't I'd be shocked."
He smirked back at Sasha. "To be fair, a lot of the methods and concepts are actually logistical and large scale operations, the current tactical and planetary operational doctrines work well. Are you like your mother and Aunt Marie, or will you accept our family curse?"
"Which one? At last count we had what, four? Five?"
"The curse of duty and title. Privilege too, some would say enviously." Then he looked at a photo and said, "I doubt they think of what we do to earn that."
Evangeline growled. "Hanse."
Before she could go any further, Hanse interrupted her a bit cooly.
"We have had this discussion before, and I said I would wait til she was truly of age, Evangeline." He ignored Sasha for the moment, raising his hand. "I, and Ian, respected your position for yourself, and for your daughter until she was of age. You cannot, can not, argue anymore that she is not of age, nor willing to take the responsibilities."
She was glaring daggers at Hanse when Marie quipped, "Dinner is going to be sooo fun tonight."
Sasha looked around for a moment. "This is why I taught little Morgan the game of 123 Not It! But if need must... Then we do what we must. I, however, have one demand in turn."
He turned back to Sasha and raised an eyebrow, but what took Sasha's attention was noticing the subject of the photo right next to Ian's. The face of a dead woman, killed rather cruelly when a Draconis Awesome deliberately stomped on her cockpit. To Hanse Davion, her corpse wasn't even cold, the memories fresh.
Sasha shook her head, realising he still needed time to mourn. "Strike that. I reserve the right to voice that one later."
She wanted him to get off his surly-ass and get laid, find a wife and get lots of babies so she'd never have to worry about inheriting his chair. But not yet.
"I see", he said, turning to a screen and pressing a button. "Csomad I believe has no planetary noble currently. Marquess Csomad. Yes, I like it. Or you had another planet in mind?"
"Why, exactly, are you choosing Csomad?", Sasha asked.
"I just liked the name," he said with a shrug. "And it's a world in need of a firm hand, as it's part of the Skid Row, which I am trying to fix, far enough away from the Taurians that they'll not really notice a RCT or even a fair bit of one there, and putting upwards of most of an RCT's combat power there will help deter the bandits of the Pirate's haven, as well as protect it, and you can respond. In other worlds. I solve a problem."
Sasha rubbed the bridge of her nose, already feeling the migraine coming. "You've been waiting to do this for how long now?"
"And get away with it? Ian was plotting it two days after your birth." He shot a certain other redhead a look. "We never were pleased in a lot of ways with Father's ... actions." His eyes then wandered to the other one. "Not at all."
"Ian couldn't plot his way out of a paper bag. He assigned you to do it, little brother," Marie stated in amusement.
He just snorted. "He did not ask me."
Evangeline sighed. "No, he'd just tell you Sasha's getting a planet. He never really did understand going small."
Marie then nodded, adding "And expect you to arrange it, without being told. We all know how it works."
Ian had been Sasha's hero. He let her ride his Atlas and fire the guns. He taught her how to make the monster walk and told her stories. "I miss him. But for now, Mother, I am going to listen to you, not ignore you out of hand. Just no throwing office supplies this time please."
Hanse winced as she turned a look on him. "Not at you. At a certain conniving Fox, I make no promises."
Hanse looked at her. "This is your chair by right, not mine, not Ian's. If not yours, Marie's, and you both know it. Do not think otherwise." In a low tone, he added, "And the succession must be secured."
He turned to Marie, "Any hope?"
She snorted bitterly. "You were right. I shouldn't have. But, no, I don't think it's even occurred to him what's going on between us. I was just a stepping stone."
"Well," he said, sighing. "And that's why I never argued with you much, Eva. But, now? No choice."
He looked at Sasha. "So, you up for the challenge?"
She nodded, simultaneously signing her fate and making her mother want to strangle her brother all in the same moment. "Someone has to be. Marie, is little Morgan here with you?"
Marie narrowed her eyes at Sasha. "Why do you ask?"
"Would you mind if I carry on a family tradition? I think your son will find it fun."
Eva buried her face in her hands, and a muffled "What did you make the helmet out with?" was barely audible.
Sasha grinned.
That evening Sasha would set another photo in her spartan room, next to the picture of herself and Ian in his Atlas. The little boy's neurohelmet had the Cartoon mechs from "Task Force Wild" emblazoned proudly on it and the look on his face was positively ecstatic. She'd taken the picture just as he had been allowed to fire the main autocannons of Sasha's mech, Knight-Error.
She'd always remember that little boy, practically vibrating with excitement as he realized he would get to ride in her Monster Mech. She understood Uncle Ian just a little bit more that day.
--------------------
And that's the Davion CYOA character. Oh dear.
--------------------
I relaxed under the shower-head sprinkling hot water over my head. The flight was awesome, but it certainly had left me in need of the services a shower stall could provide. My mind, instead of basking in the glorious feelings I had during my Hello Kitty outing, wandered over to Theodore Kurita.
I knew his feelings well. I wasn't entirely sure when he started developing them, but his teen crush on me had not abated one iota since. In fact, I was sure if anything else they'd grown stronger and more refined as he aged. I recalled how he reacted when I was shot down at fifteen and spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from my wounds.
Takashi had been livid that anyone had dared to do it and Subhash had been very efficient at removing the stench of treachery from the Otomo when it became obvious someone in it had been responsible for the attempt. Theodore, on the other hand, stayed by my side, watching over me, at least as long as he could get away with it. And even sometimes he couldn't, but still did it anyway.
Such devotion was heartwarming, but also awkward for me. I didn't return his feelings. Oh, I liked, if not loved, that boy, but not as a romantic prospect. Knowing his deepest desire was to sweep me off my feet and take me to the altar always lurked in the back of my mind - I had to keep from making things worse, after all.
I knew Takashi didn't disapprove of me as a suitor for Theo, but I had no illusions regarding my standing. I was several steps down whoever he might be considering. Until I'd landed in Ayeka's head, at least, and inherited all that stuff? I was most likely going to end up as a field agent, doing stuff for uncle and auntie. Why would Takashi let me marry Theo? I didn't bring much, other than bigoted enemies. Even now, with the jumpship, dropships and my budding plan to revive a shipyard I would still be a far cry. I thought my assets would at best cancel out my political enemies.
No, if Takashi let any relationship actually develop between me and Theo, it'd almost certainly be one akin to the one that led to my share of Kurita blood - on the wrong side of the sheets.
I'd need to do something spectacular like bury Katrina under a few thousand metric tons of rocks to get his absolute approval to be wed to Theodore. I chuckled at the thought. How likely was that? Heh. Just fine by me, though, I didn't want to marry anybody anytime soon, and Theo had to produce heirs as soon as possible.
Well, I got my hands on the shampoo and started working my hair. No more thinking about Theo, girl, get going. You have work to do.
---
Days later, I stood before Takashi and Subhash, waiting as they read the plan I'd laid out for them to read.
"How confident are you of this intelligence, niece?"
"Confident enough to give it a shot that will put me in the comforts of a jumpship for several months," I replied.
"From here, that would be five months just to get to this Columbus. Even if you turn back immediately upon arriving there, you'll not be back at the edge of Combine space in less than eight months," he continued.
I nodded at uncle Subhash. "I am aware of the timings. And realistically I will probably need at least a month to strip the place, so I might take closer to ten months. Still, the potential reward is too much for me to pass up on. Giacomo must've had this in mind himself and left it for me to carry it through."
"Restoring a shipyard by looting another," interrupted Takashi. "If this Columbus exists. Why shouldn't we use Columbus instead, cousin?"
"Because the logistics are horrible. It is well beyond our borders and all the closest worlds to it are backyard worlds with little industry to help support it with. While it might take me around an year and a half just to get there and then get to Telos, once I am there I should have at least some shipyard capability restored within an year, two tops. And then the sky is the limit, with plenty of wealthy industrial worlds around to provide goods and services to the shipyard. If we try to use Columbus, we've got a very long logistical tail tying up lots of jumpships, no capability to communicate through HPG and no local population and industrial base to work with. I understand the remoteness may have its own benefits, but they do not in this case outweigh the disadvantages. We are not the Star League, capable of supporting a major base out in the boonies."
I knew I'd just won that argument as I observed Takashi. In truth, I also had another major concern but I couldn't say it out loud… Comstar would find Columbus in a few years and for that reason alone I had to loot it sooner rather than later and I couldn't keep it.
Not that I really wanted a base out in the boonies in any case. Well, it could be useful as a staging ground against the Clans but that was about it, really.
"Very well, cousin. I am willing to expend some effort in aiding you in this expedition. Should you find what you seek, I expect you to send us a coded message with your findings. If you do indeed recover shipyard tooling, I will expedite your journey to Telos IV and arrange for whatever assistance may be required to put it to good use."
Takashi then addressed Subhash. "Any concerns with the 'Hasegawa' angle?"
"The identity of Yuriko Hasegawa is rock solid. She was a terran who moved to the Combine with her parents at an early age and died to an accident. She had next to no surviving kin and had a remarkable resemblance to my niece here. For those reasons we co-opted her and crafted the rest of her life for Ayeka to use if needed. It will stand up to long term scrutiny. The greater risk is her enemies, who know her well enough to recognize her, seeing Hasegawa and connecting the dots. But, in principle, it should work and will allow her to work much more freely."
The question of whether it would be honorable to pretend to be someone else entirely for years in order to dodge all the assassins that would be sent Ayeka's way, as well as all the annoying honor challenges, was set aside. Realistically I didn't really mind the prospect of bashing some heads in in honor duels, but I couldn't do those and avoid the assassins as well. And if my enemies heard that I was inheriting a freaking shipyard and restoring it, they'd flip into murderfrenzy mode.
Yeah, I did not want to deal with that crap. I'd suffered two assassination attempts already, the recent events would send everybody out of the woodwork after me. I would've rather shacked up with Theo until he knocked me preggers and then said 'Yes' than put up with that. So, the plan was to adopt Yuriko Hasegawa as my new persona while getting Telos IV fixed up and operating under a new company named JuraiTech, owned by Hasegawa herself.
Yeah, it wasn't going to be all fun and games to do what amounted to a long term infiltration mission, but meh. Very few people would actually know enough to recognize me by who I really was and even if some people could recognize me by seeing me in the palace, as long as they could not place exactly who I was I had cover stories for that eventuality.
"In that case… Cousin, you may proceed. Confer with Subhash and Florimel regarding your specific needs. As long as they are reasonable, they will be met."
I smiled. I had approval. All that I needed now was to actually implement the plan.
---
Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, waved at a table as he approached the living spaces and office areas of the Palace in New Avalon, his visitors in tow. Said visitors were his sisters, Marie and Evangeline, plus his niece Sasha Margret-Davion.
"It's your choice, business before dinner or during."
Sasha, not even one hour away from having found out about her own inheritance, made her choice. "Dinner is for family, let's get this out of the way shall we?"
She had no intention of giving the Fox more time to plan.
He nodded, leading the group to his private office. "Sit," he said as he slid into his own seat. "Details. And what are you thinking?"
"I found out thirty minutes before I came here. I found out my father is a pig, and probably needed pummeled. And he left a damn regiment in battlegear to me as my inheritance. Plus a few things that are less sticky," she said. After a few moments, she added. "A couple regiments of gear, actually."
"He's dead," Hanse said, rubbing his chin. "I correct Hell's handling him. Exactly what else besides… a couple of regiments in what sense?"
Sasha began ticking off the list. "Jumpers. Mule Dropships. The other drops are military-grade. Four battalions of Infantry equipment, around two hundred vees, forty-four mechs, Thirty-six-ish Aeros and a Partridge in a Pear tree."
Hanse gave a low, pained whistle. "That's going to sting. Dare I hope you're at least willing to consider MSRP, not fair market?"
The others started snickering. Evangeline and Marie both knew no-one in the room would give an inch they didn't have to.
"And which of the spinning plates will you have to de-fund to afford that, Uncle?", Sasha asked, worried that he might need to take funds away from efforts like NAIS. On her personal list of things that needed to happen, NAIS had been right on top.
"I'll figure that out, which is my job. If nothing else, I can delay a purchase or two, and if you're willing to take payments... if needs be, I'll conquer another planet or two," he said with a grin and a facepalm from Marie.
Evangeline just laughed.
Sasha then decided it was time to put a chunk of her cards on the table. "Hell I hadn't even decided what I want to do with that battlegear. Bluntly the jumpers and Mules I can put to work as a business. Those are mine, Yes, I know those are the sticking point that you really want, more than any of the wargear. Now guess what I'm inclined to use them for."
He sighed. "You know the laws, as well as I do. And your mother and aunt know sure as hell I'm not really fond of adding more household regiments to the AFFS's rolls and working hard to clean out the Warrior's cabal, which is what they try with their household troops."
Sasha was in agreement there. "The Cabals can go to hell, I'd rather deal with the kind of professionals the academies are churning out now, and I was speaking of what I want to do with the the jumpers, Uncle, not the mechs. The mechs and such... Do I want to use them? Oh yes, yes I do. I really do. But I need to formulate a functional purpose proposal, not just another 'Household Guard'. I agree, you need another of those like you need a hole in the head."
"Depends on who says," he shot back. "I'm sure Mad Max or Takashi would love an additional hole in all our heads."
He snorted. "Exactly what do you have in mind, then? Use it similar to how Ian used a windfall to develop the Armored Cav?"
Sasha took a breath and responded. "No, more military history. Going back to Star League, and old armies and wet navies back on Terra."
He raised an eyebrow. Davions were weaned on military history. Even Sasha's mother, the medical doctor who's never picked up a rifle, knew more about military history than most doctorates. Sasha was relatively certain both Ian and Hanse Davion had written some of the tactical doctrine books that were used in the academies under pseudonyms.
"Deep Strikes, Heavy Raiders, Forward assault tactics that haven't been used since the SLDF went out the window. You know, the book that had to be abandoned for Skirmish warfare over the past 300 years. If I recall the SLDF drew heavily from various old earth Doctrines such as Marine Raiders, Rangers, SAS, Spetznaz, the works."
"Not quite true, they abandoned the deep strike concept, daughter", corrected her mother. "The concept of hard fast assault on the other hand, was their Striker concept, yes," she added with a Dramatic Pause. "The issue with deep strike, correct me if I'm wrong, Hanse, is tying up the assets for that long."
Marie nodded and added her own two cents. "We can't afford to have an RCT or even a third of one, or a good merc unit off the line for that long."
Hanse picked up the thread nodding once. "They're right, though the reason why people abandoned the deep strike doctrine, was the Reunification war, though there were efforts during the 1st and 2nd succession war, by all parties, to target military important assets." He shrugged and, spreading his hands, concluded with "Insanity, but, we were just as insane."
He leaned back in his chair. "Strategically, the militaries of the Inner sphere are skirmishers, no question. Though tactically, I'd argue we practice Shock, but, I'll admit, we do count the cost," he continued before nodding once. "At this time, niece, I like the idea."
Sasha felt encouraged. "I'm thinking more along the lines of how the Armored Cav don't stick around to get bogged down. Deep Striking long-term supply line is a tangled mess, and even trying to figure out how to do the logistics is almost as expensive as carrying them out, right? Get in, cause focused havoc to disrupt supply, command and support chains in support of other offensives."
"Depends on the exact unit, though ammunition you can often get on site, if you pick your targets wisely."
"If the tactics work, get to training other units to utilize and refine the doctrine further," Sasha added.
"And of course not on the Cav," he said, leaning back against the chair more. "I said I like the idea, niece. In fact, didn't your Mil Theory II class discuss this? I believe it's in one of the books they are assigned… At least in base concept. Pitcairn discussed this at NAMA, when he founded it. And why the SLDF abandoned the mindset that we thought before the RUW would be decisive in interstellar war between an outmatched foe and it's superior enemy."
He finally shook his head. "But the issue I'm referring to. I like the idea. But I'm not at this time in a position to authorize it, Either as a new household unit, or as a full up AFFS unit, with a core of dedicated equipment donated by you. Putting aside the issues of those jumpships being needed either for our logistics, or the civilian economy, badly, it is this simple. We are somewhat meeting replacement needs for our units. Strategy is all good. Operational concepts are all good. But the logistics of a dedicated deep strike unit, is the killer. You want to create a unit that will eat at equipment. We're barely meeting expansion goals now, adding your unit as an active hard strike would throw replacement systems out of whack."
"I know. That's one of the reasons why I wish I had the time to generate a definitive proposal before I had to throw it at you", Sasha admitted, giving Marie a light glare, which she simply returned with a smug smirk. "Spitballing doesn't do much."
He nodded. "And then there is the politics. Putting aside a new household regiment issues, there is the simple fact, that politically, I can't commit, ever, without clear proof we're growing stronger, to sending a unit off for 6 plus months on it's own, the basic plan is solid. The politics are the killer, really."
"Household units have more flexibility, by and large, in that regard," he added, shrugging, "but… then there are those politics. Sell me on at least forming a Household unit, Without encouraging the Cabals. Oh, and accept that it's quite likely you'll waste these mechs and equipment. Just do not get too many men killed for an idea that while good, isn't practical at this time."
Anyone who doesn't think Uncle is deadly serious when he admonishes someone not to waste lives is an idiot, Sasha thought.
"I will address your last concern in a moment."
He raised an eyebrow and then Sasha began. "A Household unit? Without encouraging the cabals? Make a statement and staff it with competent officers raised from outside the nobility. I have no title, The cabals are the 'warrior elite' of the noble houses? I would imagine that would be quite the opposite of encouragement, don't you think?"
She continued, "And as for wasting lives, How do you keep rookie officers in line Uncle? You inflict an experienced noncom on him or her. If I tried to do something like this by myself you would be entirely justified in writing me off as crazy. Competent officers with something I, personally lack with my grasp of the theorem and logistics and all of that. Experience in actual combat and running a unit. That also ensures that the men and women in the command won't be concerned that they might be under some glory-seeking nitwit who considers them to be expandable pawns on the path to glory."
"Oh, given. But... if I was to raise a new regiment, under my own authority as First Prince, it'd be the 6th Guards, niece", he said with a smile. The cheeky bastard, Sasha thought. "But I'm sure that given how slow advancement is, a lot of junior and stuck in their current units would leap to join a unit by a noble who's clearly of the same mind as I am, and that the AFFS considers a 'training assignment'"
Sasha was quite sure her mother couldn't have gotten stiffer… or that Hanse's head wouldn't have exploded if looks could kill. So she decided to be blunt.
"And would ensure complete lack of anything resembling what I'd suggested. We're coming into new times, You're strengthening the Realm as you go and you're even doing something no one has had the time or inclination in the founding of the NAIS to improve the education and knowledge base. And it's not like you don't have units exploring new methods, tactics and operational doctrines off the books. At least, if you didn't I'd be shocked."
He smirked back at Sasha. "To be fair, a lot of the methods and concepts are actually logistical and large scale operations, the current tactical and planetary operational doctrines work well. Are you like your mother and Aunt Marie, or will you accept our family curse?"
"Which one? At last count we had what, four? Five?"
"The curse of duty and title. Privilege too, some would say enviously." Then he looked at a photo and said, "I doubt they think of what we do to earn that."
Evangeline growled. "Hanse."
Before she could go any further, Hanse interrupted her a bit cooly.
"We have had this discussion before, and I said I would wait til she was truly of age, Evangeline." He ignored Sasha for the moment, raising his hand. "I, and Ian, respected your position for yourself, and for your daughter until she was of age. You cannot, can not, argue anymore that she is not of age, nor willing to take the responsibilities."
She was glaring daggers at Hanse when Marie quipped, "Dinner is going to be sooo fun tonight."
Sasha looked around for a moment. "This is why I taught little Morgan the game of 123 Not It! But if need must... Then we do what we must. I, however, have one demand in turn."
He turned back to Sasha and raised an eyebrow, but what took Sasha's attention was noticing the subject of the photo right next to Ian's. The face of a dead woman, killed rather cruelly when a Draconis Awesome deliberately stomped on her cockpit. To Hanse Davion, her corpse wasn't even cold, the memories fresh.
Sasha shook her head, realising he still needed time to mourn. "Strike that. I reserve the right to voice that one later."
She wanted him to get off his surly-ass and get laid, find a wife and get lots of babies so she'd never have to worry about inheriting his chair. But not yet.
"I see", he said, turning to a screen and pressing a button. "Csomad I believe has no planetary noble currently. Marquess Csomad. Yes, I like it. Or you had another planet in mind?"
"Why, exactly, are you choosing Csomad?", Sasha asked.
"I just liked the name," he said with a shrug. "And it's a world in need of a firm hand, as it's part of the Skid Row, which I am trying to fix, far enough away from the Taurians that they'll not really notice a RCT or even a fair bit of one there, and putting upwards of most of an RCT's combat power there will help deter the bandits of the Pirate's haven, as well as protect it, and you can respond. In other worlds. I solve a problem."
Sasha rubbed the bridge of her nose, already feeling the migraine coming. "You've been waiting to do this for how long now?"
"And get away with it? Ian was plotting it two days after your birth." He shot a certain other redhead a look. "We never were pleased in a lot of ways with Father's ... actions." His eyes then wandered to the other one. "Not at all."
"Ian couldn't plot his way out of a paper bag. He assigned you to do it, little brother," Marie stated in amusement.
He just snorted. "He did not ask me."
Evangeline sighed. "No, he'd just tell you Sasha's getting a planet. He never really did understand going small."
Marie then nodded, adding "And expect you to arrange it, without being told. We all know how it works."
Ian had been Sasha's hero. He let her ride his Atlas and fire the guns. He taught her how to make the monster walk and told her stories. "I miss him. But for now, Mother, I am going to listen to you, not ignore you out of hand. Just no throwing office supplies this time please."
Hanse winced as she turned a look on him. "Not at you. At a certain conniving Fox, I make no promises."
Hanse looked at her. "This is your chair by right, not mine, not Ian's. If not yours, Marie's, and you both know it. Do not think otherwise." In a low tone, he added, "And the succession must be secured."
He turned to Marie, "Any hope?"
She snorted bitterly. "You were right. I shouldn't have. But, no, I don't think it's even occurred to him what's going on between us. I was just a stepping stone."
"Well," he said, sighing. "And that's why I never argued with you much, Eva. But, now? No choice."
He looked at Sasha. "So, you up for the challenge?"
She nodded, simultaneously signing her fate and making her mother want to strangle her brother all in the same moment. "Someone has to be. Marie, is little Morgan here with you?"
Marie narrowed her eyes at Sasha. "Why do you ask?"
"Would you mind if I carry on a family tradition? I think your son will find it fun."
Eva buried her face in her hands, and a muffled "What did you make the helmet out with?" was barely audible.
Sasha grinned.
That evening Sasha would set another photo in her spartan room, next to the picture of herself and Ian in his Atlas. The little boy's neurohelmet had the Cartoon mechs from "Task Force Wild" emblazoned proudly on it and the look on his face was positively ecstatic. She'd taken the picture just as he had been allowed to fire the main autocannons of Sasha's mech, Knight-Error.
She'd always remember that little boy, practically vibrating with excitement as he realized he would get to ride in her Monster Mech. She understood Uncle Ian just a little bit more that day.
--------------------
And that's the Davion CYOA character. Oh dear.
Chapter 1 - Part 4
And guess who's next.....
Soon...
But for now let's make a pit stop at Sian.
-------------------
Jonathan Norris was a dead man.
Or so he told himself, were he to stay in Sian.
He had just inherited a good chunk of military hardware, jumpships included. Normally, that would've set someone like himself for life. Except, he was in the Capellan Confederation, his mother was a Maskirovka agent and… he shuddered to think about the rest. Or the letter he'd received from his father.
Whatever God he had gotten the attention of, he wanted to curse it for what it'd done to him.
So, he wrote. A virus intended to mess with Sian's network, throw up all sorts of alarms and generally cause nuisance and chaos as a distraction. That was step one. Step two would be a virus for Sian's HPG. All he needed was for it to shutdown and stay down for a few weeks. Needed to be effective and quite persistent. Step three would be to hop onto his jumpers and get the hell out of the Confederation and away from Romano.
He shuddered. He'd just remembered the evil. And the letter. He paused, mind rerunning the letter through his head once again, spelling out the horrible, cruel fate that would await him if he stayed.
"Heya, you old bastard,
I got bribed to set up a wonderful life for you, full of interesting times and various bits of intrigue to keep you entertained.
To start with, I have to thank you for attracting Romano Liao's attention, it was quite fun to negotiate a wonderful marriage contract between the two of you. You'll be happy to note that there is an escape clause in it for when she loses interest in you. She just passes it off to one of her subordinates!
Don't worry, I'm sure there won't be too many of them from that pesky thuggee cult. More likely you'll just be investigated to see if you're a compatible match...
Shouldn't be more than a couple hundred people in that batch.
It'll also probably bring you to the attention of that Justin Allard. His father speaks quite highly of him. I also managed quite the profitable exchange engaging you to Riva Allard. Do recall there are quite a few planets that allow polygamy after all.
I just want you to be happy!
Oh, and on a side note, you might recall a young Kurita samurai you met around your age with a particularly keen interest in you. It seems one of your sisters decided to tell him that you were really a girl cross dressing and pretending to be a boy. I really have no idea how that got encouraged! Honest! Nor do I know why he decided to "liberate the hidden flower of femininity."
Your siblings are quite the conniving, vindictive bunch.
Which probably wasn't helped by the stipulations of my will. It seems I happened to find a delightful bourbon the night I had it drafted. So, basically most of them in order to inherit various things that they want very much, or get out of agreements they don't want themselves, have to get you hitched to particular individuals. Oh, and your big sis has to help at least one of them before she can inherit herself.
I could tell you the details, but really, why spoil the surprise?
I mean, I was originally going to add a convoluted plan of having you in possession of Candace Liao's favorite jade hair pins, that had been used as the key to unlock a map hidden in Melissa Steiner's panty drawer, but really, I figured that was pushing it a bit far.
Oh, Candace Liao knows that you have her favorite jade hair pins thanks to her sister, but I didn't go and get them involved in a massively over complicated plot.
By the way, Katrina Steiner probably wants to know how you came into possession of her panty drawer. Funny story really. Shame I don't have the time to detail it.
That does remind me of the time I spent with a lovely mercenary named Natasha. Nothing actually happened really, but it was a fun game of poker. Its where I got some of those lovely mechs you inherited. Not sure why she was so upset after she sobered up, she lost fair and square. I think she was muttering something about honor and duels and getting them back.
I wasn't around long enough to really find out more.
There's probably more I'm forgetting, but hey, I'm sure you're more than up for the challenges they bring!
Have fun,
Daddy dearest"
Nope, he decided, he was going to get out if it killed him. He was sure he could buy his safety from Hanse. He'd just about sell out to anybody if it meant escaping the grasps of the evil. He took a few breaths, then resumed work.
He had but one shot at this. If he failed, there was only the hold-out pistol and the escape it offered.
Nothing like the grimmest fates as incentive to sharpen the mind.
--------------
Chapter 1 - Part 5
Yup, we were in AWE when we saw it... the player who was playing Jon actually swore out loud. Full Genma Mode Engaged. Wish I could claim credit for it, but alas...
And now we'll see what is going on in Taurus and Terra...
--------------
Jeanette Darcy-Calderon was ushered into an office, along with her mother. Inside, to her surprise, waited Zatanna Calderon, the reigning Protector of the Taurian Concordat. Thomas Calderon, whom she did expect, was also inside, as well as Grover Shraplen, who glared at the newcomer.
It was hardly surprising, as he had been taking issue with her inheritance.
"Cousin," greeted Thomas.
Jeanette nodded back. "Cousin. Always a pleasure."
"Grover wants to… discuss certain things," Thomas began, sighing. He looked at Grover and continued. "Are you sure you want to do this, Grover?"
"I'm always pleased to settle things through civilized discussion, certainly," interjected Jeanette. Not that she and Grover ever had a civil conversation in their lives, she thought. 'Politely strained' and 'veiled insults' and 'sadistic use of irony and sarcasm' tended to be better descriptors for what passed for politeness between them.
Grover leant forward. "She's a bastard and she took my inheritance."
Jeanette immediately countered, ticking fingers. "Point the first, so what? Point the second, no, dad gave it to me."
Neither Thomas nor Zatanna looked pleased at Grover, and Thomas spoke up again, after running his hand through his hair. "The will was, is and will be legal. Her inheritance cannot be considered entailed, and if she didn't get any she'd have an air-tight claim to take at least a quarter of the full estate, Grover. I've told you this."
Grover shot a look and fired back. "Of the value, not the specifics! I need what she's got, to defend against the Davion menace! I am Lord Warden, she isn't!"
Zatanna gave him an icy, tired look and sniped, "That can be changed."
"Not without some reason!", he replied smugly.
Jeanette saw her mother raise an eyebrow at her. The youngster had been quite content letting Grover make an ass of himself but it was perhaps a good time to lay down some more on her sibling.
"The Lord of McLeod's Land has the resources of an entire planet - one of the most industrialized ones in the Concordat - to fund any kind of defense program needed. Entire battlemech factories."
"And he took what I needed and gave it to you!", Grover replied with a snort.
Thomas sighed. "Cousin, would you be willing to let him buy it from you? For fair value?", he asked, shooting a look at Grover to keep him quiet.
"I'd consider it," Jeanette started to answer. "For absolutely everything he has, including the planet, the title and the clothes on his back."
Given what he'd called her on the last state event they'd both been at, she thought it was rather mild not to demand a public apology on his knees along with it.
Thomas winced, the offer being quite soundly rejected and was about to ask on behalf of the TCN instead when Grover reacted, rising and shouting in Jeanette's face. "I'll see you dead first, bitch."
There was a moment of pause, before Thomas turned to Grover, Zatanna rising from her seat, and both quite angry.
"Excuse me?", Thomas asked, not quite sure himself he heard his best friend threaten his cousin's life.
Jeanette briefly considered exactly how to react to that. The impulsive 'you and what army' wouldn't have done - Grover actually had one. So instead she yawned and wove a hand dismissively. "How mature and graceful. Just the sort of attitude we need in a planetary ruler these days. Especially one protecting us from the Davion menace."
Grover fumed, clearly too enraged to think straight. "My mechs, my ships, my equipment, bitch, you don't have a clue how to use them!"
"Shraplen," Thomas cut in, his voice low and cold. "Watch. Your. Mouth. In. My. Mother's. House. With. My. Cousin."
Jeanette kept looking at Grover, right in his eyes, when she noticed Zatanna grabbing at her chest. Others noticed as well, Thomas and Jeanette's mother moving to help before she waved them off, reaching for an inhaler. One dose later, she was looking much better and Thomas turned back to Grover, though keeping an eye on his own mother.
"Are you trying to drive her into an heart attack? Or just yourself?", Jeanette asked.
Grover looked at the other Calderons in the room and then hissed in reply, "I'll see you in court."
"Gladly, dear brother, gladly," replied Jeanette with the biggest smile ever, as if she'd just gotten the best christmas present, ever.
Thomas looked at Jeanette as Grover started to walk out, "Jean… why are you smiling," he said, pausing briefly before finishing with a shudder, "... And why like that. Last time…"
"Cousin," she replied with a disarming smile. "It's simple. I know I'm going to win."
"We'll see!", yelled Grover, practically frothing as he stormed out.
A moment after he finally left, Thomas asked, "Exactly how? Not that I'm against it, now, simply because he never would see sense."
Both mothers shot Thomas an amused look.
"Really. Death threats intended to overthrow the execution of a noble's will? Before the Protector herself? There isn't a lawyer short of New Avalon that'd take that case."
Thomas snorted. "He has a lawyer, several of them. Lawyers take any case if they're paid enough."
Jeanette shrugged. "Frankly, I'm more worried he'll try to settle things before it gets that far. He's already said it, after all."
"I'm ordering a full combined arms battalion to be your guards until this is settled," said Thomas, who looked at Zatanna and got a nod in return. "As well as looking into options for his removal."
Zatanna then shared a look with Jeanette's mother before addressing Thomas. "Thomas, I recommend you check into the full inheritance laws."
Thomas tilted his head in thought, then said, "... I can't think of any way to disqualify him from the title that way. He's the previous first born. We have to prove his unfitness."
"Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't demand a paternity test to try to prove I'm not a legal heir. Unless he has something to hide, himself", Jeanette commented.
"He actually asked me. Except you had one, at birth, sealed and certified."
Zatanna smiled a bit wider then, and got narrowed eyes from Jeanette's mother in turn. "You mean?"
"That Lyran fellow you mentioned, Mother?", asked Jeanette.
"... What?", asked Thomas in confusion. He hadn't expected the conversation to wander there.
Zatanna smiled like the cat that ate the canary. "Oh, let's just say his parents' relationship was... quite open for a certain period of time."
He blinked. "Let me get this straight. You're saying he's not McLeod's Land's son?"
"The timing's suspicious, or at least worth looking into. I have no proof, son, but he really doesn't match the typical Shraplen look," she said with a shrug.
"It would explain why he's always been so... Grover... whenever I see him," Jeanette commented.
Thomas sighed. "This is... "
He blew out a breath. "Fine. It's old law, but requiring proof of blood if the line's not tainted, and specific provisions in the will or succession documents aren't present, is allowed, on Mother's demand. And the specific provisions aren't ...", he said before pausing. "I... see. You could request those, as a recognized blood heir, Jeanette."
"I'm sorely tempted to," she said, pausing to look at her mother and the Protector. "Please tell me there weren't any Feddies in his mother's... entourage?"
Jeanette clearly hoped there were, but her hopes were dashed when, snickering, her mother replied.
"Oh, one or two. Though I'm referring to Giacomo's party when he swept through here. But, no, it was the Lyran."
"Hmmm. Well, it won't leave people foaming at the mouth the way a Davion would, but... if he really wants to air out all the family's dirty laundry... that really should include his own."
"You are formally requesting a challenge, then?", Thomas asked, looking eager.
"Not only is he not provably of the Blood, but he has proven himself unworthy to hold the title of 'janitor', much less Warden. Oh yes, cousin, you may consider challenge formally and sincerely requested," Jeanette stated. Part hatred for him, part knowing how badly he'd screw the Concordat in what passed for the Original Time Line as she knew it, she felt it was time to put him out of the picture.
Thomas smiled. "Mother, sealed, witnessed, and seconded."
Zatanna, too, smiled and called her staff and started snapping out orders.
Some time later, still in the room, the lawyer who was in charge of executing the will arrived.
"Barrister."
"Your grace?"
"If the will or inheritance was challenged, do you have instructions?"
He nodded. "To formally announce that Grover Shraplen is not of the Blood of the Shraplens, but a child of them, and is no longer entitled to his entailed estate. The rest of the will is to remain the same. If he challenges it beyond that point, to give him the standard legal share, and request his exile to Lyran Space."
Jeanette was practically purring at that point. "Oh, my. It seems someone thought ahead. Father chose well."
"Wait. Shraplen knew?", Zatanna asked, blinking.
The lawyer nodded. "He had a blood test run on both his children."
"... he must've really gotten along well with this Lyran bloke, then", Jeanette concluded.
Jeanette's mother replied, tapping her chin. "Eh. He did travel for over 2 years with the whole crowd."
"That… explains a lot, really," Jeanette added.
Thomas paused. And counter. "Mother?"
"Yes, son?"
"... Was Giacomo…", he started before being cut off by gales of laughter from the elder women. Jeanette was trying hard not to laugh as well. Very hard. Biting her lip kind of hard.
"No," Zatanna said, gasping and wheezing. "No, son, he wasn't around. And I loved your father very much. And neither of us were scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells."
He gave her a grateful look. "I mean… I admire the man, but…"
Zatanna breaks out in more laughter. "He made his mother's side look tame, yes, and was truly a scoundrel, a ne'er do well, and a Casanova to end all men, as well as the D'Artagnan of Mech Warriors."
"Oooh. Maybe I should get him to try to challenge yours, then," said Jeanette to Thomas. "After all, if he gets shot down in one false claim…"
He laughed. "Mother is the bloodline in question, wouldn't matter, cousin. That I'm sure of. She bitches enough about how much trouble I put her through in labour."
Jeanette nods and keeps smiling. "All the better to make him look the fool he is, cousin."
And Thomas tilted his head and admitted, "... Worth it."
---
On Terra, Guntram's eyes gleamed as he saw an entry on the datapad he was scanning. "Ach, it is as they say in english. The UrbanMech! The TrashCan, instead of the TrashCannot!"
His mother and uncle stared at him as if he'd gone madder. He wasn't sure they weren't correct on that assessment. Inheriting several hundred million in c-bills and a chunk of military hardware plus the license to the Urbanmech was straining his sanity. Well, that and having been thrust from a 21st century alternate Terra into Guntram's head certainly made quite an impact.
He read. And read. And read. And -
i can't do this you can't do this we can't do this what is this madness
- A smile crossed his face, wide and maniac with too entirely too much ambition in it.
"Ah, Mama, I think I need to make a call. A few calls. Dates to cancel, stuff like that."
He had grand plans, even grander ambitions and somehow he had to also figure out how to get everyone else to stop calling the Urbanmech anything but Stadtkoloss because that name was just awesome.
--------------
There's still more to go in this chapter, but the bulk is behind us.
Chapter 1 - Part 6
And now, the remainder of chapter 1, whereupon we end up in an obvious time-skip.
-----------------------
16th February 3015
A few weeks passed, mired in the work I needed to get everything going. I had to not only prepare the expedition, but also coach myself into being Yuriko Hasegawa. I couldn't screw up on that even once and auntie was making sure of that. On top of that, there was also the unfolding legal war over Kamen Rider's rights. It turned out Giacomo was wrong. There wasn't just one company doing Kamen Rider toys, there were several.
The Dragon was displeased with that. Very displeased. I didn't know if he and Giacomo ever had a rapport (though I suspected there was something, Takashi had far too much respect for him), but he made it clear I would be paid my due as Giacomo's heir, one way or the other.
I pitied the fools who did not bow low enough and fast enough.
When the CEOs of those corporations learned they would be summoned to explain themselves if they refused to settle with me, I was flooded with settlement offers. I nearly laughed. I didn't, because I could taste the terror the mere thought of the implied threat provoked. That was no laughing matter.
Still, I took advantage of that. Most of the companies, I settled for cash. Some, the bigger ones, netted me some cargo dropships and, surprisingly, even an Invader. I certainly wasn't going to turn down a jumpship, even if I'd end up having to spend some of the settlement money on repairing it. At least it was just a few million to get all the hydroponic systems back online.
But it was not until I realised one of the toymakers involved was Bauer that I fully understood the game that was being played right before me. I grinned. They were offering me as reparations its radio control and electric motors' technology for anything I wanted, plus a few million. That actually was rather generous, given those technologies were one of the major reasons for their ascent into being one of the biggest toymakers around. Unfortunately for Bauer, while interesting… it was of relatively little value to me. No, at that point I had a different idea. So I demanded the rights and all data regarding the Rapier aerospace fighter on top.
Hey, it's not like they were using the bloody rights, nobody was actually producing it anymore. And they'd still retain the rights to make more if they ever figured out how, or cared, to restore their plant in Tharkad. Not my problem.
I sent back my reply and settled down, grinning, waiting for their inevitable cave in to my demands.
They held out for forty eight hours before accepting terms. I grinned at Subhash, who smiled back.
"Good job, my niece. You did outstandingly."
Mission. Freaking. Accomplished.
---
Concurrently with the legal warfare, something else had been going on. I took notice of that due to some unexpected delays with ComStar deliveries and when I sought out more information on that, I was stunned.
It appeared that ComStar was claiming to be under electronic attack and had de facto engaged in a Sphere-wide blackout. Jumpers were still travelling and served as couriers, but the HPGs themselves were shut down. Details were scarce and I could feel Takashi wanted to water his garden with some white robes, which would not be helpful even if wholly satisfying, so I conspired with Jasmine and Florimel to amuse and distract him for a few days while Subhash dealt with ComStar.
Thankfully, it didn't take longer than a week for Precentor Luthien to explain what little he knew about the situation and instructions from Terra - an electronic attack, initiated apparently from Sian, had spread virulently along the HPG network and had done mild damage to the systems along the way. Many HPGs had burned out in part and most others had been shutdown to prevent damage to the precious equipment - like Luthien's own - while a solution was implemented and repairs done.
Evidently somebody forgot to renew their Norton Anti-Virus Suite subscription.
Limited HPG service resumed three days later, but only along select routes and with considerably longer delays and irregularity than usual. Service would be gradually restored, with the occasional set-back, over the following three months. Suffice to say patience wore thin with the white robes, but at least in the Combine the Dragon stayed his hand, adding it to the list of grievances with Blake's followers in order to settle the score later. As much as everyone would love to chop some heads over the blackout, doing so would merely ensure that the blackout wouldn't end until the Dragon was groveling at the Primus' feet. Patience was a virtue, and revenge was a dish best served cold.
Of course, the really big downside of all this was the terrible economic damage that would be wrought in the meantime, on top of opening an opportunity for raiding across front-lines and by pirates. The only real upside was that everybody got hit about the same. Not that it was anything but bitter consolation. And it slowed some of my own efforts to obtain recruits and setup the additional support to strip Columbus.
Due to all the delays and effective break in communications I turned to auntie Florimel to help me get mechwarriors and aerospace pilots, who in turn assigned to me a coterie of female Order of the Five Pillars' agents to take on those roles. I was fine with that, since I knew there was next to no chance I could've hoped to get by without at least one O5P or ISF agent slipping through. I had mixed feelings about that, as I would've preferred to have all my underlings be loyal to me first of all, but this was the next best thing.
4th May 3015
It was early May when I was finally ready to leave Luthien. All the jumpships were stocked up and ready. The dropships were crewed and, except for the Union, docked. Everyone had reported to duty, supplies were in place.
I observed this from within the cockpit of the 'mech I'd chosen to pick from the dozen I'd inherited. A Highlander, to contrast with my most certainly favorite but utterly identifiable Hello Kitty Stinger Land-Air Mech, was an assault 'mech and the heaviest of the twelve in the Union's bays. Capable of reaching 54kph at a run and equipped with Jumpjets powerful enough to leap 90 meters, it was a reasonably mobile war machine. Equipped with Succession Wars technology, and being an example of the 733P variant, it came equipped with an LRM20, a PPC, 2 medium lasers and an SRM6. A fairly good mix of weapon systems for all ranges, and a good enough armor protection and heat dissipation ability to actually handle the ordnance, unlike a lot of mechs I could name. Yes, Rifleman, you totally were a prime example. I was sure there were quite a few envious glares being thrown my way, but short of having LosTech in there they wouldn't be too likely to bore through my 'mech's rear armor.
"Boss, we're good to go once you park that Highlander inside," I heard over the radio.
"Roger that."
I looked around one final time before setting my Highlander on a lazy walk up to the Union's ramp, going up and inside the dropship. A few minutes later, it was safely parked in travel position and I was heading up to the Union's bridge.
"Hey, Boss, you think there's any hotties waiting for us at the jumper?"
I laughed. Ryoko Hakubi, my second in command, the joker. I'd put her on a Griffin 1N, which I thought was quite appropriate for her style. She was just too… fiery to put on something like an assault 'mech.
"Sorry, Ryoko-chan. I'm not telling, you're going to have to find out for yourself."
Up the ladder and into the bridge. Moments later, I strapped myself to a seat while the rest of the crew went through pre-flight checklist.
"Alright, everyone," I said over the radio. "We're off as soon as our pilots say so. I hope you didn't forget anything ground-side because we're not coming back for a long time. Oh, Ryoko? I hope you didn't forget the cream for the wrinkles."
More laughter and some mild cursing in good humour followed. The pre-flight checklist was over and the final launch sequence commenced after permission to take off was granted. I steeled myself.
There was a lurching feeling as the dropships' engines fired up and it began to rise up, the generated thrust exceeding the gravitational grip on the vessel we were in. The acceleration was rather gentle… merely a gee and a half. I wondered if the pilots thought we were old ladies or something, but then they increased thrust as we gained altitude and I figured they'd probably gone gentle to spare the ceramacrete pad of the starport from any more abuse than it had to take.
Several minutes later, instead of the blue sky I was accustomed to seeing, I saw nothing but the black void of space outside. We were now in space and the pilots dialed down the acceleration to one gee for comfort. There was no rush, so I thought that was fine.
"Everyone, give our brave and competent pilots a big thank you for a successful lift-off," I said.
Cheering ensued. We were on the way to Columbus, where I'd take what I needed to take control of my future. And, hopefully, make the Inner Sphere a better place in the process.
--------------------------
I'm writing chapter 2 but no promises when it's done and ready to post.
-----------------------
16th February 3015
A few weeks passed, mired in the work I needed to get everything going. I had to not only prepare the expedition, but also coach myself into being Yuriko Hasegawa. I couldn't screw up on that even once and auntie was making sure of that. On top of that, there was also the unfolding legal war over Kamen Rider's rights. It turned out Giacomo was wrong. There wasn't just one company doing Kamen Rider toys, there were several.
The Dragon was displeased with that. Very displeased. I didn't know if he and Giacomo ever had a rapport (though I suspected there was something, Takashi had far too much respect for him), but he made it clear I would be paid my due as Giacomo's heir, one way or the other.
I pitied the fools who did not bow low enough and fast enough.
When the CEOs of those corporations learned they would be summoned to explain themselves if they refused to settle with me, I was flooded with settlement offers. I nearly laughed. I didn't, because I could taste the terror the mere thought of the implied threat provoked. That was no laughing matter.
Still, I took advantage of that. Most of the companies, I settled for cash. Some, the bigger ones, netted me some cargo dropships and, surprisingly, even an Invader. I certainly wasn't going to turn down a jumpship, even if I'd end up having to spend some of the settlement money on repairing it. At least it was just a few million to get all the hydroponic systems back online.
But it was not until I realised one of the toymakers involved was Bauer that I fully understood the game that was being played right before me. I grinned. They were offering me as reparations its radio control and electric motors' technology for anything I wanted, plus a few million. That actually was rather generous, given those technologies were one of the major reasons for their ascent into being one of the biggest toymakers around. Unfortunately for Bauer, while interesting… it was of relatively little value to me. No, at that point I had a different idea. So I demanded the rights and all data regarding the Rapier aerospace fighter on top.
Hey, it's not like they were using the bloody rights, nobody was actually producing it anymore. And they'd still retain the rights to make more if they ever figured out how, or cared, to restore their plant in Tharkad. Not my problem.
I sent back my reply and settled down, grinning, waiting for their inevitable cave in to my demands.
They held out for forty eight hours before accepting terms. I grinned at Subhash, who smiled back.
"Good job, my niece. You did outstandingly."
Mission. Freaking. Accomplished.
---
Concurrently with the legal warfare, something else had been going on. I took notice of that due to some unexpected delays with ComStar deliveries and when I sought out more information on that, I was stunned.
It appeared that ComStar was claiming to be under electronic attack and had de facto engaged in a Sphere-wide blackout. Jumpers were still travelling and served as couriers, but the HPGs themselves were shut down. Details were scarce and I could feel Takashi wanted to water his garden with some white robes, which would not be helpful even if wholly satisfying, so I conspired with Jasmine and Florimel to amuse and distract him for a few days while Subhash dealt with ComStar.
Thankfully, it didn't take longer than a week for Precentor Luthien to explain what little he knew about the situation and instructions from Terra - an electronic attack, initiated apparently from Sian, had spread virulently along the HPG network and had done mild damage to the systems along the way. Many HPGs had burned out in part and most others had been shutdown to prevent damage to the precious equipment - like Luthien's own - while a solution was implemented and repairs done.
Evidently somebody forgot to renew their Norton Anti-Virus Suite subscription.
Limited HPG service resumed three days later, but only along select routes and with considerably longer delays and irregularity than usual. Service would be gradually restored, with the occasional set-back, over the following three months. Suffice to say patience wore thin with the white robes, but at least in the Combine the Dragon stayed his hand, adding it to the list of grievances with Blake's followers in order to settle the score later. As much as everyone would love to chop some heads over the blackout, doing so would merely ensure that the blackout wouldn't end until the Dragon was groveling at the Primus' feet. Patience was a virtue, and revenge was a dish best served cold.
Of course, the really big downside of all this was the terrible economic damage that would be wrought in the meantime, on top of opening an opportunity for raiding across front-lines and by pirates. The only real upside was that everybody got hit about the same. Not that it was anything but bitter consolation. And it slowed some of my own efforts to obtain recruits and setup the additional support to strip Columbus.
Due to all the delays and effective break in communications I turned to auntie Florimel to help me get mechwarriors and aerospace pilots, who in turn assigned to me a coterie of female Order of the Five Pillars' agents to take on those roles. I was fine with that, since I knew there was next to no chance I could've hoped to get by without at least one O5P or ISF agent slipping through. I had mixed feelings about that, as I would've preferred to have all my underlings be loyal to me first of all, but this was the next best thing.
4th May 3015
It was early May when I was finally ready to leave Luthien. All the jumpships were stocked up and ready. The dropships were crewed and, except for the Union, docked. Everyone had reported to duty, supplies were in place.
I observed this from within the cockpit of the 'mech I'd chosen to pick from the dozen I'd inherited. A Highlander, to contrast with my most certainly favorite but utterly identifiable Hello Kitty Stinger Land-Air Mech, was an assault 'mech and the heaviest of the twelve in the Union's bays. Capable of reaching 54kph at a run and equipped with Jumpjets powerful enough to leap 90 meters, it was a reasonably mobile war machine. Equipped with Succession Wars technology, and being an example of the 733P variant, it came equipped with an LRM20, a PPC, 2 medium lasers and an SRM6. A fairly good mix of weapon systems for all ranges, and a good enough armor protection and heat dissipation ability to actually handle the ordnance, unlike a lot of mechs I could name. Yes, Rifleman, you totally were a prime example. I was sure there were quite a few envious glares being thrown my way, but short of having LosTech in there they wouldn't be too likely to bore through my 'mech's rear armor.
"Boss, we're good to go once you park that Highlander inside," I heard over the radio.
"Roger that."
I looked around one final time before setting my Highlander on a lazy walk up to the Union's ramp, going up and inside the dropship. A few minutes later, it was safely parked in travel position and I was heading up to the Union's bridge.
"Hey, Boss, you think there's any hotties waiting for us at the jumper?"
I laughed. Ryoko Hakubi, my second in command, the joker. I'd put her on a Griffin 1N, which I thought was quite appropriate for her style. She was just too… fiery to put on something like an assault 'mech.
"Sorry, Ryoko-chan. I'm not telling, you're going to have to find out for yourself."
Up the ladder and into the bridge. Moments later, I strapped myself to a seat while the rest of the crew went through pre-flight checklist.
"Alright, everyone," I said over the radio. "We're off as soon as our pilots say so. I hope you didn't forget anything ground-side because we're not coming back for a long time. Oh, Ryoko? I hope you didn't forget the cream for the wrinkles."
More laughter and some mild cursing in good humour followed. The pre-flight checklist was over and the final launch sequence commenced after permission to take off was granted. I steeled myself.
There was a lurching feeling as the dropships' engines fired up and it began to rise up, the generated thrust exceeding the gravitational grip on the vessel we were in. The acceleration was rather gentle… merely a gee and a half. I wondered if the pilots thought we were old ladies or something, but then they increased thrust as we gained altitude and I figured they'd probably gone gentle to spare the ceramacrete pad of the starport from any more abuse than it had to take.
Several minutes later, instead of the blue sky I was accustomed to seeing, I saw nothing but the black void of space outside. We were now in space and the pilots dialed down the acceleration to one gee for comfort. There was no rush, so I thought that was fine.
"Everyone, give our brave and competent pilots a big thank you for a successful lift-off," I said.
Cheering ensued. We were on the way to Columbus, where I'd take what I needed to take control of my future. And, hopefully, make the Inner Sphere a better place in the process.
--------------------------
I'm writing chapter 2 but no promises when it's done and ready to post.
Chapter 2 - Start
And since chapter 2 is pretty much done (I might still tweak something on the later scenes so I have time), I'm going to start posting them. Enjoy!
----------------------------------
Chapter 2 - Setting up Rotary Impeller Device
12th June 3016
I took a few breaths as I recovered from the jump into Nowhere. And by that I meant Nowhere the star system. Battletech developers were such jokers sometimes. Why, they even had a world named Bob! But that was neither here nor there. I was finally back to the Combine after over an year of travel and scavenging over a former SLDF base. I couldn't be more glad I had gotten that much extra skilled manpower to do this. Or that I'd gotten so many cargo dropships to carry the haul.
I went to the comms console and took over from the ensign. I engaged a link with the world's own comm net and sent a coded message. I knew it would be rerouted to the HPG station and then sent to Luthien - and assuming they hadn't managed to cripple them again, very quickly as I was paying for the highest priority.
Leaving the comms back to the ensign, I headed back to the Monarch that I'd inherited and had been one of the few ways I'd managed to survive the sheer boredom of the trip.
Damn, had Giacomo not spared the expenses. As I re-entered, I could see all the shiny, all the bling, that he thought to add. Golden rails, red carpets (well, more like a sophisticated imitation of, as they were supposed to allow magnetic boots to clamp to them), pristine white walls and the most expensive and tasteful paintings I was sure he could find. I knew he had quite a few of the debauchery kind in private areas… were I a prude I'd've blushed half to death when I saw a couple of them.
I headed to my apartment in the dropship, passing by a couple sections of the ship. Giacomo could've made it more convenient to get to the apartment from the main collar, I thought, but it was what it was and I wasn't going to do anything about it now.
A few minutes later, I was lying in bed, trying to relax and failing horribly doing so.
"Damn it, this isn't going to work," I admitted to myself. I was just too excited, waiting to find out what Takashi would say about the haul.
The coded message had included a quick inventory of what we had found and stripped, and as I went through the list in my head, I still felt that brief feeling of disbelief.
Epsilon Pegasus IV was a world coming out of an ice age. In the equator I'd found a large airbase which served as the primary SLDF base on the world. The loot from that base had been extensive, but the hot items were an intact HPG system, the scientific radio-listening arrays (and the computers that they were connected to), a dropship maintenance facility, a significant workshop and a very significant amount of industrial 'mechs along with assorted equipment such as spare parts, weapons and ammunition. There were even a handful of dropships but I had no spare collars for those, sadly enough, so I left them behind. A small handful of battlemechs and aerospace fighters rounded up the haul, little more than a sideshow.
None of that had been the primary driver for the expedition, however. The primary goal was the facility inside its orbiting moon, and that had been nothing short of my expectations. I looted everything I could pry off the walls, all the juicy docking gear, the tools to work on ships docked and even fabrication tools for all sorts of components short of core extruders. I had enough gear to furnish several slips, now, and I fully intended to get it all to Telos IV.
I just wanted to know if I had to take another six months plus to get there or if Takashi was going to speed us up with a command chain. And that, I couldn't wait to find out. Aaaaargh.
I sighed in resignation and just went to the nightstand and got my makeup kit. May as well get some more practice in on my subtle disguise. Yuriko Hasegawa was about to step into the limelight, I had to make it look good and subtly different enough from Ayeka that casual observers unfamiliar with me would not make the association.
---
20th July 3016
"You've done well, cousin."
We were in Takashi's own office, accompanied by Subhash and Florimel. A datapad with a listing and documentation of the haul was in the Coordinator's hands, although he'd hardly looked at it - he certainly already had read the original coded message and the summary it contained.
It was good to be back in a nice gravity well. Whoever thought travelling among the stars in cramped and often times smelly jumpships was fun and games had never actually done so, clearly. At least, not for any length of time.
Fortunately, most of the smell had been the lingering smell of paint early on. I did have standards and the money to ensure everything was in working order. Especially toilets.
"Thanks. I'm glad to be done with that leg of the trip. If I understand correctly, there's a command chain being setup to Telos?"
"Yes. It is only three collars, but it is enough to get the most important cargo across quickly. The rest can take its time."
I nodded in agreement.
Takashi continued, "Now, we need to work over some of the details. Some of the LosTech you found in Columbus is of better use to the Dragon. Those radio antennas, certainly. The HPG would also be of use to examine, as well as use for training personnel capable of operating one. ComStar is not a reliable operator and the Terran companies might be just more of the same in the long run. We need our own network."
I blinked. Terran companies? Had I missed something?
"Forgive me, but what do you mean by Terran companies?"
He looked at me for a few moments before Subhash filled in on what I hadn't known about.
"Niece, while you were on the expedition, there were developments on the Terran front. We are still trying to understand all the implications and the actors behind it, but at least two HPG networks are being covertly built by Terra-based corporations, including in the Combine. We are, quite naturally, helping with the cover-up."
I was stunned. What had brought that about?
"And since I'm on a roll," he continued with a smile, "you should also know that someone made a kingly gift to the Combine, and to the best of our knowledge every other nation. A Hegemony field library found in the League's world of Helm, if its identification is to be trusted."
I almost choked. "Helm? The world Minoru raided for a star league depot that was empty?"
Everyone paused, as if they'd been fishing in their memories for what I was referring to. Takashi nodded, a suddenly thoughtful look in his face.
"Well, if that's the case," I continued, "we should assume that it was stored alongside whatever hardware was at that depot. Neither Minoru, nor anyone else to my knowledge, ever proved the gear had actually been moved out of the system. Someone may've just gotten the motherlode."
Takashi just stared at me for a moment, the implications dawning on him. "Subhash, make sure the analysts know to look for sudden influxes of military gear of star league origin."
Uncle nodded in assent, he probably already had decided to do it anyway.
"A copy of the data core will be delivered to you, cousin, to help you with the shipyard restoration. Financial and technical resources will also be made available to assist you in rebuilding the yards, which we will be going over the details of another time. I would like to purchase some of the LosTech you found as well."
I nodded. "In principle, as long as it's not something that is useful for the shipyard operations or its security, I see no reason not to sell."
I didn't need the HPG or the radio antennas and some of the rest of the items I could do without. I could definitely use the money. But I wanted to keep the mechs and the fighters to bolster the defenses and the dropship maintenance facility was a no brainer to keep and quickly install for a steady revenue source.
Takashi nodded in understanding. Florimel spoke up. "Niece, if you still want to go ahead with your plan as Hasegawa, now is the decision point. So far we've prepared the ground for it, but you can still back out and assume everything under your own name. Do you still wish to go ahead with the original plan?"
I nodded without hesitation. "Yes, auntie, I do."
She nodded. "Then I'll have the final preparations implemented. After I'm done, Yuriko Hasegawa will de facto have everything you own. All the paper trail will be there for curious people to find if they want to look for it. Including a license sale for the Rapier, as I believe you also have plans for that?"
"Yep. Shipyard is priority but I want to get the Rapier under production too. And with Helm's data core I don't even have to settle for a downgraded version, I can just go straight for the gold edition."
Takashi smiled in approval.
---
Hours later, I was in my apartment again, reviewing documents and things that were piling up for me to deal with in the months that passed while I was out of contact. It was dreadful work but I had to do it.
I picked up the folder on my investment portfolio and started checking it over. Then I blinked. Twice. And re-read it to make sure I hadn't misread.
"How much money?", I said incredulously.
Right there, before my eyes, were the financial statements from the Sudoku venture. I was making money hand over fist all over the Combine and apparently even from beyond its borders. I wasn't sure I had authorized the expansion beyond, but given how much money I was getting from that I wasn't going to rock the boat by calling that out.
"Kami-sama, all this for a silly number game. I wonder how many Samurai would commit… heh, Sudoku if they realised how much money they could've made off of this."
I chuckled and wondered if that meme would ever develop on its own here. Then I paused and chuckled harder.
Of course it would, the magnificent ROB would ensure it does. For the Lulz.
----------------------------------
Build-up phase! Next, we'll take a look at what's happening elsewhere...
----------------------------------
Chapter 2 - Setting up Rotary Impeller Device
12th June 3016
I took a few breaths as I recovered from the jump into Nowhere. And by that I meant Nowhere the star system. Battletech developers were such jokers sometimes. Why, they even had a world named Bob! But that was neither here nor there. I was finally back to the Combine after over an year of travel and scavenging over a former SLDF base. I couldn't be more glad I had gotten that much extra skilled manpower to do this. Or that I'd gotten so many cargo dropships to carry the haul.
I went to the comms console and took over from the ensign. I engaged a link with the world's own comm net and sent a coded message. I knew it would be rerouted to the HPG station and then sent to Luthien - and assuming they hadn't managed to cripple them again, very quickly as I was paying for the highest priority.
Leaving the comms back to the ensign, I headed back to the Monarch that I'd inherited and had been one of the few ways I'd managed to survive the sheer boredom of the trip.
Damn, had Giacomo not spared the expenses. As I re-entered, I could see all the shiny, all the bling, that he thought to add. Golden rails, red carpets (well, more like a sophisticated imitation of, as they were supposed to allow magnetic boots to clamp to them), pristine white walls and the most expensive and tasteful paintings I was sure he could find. I knew he had quite a few of the debauchery kind in private areas… were I a prude I'd've blushed half to death when I saw a couple of them.
I headed to my apartment in the dropship, passing by a couple sections of the ship. Giacomo could've made it more convenient to get to the apartment from the main collar, I thought, but it was what it was and I wasn't going to do anything about it now.
A few minutes later, I was lying in bed, trying to relax and failing horribly doing so.
"Damn it, this isn't going to work," I admitted to myself. I was just too excited, waiting to find out what Takashi would say about the haul.
The coded message had included a quick inventory of what we had found and stripped, and as I went through the list in my head, I still felt that brief feeling of disbelief.
Epsilon Pegasus IV was a world coming out of an ice age. In the equator I'd found a large airbase which served as the primary SLDF base on the world. The loot from that base had been extensive, but the hot items were an intact HPG system, the scientific radio-listening arrays (and the computers that they were connected to), a dropship maintenance facility, a significant workshop and a very significant amount of industrial 'mechs along with assorted equipment such as spare parts, weapons and ammunition. There were even a handful of dropships but I had no spare collars for those, sadly enough, so I left them behind. A small handful of battlemechs and aerospace fighters rounded up the haul, little more than a sideshow.
None of that had been the primary driver for the expedition, however. The primary goal was the facility inside its orbiting moon, and that had been nothing short of my expectations. I looted everything I could pry off the walls, all the juicy docking gear, the tools to work on ships docked and even fabrication tools for all sorts of components short of core extruders. I had enough gear to furnish several slips, now, and I fully intended to get it all to Telos IV.
I just wanted to know if I had to take another six months plus to get there or if Takashi was going to speed us up with a command chain. And that, I couldn't wait to find out. Aaaaargh.
I sighed in resignation and just went to the nightstand and got my makeup kit. May as well get some more practice in on my subtle disguise. Yuriko Hasegawa was about to step into the limelight, I had to make it look good and subtly different enough from Ayeka that casual observers unfamiliar with me would not make the association.
---
20th July 3016
"You've done well, cousin."
We were in Takashi's own office, accompanied by Subhash and Florimel. A datapad with a listing and documentation of the haul was in the Coordinator's hands, although he'd hardly looked at it - he certainly already had read the original coded message and the summary it contained.
It was good to be back in a nice gravity well. Whoever thought travelling among the stars in cramped and often times smelly jumpships was fun and games had never actually done so, clearly. At least, not for any length of time.
Fortunately, most of the smell had been the lingering smell of paint early on. I did have standards and the money to ensure everything was in working order. Especially toilets.
"Thanks. I'm glad to be done with that leg of the trip. If I understand correctly, there's a command chain being setup to Telos?"
"Yes. It is only three collars, but it is enough to get the most important cargo across quickly. The rest can take its time."
I nodded in agreement.
Takashi continued, "Now, we need to work over some of the details. Some of the LosTech you found in Columbus is of better use to the Dragon. Those radio antennas, certainly. The HPG would also be of use to examine, as well as use for training personnel capable of operating one. ComStar is not a reliable operator and the Terran companies might be just more of the same in the long run. We need our own network."
I blinked. Terran companies? Had I missed something?
"Forgive me, but what do you mean by Terran companies?"
He looked at me for a few moments before Subhash filled in on what I hadn't known about.
"Niece, while you were on the expedition, there were developments on the Terran front. We are still trying to understand all the implications and the actors behind it, but at least two HPG networks are being covertly built by Terra-based corporations, including in the Combine. We are, quite naturally, helping with the cover-up."
I was stunned. What had brought that about?
"And since I'm on a roll," he continued with a smile, "you should also know that someone made a kingly gift to the Combine, and to the best of our knowledge every other nation. A Hegemony field library found in the League's world of Helm, if its identification is to be trusted."
I almost choked. "Helm? The world Minoru raided for a star league depot that was empty?"
Everyone paused, as if they'd been fishing in their memories for what I was referring to. Takashi nodded, a suddenly thoughtful look in his face.
"Well, if that's the case," I continued, "we should assume that it was stored alongside whatever hardware was at that depot. Neither Minoru, nor anyone else to my knowledge, ever proved the gear had actually been moved out of the system. Someone may've just gotten the motherlode."
Takashi just stared at me for a moment, the implications dawning on him. "Subhash, make sure the analysts know to look for sudden influxes of military gear of star league origin."
Uncle nodded in assent, he probably already had decided to do it anyway.
"A copy of the data core will be delivered to you, cousin, to help you with the shipyard restoration. Financial and technical resources will also be made available to assist you in rebuilding the yards, which we will be going over the details of another time. I would like to purchase some of the LosTech you found as well."
I nodded. "In principle, as long as it's not something that is useful for the shipyard operations or its security, I see no reason not to sell."
I didn't need the HPG or the radio antennas and some of the rest of the items I could do without. I could definitely use the money. But I wanted to keep the mechs and the fighters to bolster the defenses and the dropship maintenance facility was a no brainer to keep and quickly install for a steady revenue source.
Takashi nodded in understanding. Florimel spoke up. "Niece, if you still want to go ahead with your plan as Hasegawa, now is the decision point. So far we've prepared the ground for it, but you can still back out and assume everything under your own name. Do you still wish to go ahead with the original plan?"
I nodded without hesitation. "Yes, auntie, I do."
She nodded. "Then I'll have the final preparations implemented. After I'm done, Yuriko Hasegawa will de facto have everything you own. All the paper trail will be there for curious people to find if they want to look for it. Including a license sale for the Rapier, as I believe you also have plans for that?"
"Yep. Shipyard is priority but I want to get the Rapier under production too. And with Helm's data core I don't even have to settle for a downgraded version, I can just go straight for the gold edition."
Takashi smiled in approval.
---
Hours later, I was in my apartment again, reviewing documents and things that were piling up for me to deal with in the months that passed while I was out of contact. It was dreadful work but I had to do it.
I picked up the folder on my investment portfolio and started checking it over. Then I blinked. Twice. And re-read it to make sure I hadn't misread.
"How much money?", I said incredulously.
Right there, before my eyes, were the financial statements from the Sudoku venture. I was making money hand over fist all over the Combine and apparently even from beyond its borders. I wasn't sure I had authorized the expansion beyond, but given how much money I was getting from that I wasn't going to rock the boat by calling that out.
"Kami-sama, all this for a silly number game. I wonder how many Samurai would commit… heh, Sudoku if they realised how much money they could've made off of this."
I chuckled and wondered if that meme would ever develop on its own here. Then I paused and chuckled harder.
Of course it would, the magnificent ROB would ensure it does. For the Lulz.
----------------------------------
Build-up phase! Next, we'll take a look at what's happening elsewhere...
Chapter 2 - Part 2
And let's take a peek at Csomad now...
----------------------------------
Sasha stood on a scaffold besides Jon as they looked at the assembly bay in the new industrial complex she'd had built in Csomad for Frozen Sun Industries, her newest and most ambitious enterprise yet.
At least, on the industrial/commercial sense.
The skeletal form standing in the assembly bay was the chassis of a Hammerhands, a heavy battlemech that the Federated Suns had retired a long time ago. Topping at 54kph and capable of jumping 90 meters, the Hammerhands took its name from the pair of Mydron Class B heavy autocannons mounted in its arms. While the armor was nothing special for its weight, the autocannons hit hard and it also included an SRM system plus a pair of medium lasers for additional firepower. The passing of time, however, saw newer battlemechs appear on the battlefield that eclipsed it.
The Hammerhands factory had been in Arcadia and sometime in the 26th century it had ceased production of new Hammerhands, merely supplying spare parts to maintain the existing fleet, and then later on as the Hammerhands started being phased out of service entirely it was mothballed and the tools and equipment left in a bunker deep underground.
War had come and Arcadia, merely one jump away from New Avalon, was destroyed by the struggle between the DCMS and AFFS. The AFFS had won, but the damage was done. Liberal use of nuclear armament rendered most of the planet a hot zone unsuitable for human habitation and the world was evacuated of its survivors and depleted of everything else that was of use which could be recovered. The bunker, buried under nuclear devastation, survived to be found and recovered by Sasha's father. Sadly for him, an accidental exposure to Arcadia's radioactivity put paid to his life shortly after, but the tooling was stashed on a clean warehouse, waiting for pick-up by his heir.
It hadn't taken any effort to convince Hanse to support Sasha in setting it up on Csomad, as he'd agreed it was an excellent way to help the Skid Row economically, as well as provide a good reason to keep a stronger force in the area, both to deter the Taurians and to have the units to react to pirate attacks. Once she'd gotten to Csomad - after picking up Jon on the way and debrief him over his daring escape from the Liaos, and then faking his death publicly - she'd wasted no time in getting the manufacturing facility built.
The plant had two active production lines, each capable of producing two battlemechs a month, and they were both running a pre-production run. A third production line was being built with a mix of mothballed equipment and newly-made, which would expand capacity to six a month. Sasha would still be left with a sizable amount of equipment left over for a fourth production line, but Hanse hadn't agreed to funding that one over concerns of which other projects he'd have to defund in order to get it done.
Sasha had agreed cutting on any of the myriad technological restoration projects, be it for shipyards, factories or even some of the less martial facilities was a no go, so she would have to figure out what to do with the potential fourth production line herself.
"The snakes are going to hate those things, aren't they?"
Sasha smiled at Jon's comment. They'd figured out they were both the victims of ROB and forged an unlikely friendship over the fact. "I certainly hope so. They will pay for their crimes."
He nodded, then took out a cigarette from his vest pocket. He took it to his mouth but before he could light it, Sasha took it away.
"Not here, Jon. Weed outside. Heavy machinery inside. Drug-based impairment bad idea."
He grumbled. "Can't have fun. When am I going to meet Banzai?"
"Soon. I'm going to New Avalon once there's a few of these 'mechs built to show Hanse and you're coming along. You'll get to meet Banzai and Hanse. Aren't you the lucky one?"
"Oh, yay," he said with a bit of false enthusiasm. "I really am the lucky one. Meeting Hanse. No offense, but I'm supposed to be dead. If I'm seen and recognized, the evil will come for me. Or worse."
He shuddered. Romano Liao always gave him the chills.
"Don't worry, Jon, they won't. And if they somehow do anyway, I'll crush them under Knight-Error's feet."
King Crabs weren't the most graceful of battlemechs around, but they certainly were effective at crushing things under their feet. And what escaped that fate would indubitably fall under the barrage only an assault autocannon could execute.
He didn't seem all too happy regardless, so she distracted him away from the subject. "What are you thinking of bringing up with Banzai?"
"Hmm. I was thinking bringing up light autocannons. The standard autocannons are just too heavy for what damage they do. And rotaries. We have Helm, we ought to start looking how to go beyond and get a real advantage over our enemies."
"I'm hearing the most exquisite music to my ears right now…"
"Of course you are," he quipped, "you're a Davion. You love autocannons. Admit it."
She laughed. "Guilty as charged."
"And I love speed. Come on, let's go."
"Off to burn some rubber?"
"Lots."
"Uh, uh," noted Sasha, mentally preparing to have the police close down roads to ensure Jon wouldn't splat against an unexpected car. His idea of fast was 'If I am not outrunning that Locust I'm not going fast enough'. She followed after him as he headed out to the garage.
"Any trouble from the bulls?," he asked along the way.
"They're quiet. Unusually so, in fact. We think they may've gotten the message with my deployment here, but there's the troubling reports of Toros being deployed in the TDF too. No-one knows where they got them from, either a cache or finding or even building a factory. The cache hypothesis is the least dangerous one to us, naturally."
"Not very likely, though."
"No," she admitted. "Any Toros the SLDF got their hands on were scrapped and if the TDF had scurried away Toros somewhere, why take them off the mothballs now? Unless somebody got ROBbed and found them. For that matter, I may know who it might be if that's the case."
"I'll bet it has to do with Grover's duel with Thomas."
"Yuuuuuup. Tommy boy blowing away his best friend in a duel? Story goes he did some sort of insult Thomas couldn't ignore and it didn't end well for Grover. There's a legal battle about an inheritance in the mix, but other than knowing it was Grover versus a cousin of Thomas, we have no way of knowing without breaking into their legal database. Sealed to the Court and all that."
"Tenner on the cousin," he quipped as they finally arrived at the garage.
"Not betting against that," she replied, eliciting a chuckle from the former capellan.
"So," he said as he pulled the car keys and unlocked the doors. "Coming for the ride?"
"Sure, why not, let's get gray hairs early."
----------------------------------
More autocannons never hurt, right? Says every Davion, ever.
----------------------------------
Sasha stood on a scaffold besides Jon as they looked at the assembly bay in the new industrial complex she'd had built in Csomad for Frozen Sun Industries, her newest and most ambitious enterprise yet.
At least, on the industrial/commercial sense.
The skeletal form standing in the assembly bay was the chassis of a Hammerhands, a heavy battlemech that the Federated Suns had retired a long time ago. Topping at 54kph and capable of jumping 90 meters, the Hammerhands took its name from the pair of Mydron Class B heavy autocannons mounted in its arms. While the armor was nothing special for its weight, the autocannons hit hard and it also included an SRM system plus a pair of medium lasers for additional firepower. The passing of time, however, saw newer battlemechs appear on the battlefield that eclipsed it.
The Hammerhands factory had been in Arcadia and sometime in the 26th century it had ceased production of new Hammerhands, merely supplying spare parts to maintain the existing fleet, and then later on as the Hammerhands started being phased out of service entirely it was mothballed and the tools and equipment left in a bunker deep underground.
War had come and Arcadia, merely one jump away from New Avalon, was destroyed by the struggle between the DCMS and AFFS. The AFFS had won, but the damage was done. Liberal use of nuclear armament rendered most of the planet a hot zone unsuitable for human habitation and the world was evacuated of its survivors and depleted of everything else that was of use which could be recovered. The bunker, buried under nuclear devastation, survived to be found and recovered by Sasha's father. Sadly for him, an accidental exposure to Arcadia's radioactivity put paid to his life shortly after, but the tooling was stashed on a clean warehouse, waiting for pick-up by his heir.
It hadn't taken any effort to convince Hanse to support Sasha in setting it up on Csomad, as he'd agreed it was an excellent way to help the Skid Row economically, as well as provide a good reason to keep a stronger force in the area, both to deter the Taurians and to have the units to react to pirate attacks. Once she'd gotten to Csomad - after picking up Jon on the way and debrief him over his daring escape from the Liaos, and then faking his death publicly - she'd wasted no time in getting the manufacturing facility built.
The plant had two active production lines, each capable of producing two battlemechs a month, and they were both running a pre-production run. A third production line was being built with a mix of mothballed equipment and newly-made, which would expand capacity to six a month. Sasha would still be left with a sizable amount of equipment left over for a fourth production line, but Hanse hadn't agreed to funding that one over concerns of which other projects he'd have to defund in order to get it done.
Sasha had agreed cutting on any of the myriad technological restoration projects, be it for shipyards, factories or even some of the less martial facilities was a no go, so she would have to figure out what to do with the potential fourth production line herself.
"The snakes are going to hate those things, aren't they?"
Sasha smiled at Jon's comment. They'd figured out they were both the victims of ROB and forged an unlikely friendship over the fact. "I certainly hope so. They will pay for their crimes."
He nodded, then took out a cigarette from his vest pocket. He took it to his mouth but before he could light it, Sasha took it away.
"Not here, Jon. Weed outside. Heavy machinery inside. Drug-based impairment bad idea."
He grumbled. "Can't have fun. When am I going to meet Banzai?"
"Soon. I'm going to New Avalon once there's a few of these 'mechs built to show Hanse and you're coming along. You'll get to meet Banzai and Hanse. Aren't you the lucky one?"
"Oh, yay," he said with a bit of false enthusiasm. "I really am the lucky one. Meeting Hanse. No offense, but I'm supposed to be dead. If I'm seen and recognized, the evil will come for me. Or worse."
He shuddered. Romano Liao always gave him the chills.
"Don't worry, Jon, they won't. And if they somehow do anyway, I'll crush them under Knight-Error's feet."
King Crabs weren't the most graceful of battlemechs around, but they certainly were effective at crushing things under their feet. And what escaped that fate would indubitably fall under the barrage only an assault autocannon could execute.
He didn't seem all too happy regardless, so she distracted him away from the subject. "What are you thinking of bringing up with Banzai?"
"Hmm. I was thinking bringing up light autocannons. The standard autocannons are just too heavy for what damage they do. And rotaries. We have Helm, we ought to start looking how to go beyond and get a real advantage over our enemies."
"I'm hearing the most exquisite music to my ears right now…"
"Of course you are," he quipped, "you're a Davion. You love autocannons. Admit it."
She laughed. "Guilty as charged."
"And I love speed. Come on, let's go."
"Off to burn some rubber?"
"Lots."
"Uh, uh," noted Sasha, mentally preparing to have the police close down roads to ensure Jon wouldn't splat against an unexpected car. His idea of fast was 'If I am not outrunning that Locust I'm not going fast enough'. She followed after him as he headed out to the garage.
"Any trouble from the bulls?," he asked along the way.
"They're quiet. Unusually so, in fact. We think they may've gotten the message with my deployment here, but there's the troubling reports of Toros being deployed in the TDF too. No-one knows where they got them from, either a cache or finding or even building a factory. The cache hypothesis is the least dangerous one to us, naturally."
"Not very likely, though."
"No," she admitted. "Any Toros the SLDF got their hands on were scrapped and if the TDF had scurried away Toros somewhere, why take them off the mothballs now? Unless somebody got ROBbed and found them. For that matter, I may know who it might be if that's the case."
"I'll bet it has to do with Grover's duel with Thomas."
"Yuuuuuup. Tommy boy blowing away his best friend in a duel? Story goes he did some sort of insult Thomas couldn't ignore and it didn't end well for Grover. There's a legal battle about an inheritance in the mix, but other than knowing it was Grover versus a cousin of Thomas, we have no way of knowing without breaking into their legal database. Sealed to the Court and all that."
"Tenner on the cousin," he quipped as they finally arrived at the garage.
"Not betting against that," she replied, eliciting a chuckle from the former capellan.
"So," he said as he pulled the car keys and unlocked the doors. "Coming for the ride?"
"Sure, why not, let's get gray hairs early."
----------------------------------
More autocannons never hurt, right? Says every Davion, ever.
Chapter 2 - Part 3
And now, what exactly is waiting for Ayeka at Telos IV?.... Let's find out!
----------------------------------
15th August 3016
"Boss, we're being hailed!"
"Put it on speakers," I said, as the dropship kept decelerating towards Sadib.
The response, in a robotic-sounding female voice, came shortly after. "You are approaching restricted space. Send authentication or face your imminent demise."
I picked up the mic, brought it to my lips and, pressing XMIT, I spoke clearly a sequence I had practiced.
"Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right Bee Aaa."
The reply, in Giacomo's own voice, was swift. "Welcome, bambina. Make yourself at home… it is all yours now."
Soon after, the robotic female voice returned, providing landing instructions.
"Well, that was fun," I snarked. "I wonder what it meant by 'face your imminent demise'?"
Hours later, I was gulping as I learned just what had been in store had I not properly authenticated. I'd reached the main control center of Giacomo's little hideout, which I had to admit was easily as well equipped as anything I'd seen in Unity Palace, holotanks included. There were multiple consoles, each with their own function and I was on the one that seemed to deal with the defensive works when I found out.
Giacomo had a goddamn surface to orbit heavy naval PPC battery installation hidden. A quadruple Heavy NPPC battery. That put a whole new spin on the idea that nobody had tried to come here to loot Giacomo's stuff. Maybe someone had and after a thorough pulverization, the wisdom of hindsight spread among those who had merely been watching to see what happened to the bold.
The naval weapon emplacement was only one of the defensive layers, however. An array of automated turrets, many in well concealed ambush spots, provided all-around ground level and anti-air protection to the main compound. The fact there was an alarming prevalence of octo-ERPPC turret setups made it all too clear that Giacomo really liked his privacy and would you please die already, intruder?
For all that firepower, however, they were all static emplacements and a determined attacker would get through it. Probably minus a few dozen battlemechs, but still would. The naval battery was also incapable of covering more than a relatively small portion of the sky, so that was that.
Still a very nasty surprise overall. Your casual pirate would get smacked with a Trololol.
The rest of the defenses were the kind you needed people for. There were a handful of bunkers with aerospace fighter bays and a few bunkers with exits for the garrison. Which… as I looked at the information on the console, amounted to two companies of battlemechs in their mech bays. And scattered around in those aerospace fighter bays were a grand total of seventy-two fighters of assorted types. Plus room for again that much more. There seemed to be room for a full regiment of mechs, too. Pity I didn't have the hardware to populate it.
Well, I had to move on, so after putting a few girls trying to figure out how the defensive network worked, I moved on to inspect the rest of the underground base. The living quarters were good, albeit not luxurious, and had room for a lot of people. More than enough for my current needs at any rate. A large workshop was next. Damn, I needed a bib. It had all sorts of machines and I strongly suspected there was not a lot they couldn't produce and what they could not they could build the tools for. Praise Giacomo!
Then I started sweeping through the warehouses. I whistled when I saw the industrial mechs in store, close to a hundred of them on counting. They were literally of all sorts, though, even nigh useless ones for a barren moon like agricultural mechs. My estimation was maybe sixty or so I could actually productively use. There was also more industrial tooling in storage, although I couldn't tell what most of it was for at a glance. A lot of it seemed like it'd been salvaged from somewhere, dusted off, packed and then left waiting for potentially using later. And now it was all mine. I wanted to giggle. I kept searching through the warehouses, finding spare part and equipment stockpiles (including a lot of LosTech… I knew what some of those things I was looking at were… gauss rifles, extended range PPCs, freezers, oh my) and later on the ammunition stores. Autocannon ammo, check. LRM and SRM ammo, check. Gauss ammo, check. Alamos, ch - What.
I stopped to stare. Yes… that was an Alamo, a fighter-carried anti-shipping nuclear warhead. And it had friends. All twenty-nine friends. Kami-sama, Giacomo, where the hell did you get these?
Conundrum. What do I do with this, I thought. On the one hand, Alamos are a great ace in the hole to have if someone, say, ComStar or Clanners show up with Warships to ruin my day. On the other hand, this is the kind of shit no sane military wants in the hands of civilians. Then again, I wasn't an ordinary civilian… but I would be expected to report this. Hmm…
After a moment of thought, I took upon myself the sage advice from the Tao of Random. If nobody knows it's there, just pretend it's not there. And if someone does notice it, why, nobody knows you knew, so pretend ignorance and you'll get away with it.
I preferred to keep the ace in the hole in my hands if possible. One never knew when it might come in handy.
There wasn't much else to be found in the warehouses, although I noted tunnels that had collapsed. I'd look into trying to figure out where they'd gone and if there was anything buried somewhere down there intact. I took a detour to the engineering section, to observe the power plant that powered the place - a rather large scale fusion plant. It looked fine to me, well maintained and fueled, although until I brought new technical teams, further maintenance would be impossible. The engineering section also had a large scale data center, on top of a few other computer systems. There were a few consoles clearly meant for accessing the data center and I took one up, booting it up and seeing what, if anything, I could find out.
I frowned when, of all things, it asked for a biometric authentication… a blood authentication to be precise. A quick search revealed the equipment needed for that authentication so I tried my own self. If Giacomo intended me to get my hands on this, surely he'd make sure my profile was in… I knew he had the data.
A beep later and I smiled. I was in. And then, I got the shock of my life, my brain refusing to process what I was looking at. I had to take a few moments off, pacing back and forth, mind running ten thousand miles an hour, before I could sit back down and let it sink in that I was staring at something that may well no longer have existed anywhere else in the Inner Sphere.
An apparently complete curated version of the Prometheus database. Not the actual Prometheus database, that would be the holy grail, but a subset of that database. There was a document explaining what it was at the root level - essentially a Prometheus with most of the junk thrown away to keep it at a manageable size - and what criteria were used for the curation process. Apparently it was almost entirely on the cultural side of things that the curation had to go on about, most of the actual scientific and engineering data making it in by default.
Gee, I wonder how many trashy B-movies they passed over. Not to mention all the lewds. Oh, what a cruel, cruel world. Come on, guys, lewds could be art, too. I waved my fist dramatically at the injustice of things.
Well, now I had my second conundrum, I thought. What do I do with this?... Actually, I thought, since Helm's database is out there, why couldn't I just sit on this for now and investigate it a bit more? Make sure I'm not about to make a terrible mistake?
I nodded. Tao of Random. Don't rush ahead and fuck up.
As far as fucking up went, we already had far too many people doing it. I didn't want to go ahead and make it infinitely worse. Especially if, as I suspected, Prometheus-Lite held the potential for increasing the Combine's War Crime index by a few notches.
Yeah, no, that thought made me want to throw up. Think of the really nice things! Hello Kitty! Bashing Clanner faces in! Bashing Clanner faces in with Hello Kitty Land-Air-Mech! Giggle~
That worked. Time to shut down the console and go back upwards to my girls and ensure order…
----------------------------------
Next time, we'll tune in to the happenings at Telos IV as Ayeka gets on the ball... (it's a dish best served on its own as it's big)
----------------------------------
15th August 3016
"Boss, we're being hailed!"
"Put it on speakers," I said, as the dropship kept decelerating towards Sadib.
The response, in a robotic-sounding female voice, came shortly after. "You are approaching restricted space. Send authentication or face your imminent demise."
I picked up the mic, brought it to my lips and, pressing XMIT, I spoke clearly a sequence I had practiced.
"Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right Bee Aaa."
The reply, in Giacomo's own voice, was swift. "Welcome, bambina. Make yourself at home… it is all yours now."
Soon after, the robotic female voice returned, providing landing instructions.
"Well, that was fun," I snarked. "I wonder what it meant by 'face your imminent demise'?"
Hours later, I was gulping as I learned just what had been in store had I not properly authenticated. I'd reached the main control center of Giacomo's little hideout, which I had to admit was easily as well equipped as anything I'd seen in Unity Palace, holotanks included. There were multiple consoles, each with their own function and I was on the one that seemed to deal with the defensive works when I found out.
Giacomo had a goddamn surface to orbit heavy naval PPC battery installation hidden. A quadruple Heavy NPPC battery. That put a whole new spin on the idea that nobody had tried to come here to loot Giacomo's stuff. Maybe someone had and after a thorough pulverization, the wisdom of hindsight spread among those who had merely been watching to see what happened to the bold.
The naval weapon emplacement was only one of the defensive layers, however. An array of automated turrets, many in well concealed ambush spots, provided all-around ground level and anti-air protection to the main compound. The fact there was an alarming prevalence of octo-ERPPC turret setups made it all too clear that Giacomo really liked his privacy and would you please die already, intruder?
For all that firepower, however, they were all static emplacements and a determined attacker would get through it. Probably minus a few dozen battlemechs, but still would. The naval battery was also incapable of covering more than a relatively small portion of the sky, so that was that.
Still a very nasty surprise overall. Your casual pirate would get smacked with a Trololol.
The rest of the defenses were the kind you needed people for. There were a handful of bunkers with aerospace fighter bays and a few bunkers with exits for the garrison. Which… as I looked at the information on the console, amounted to two companies of battlemechs in their mech bays. And scattered around in those aerospace fighter bays were a grand total of seventy-two fighters of assorted types. Plus room for again that much more. There seemed to be room for a full regiment of mechs, too. Pity I didn't have the hardware to populate it.
Well, I had to move on, so after putting a few girls trying to figure out how the defensive network worked, I moved on to inspect the rest of the underground base. The living quarters were good, albeit not luxurious, and had room for a lot of people. More than enough for my current needs at any rate. A large workshop was next. Damn, I needed a bib. It had all sorts of machines and I strongly suspected there was not a lot they couldn't produce and what they could not they could build the tools for. Praise Giacomo!
Then I started sweeping through the warehouses. I whistled when I saw the industrial mechs in store, close to a hundred of them on counting. They were literally of all sorts, though, even nigh useless ones for a barren moon like agricultural mechs. My estimation was maybe sixty or so I could actually productively use. There was also more industrial tooling in storage, although I couldn't tell what most of it was for at a glance. A lot of it seemed like it'd been salvaged from somewhere, dusted off, packed and then left waiting for potentially using later. And now it was all mine. I wanted to giggle. I kept searching through the warehouses, finding spare part and equipment stockpiles (including a lot of LosTech… I knew what some of those things I was looking at were… gauss rifles, extended range PPCs, freezers, oh my) and later on the ammunition stores. Autocannon ammo, check. LRM and SRM ammo, check. Gauss ammo, check. Alamos, ch - What.
I stopped to stare. Yes… that was an Alamo, a fighter-carried anti-shipping nuclear warhead. And it had friends. All twenty-nine friends. Kami-sama, Giacomo, where the hell did you get these?
Conundrum. What do I do with this, I thought. On the one hand, Alamos are a great ace in the hole to have if someone, say, ComStar or Clanners show up with Warships to ruin my day. On the other hand, this is the kind of shit no sane military wants in the hands of civilians. Then again, I wasn't an ordinary civilian… but I would be expected to report this. Hmm…
After a moment of thought, I took upon myself the sage advice from the Tao of Random. If nobody knows it's there, just pretend it's not there. And if someone does notice it, why, nobody knows you knew, so pretend ignorance and you'll get away with it.
I preferred to keep the ace in the hole in my hands if possible. One never knew when it might come in handy.
There wasn't much else to be found in the warehouses, although I noted tunnels that had collapsed. I'd look into trying to figure out where they'd gone and if there was anything buried somewhere down there intact. I took a detour to the engineering section, to observe the power plant that powered the place - a rather large scale fusion plant. It looked fine to me, well maintained and fueled, although until I brought new technical teams, further maintenance would be impossible. The engineering section also had a large scale data center, on top of a few other computer systems. There were a few consoles clearly meant for accessing the data center and I took one up, booting it up and seeing what, if anything, I could find out.
I frowned when, of all things, it asked for a biometric authentication… a blood authentication to be precise. A quick search revealed the equipment needed for that authentication so I tried my own self. If Giacomo intended me to get my hands on this, surely he'd make sure my profile was in… I knew he had the data.
A beep later and I smiled. I was in. And then, I got the shock of my life, my brain refusing to process what I was looking at. I had to take a few moments off, pacing back and forth, mind running ten thousand miles an hour, before I could sit back down and let it sink in that I was staring at something that may well no longer have existed anywhere else in the Inner Sphere.
An apparently complete curated version of the Prometheus database. Not the actual Prometheus database, that would be the holy grail, but a subset of that database. There was a document explaining what it was at the root level - essentially a Prometheus with most of the junk thrown away to keep it at a manageable size - and what criteria were used for the curation process. Apparently it was almost entirely on the cultural side of things that the curation had to go on about, most of the actual scientific and engineering data making it in by default.
Gee, I wonder how many trashy B-movies they passed over. Not to mention all the lewds. Oh, what a cruel, cruel world. Come on, guys, lewds could be art, too. I waved my fist dramatically at the injustice of things.
Well, now I had my second conundrum, I thought. What do I do with this?... Actually, I thought, since Helm's database is out there, why couldn't I just sit on this for now and investigate it a bit more? Make sure I'm not about to make a terrible mistake?
I nodded. Tao of Random. Don't rush ahead and fuck up.
As far as fucking up went, we already had far too many people doing it. I didn't want to go ahead and make it infinitely worse. Especially if, as I suspected, Prometheus-Lite held the potential for increasing the Combine's War Crime index by a few notches.
Yeah, no, that thought made me want to throw up. Think of the really nice things! Hello Kitty! Bashing Clanner faces in! Bashing Clanner faces in with Hello Kitty Land-Air-Mech! Giggle~
That worked. Time to shut down the console and go back upwards to my girls and ensure order…
----------------------------------
Next time, we'll tune in to the happenings at Telos IV as Ayeka gets on the ball... (it's a dish best served on its own as it's big)
Chapter 2 - Part 4
Ayeka heads to Telos IV proper and starts wheeling and dealing...
----------------------------------
Telos IV itself was not the nicest of worlds in the Inner Sphere, but it had nothing to do with the gravity or atmospheric pressure and composition. At almost three quarters standard gravity, it was good enough for humans to inhabit without needing particular precautions and it was also good enough to sustain a breathable atmosphere. The issue with the world was primarily the horrible weather. Tornados and heavy rainstorms were a constant.
Back in the times of the Star League, a network of storm inhibitors had been installed to improve the weather patterns, but Amaris, may he burn in hell forever, destroyed the system, along with the shipyard and fleet base I now had, when he abandoned attempts to occupy the world. Any and all efforts to rebuild the system were for naught, since. I idly wondered if the Helm core could help with that… in fact I suspected a new storm inhibitor system could be developed based on the information it contained but it would take years, if not decades, to get it working. It wasn't an immediate concern for me as I travelled across the capital Triumph, located in the continental landmass the locals called Dulles.
One of my biggest concerns about the shipyard was supplying it properly, both consumables and all the capital goods it'd require to function. For that reason I was making the rounds in the capital, visiting all the major businesses and industrialists to check out what they could provide. So far I'd found suppliers for most raw materials I needed - ores, processed metals and alloys, plastics and many electronics. However, there was a major problem I was finding myself in. The inhabitants of Telos IV had never accepted occupation by the Combine. They'd been passively resisting for over two hundred years already by essentially refusing to do anything at all for the Dragon that they could get away with refusing… and often even what they couldn't. The locals, despite believing me to be a Terran, treated me just as I had expected once they found out I wanted to restore the yards and, thus, wouldn't supply me with anything other than the basics… food, water and other basics for survival. I hadn't stooped to begging for their cooperation as I knew that would just mean they'd know they had me cornered. I had to somehow get the locals to play along with me.
The car stopped in front of an office building belonging to the Telosian Preservation Society. A non-profit society focused on preserving the world for Telosians, or so I was told, and frequented by all the high strata of business and intellectuals on world. It was a highly respected institution and I thought if I could get their buy in I could finally get that cooperation. I wasn't sure yet how I would get it, but I had one card to play which hopefully would work.
Stepping out of the car in a business suit, I headed to the reception where, after introductions, I learned I couldn't get in without a member invitation or being a member myself. Inquiring further about becoming a member led the receptionist to take me to an office where the Director himself was, presumably to interview me.
Seems I couldn't just sign a few papers, pay a fee and boom, get a card to let me into Heaven. Oh, well.
Sir Richard Walpole, Director of the Telosian Preservation Society, waited at the desk. A stout middle-aged man likely in his 40's, with black hair and a few gray ones in a fine business suit. And a very tastefully decorated Victorian style office, just like a lot of the décor. That was another interesting bit about Telos. It had almost entirely rejected the Japanification attempts of the Dragon, as if doing anything more than learning japanese was tantamount to treason for anyone short of those holding the highest offices.
Some pretence had to be maintained for the benefit of visiting Combine dignitaries, after all.
I honestly was not sure just how much Takashi knew about how little the Telosians thought of being ruled by the Combine, but I couldn't imagine him not knowing at least some. I recalled the suggestions to look for manpower and suppliers from nearby systems as well - quite prescient advice if I failed to get local buy-in.
We cordially greeted each other and I took the offered seat before the conversation started in earnest.
"So, Ms Hasegawa, how may I help you?"
"I'm looking for help with my rather ambitious project and I can think of no better a place and people to approach than the members of the Preservation Society."
"What project would this be, if I may ask?"
He probably already knew, I was willing to bet, but humored him anyway. "Restoring the shipyard to full operations. Get jumpship maintenance and production going again, in the very least. There's fewer of them every year and it's only a matter of time before the entire Sphere collapses from having too few in service."
"Ah. An ambitious project indeed. How do you plan to achieve this?"
"I have a data core, I have money and I have technical assets. I just need more people and suppliers for all the rest. There's good money to make, from mining operations, alloy plants, electronic fabs and many other fields. I also want to use local labor as much as possible."
"How well is that effort going?"
"I have not spent long on it yet," I replied. I didn't want to admit it was a flop so far.
"Patience is a virtue."
"It is, but it is also, unlike stellar fusion, a limited resource. I'd hate to resort to outside labor and suppliers but I'm fully prepared to do so if I must."
Shot across the bow, Mr. Walpole.
"It would cost you a lot more to do so. But we digress, Ms Hasegawa. If it is membership you want, I'm afraid it is not so simple as to walk in and ask for a card. The Preservation Society only accepts notable Telosians and those few foreigners who make a great contribution to it."
"What kind of contribution does the Society require?"
"Nothing as demeaning as a mere financial contribution, I'm afraid."
"Would a copy of Helm's data core do?"
He smiles. "That would've done had we not already gotten ahold of a copy."
"Oh, woe is me. Dare I ask how?"
"No skullduggery needed. We got a copy addressed to us delivered by a mysterious benefactor. I assume it's the same one who sent copies to just about everyone else."
"The weather inhibitor system Telos had isn't in there, though."
"No, it's not," he admitted. "We're working with what is actually there to figure out how to build the missing pieces."
"Missing pieces? You mean to say the system isn't completely destroyed?"
"Correct. The inhibitor towers were mothballed after Amaris bombed the ever living daylights out of the C&C centers and the weather satellite production facility. The Star League placing the Inhibitor C&C centers next to the SLDF garrisons was a mistake we're paying for even now."
I nodded, then laid down the card. "It's a Westland & Takeda Planetary Weather Inhibitor system, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"Would rebuilding that system do for a contribution?"
He just looked at me.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Ms Hasegawa, the Helm data core is insufficient to do it and we do not need assistance to develop the missing components."
"Who said anything about developing? I have the blueprints for the whole system."
"... Forgive me, but do you have proof of your claim? The blueprints have been lost for centuries. Not even ComStar has recovered them."
"I put no faith whatsoever in ComStar's claims to anything. But as a matter of fact, I did think to bring with me the proof," I replied, taking out a noteputer from my suitcase. After a few moments authenticating and finding the relevant files, I turned it over to Walpole for his perusal.
It was only a small fraction of the blueprint and data catalog comprising the W&T PWI system, but it had the high level blueprints showing the installations of the C&C centers and the high level blueprints for the weather satellite. And a sub-index titillating the remaining data files that were not in the noteputer.
"It seems you do have something worthy of consideration, Ms. Hasegawa. What do you propose?"
"Simple, Mr Walpole. You have a good idea of what I need and know what I have. I am willing to rebuild the system should someone find the funding for it. In turn, I need my needs to be seen to."
He thought for a few moments, considering the offer. "If you can write up a project proposal, with cost estimates for the Society to consider, we can likely find the funding. Otherwise, it's unreasonable of me to make any promises. We only have so much capital on hand, between ourselves and our esteemed members. Have you considered selling or donating the blueprints instead?"
I shook my head. "I apologize, but if I were to do that I would be giving up too much too early. I can release to the Society the full blueprints once the project is complete as a backup in case it ever gets wrecked again, but giving them up front I am reluctant to do."
He nodded in understanding. Giving up all my leverage was too much to ask for.
"How soon can you present a proposal, then?"
"I'm not certain… couple weeks, maybe? I need to get some of my techs in on it to get a full rundown on what is needed in order to get a reasonably accurate cost breakdown done. I assume the towers don't need any work from me?"
"The towers were mothballed long ago and we still have the plant that produced some of the spares for them. Also mothballed. That's thankfully something we never lost."
"I won't waste time on making cost estimates for that component of the system, then. Just the satellites and the C&C centers. And the plants to build and maintain them. Sounds right?"
"Sounds right to me, Ms Hasegawa."
I cheered in my head. Card played successfully. My plan was working so far and I hoped this was the start of a beautiful relationship between myself and the Telosians.
Little did I know just how much trouble I'd borrowed unknowingly.
---
Walpole uncapped the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a shot after his visitor had left. Yuriko Hasegawa had just dumped an incredible opportunity on his lap, but with it also came great danger. He had plans in motion and the last thing he needed was for any credit for a potential restoration of their weather inhibitor to fall on the Dragon's lap.
He had to find the funding to make the Inhibitor restoration work, full stop. And take credit for it while lavishing further praise and credit to the terran who'd made it possible. She was young, good looking and a foreigner. His mind was already coming up with ideas on how to steer that latest development in directions of his choosing… he just had to figure out the details.
The yellow liquid soon found itself burning Walpole's throat pleasantly and he could not help but grin. Good ol' Terran scotch. Cost him a pretty penny to import but if he couldn't enjoy the small pleasures of life, why bother?
Minutes later, he went back to carousing with his most exclusives' club membership and discussing things best left unrecorded by any analog or digital means other than a human's brain.
---
The brick-laying ceremony was thankfully brief, but quite mediatic as news spread like wildfire and it seemed everyone on Telos wanted to see history in the making. The facility whose foundations were being laid down would be housing tooling for manufacturing tools themselves and would initially be used to build out the equipment needed for the rest of the project.
Once that facility was constructed and operational, a satellite manufacturing facility would be built next to it to provide the space-borne component of the weather inhibitor system. According to the plans, after that the C&C centers would be furnished out while the satellites were built and placed in orbit and the whole system would come online some time afterwards.
Which of course meant any spare capacity the tooling plant had after the weather inhibitor project was done would in turn be usable (and profitably so) to upgrade local industry. I wasn't sure if the public realised this, but I knew Walpole and his Society friends did, and the floodgates had opened since. Suppliers were secured and, with the PR blitz that ensued, workers were becoming reasonably easy to find for the shipyard. Already I had teams doing groundwork on wrecked slips and a large crew working up on the workshop.
Unfortunately, it was still looking like it'd take me at least an year before the first shipyard slip could be ready for using, so I didn't know when I'd actually get any revenues from that side of things. On the other hand, with the help of some local construction companies, I also had a dropship repair facility's construction underway. I did have all the tooling and equipment for it, all I needed was essentially the ceramacrete building to attach all of it to. And that was cheap.
Hmm. It was funny to call a few thousand tons' worth of ceramacrete cheap, but it really was. Battletech had building construction nailed down to an exact and cheap science. Which reminded me about all the economic assumptions and bullcrap that FASA had invented. Kami-sama. FASAnomics, indeed.
Enough of economics, though. The PR folks were embellishing me and my accomplishments so much that, if they kept at it and were to be believed, I could undo all the damage and evils unleashed upon Telos by Amaris and everyone that followed. I thought it was quite the exaggeration… although Telos IV was among the worlds that took the least damage, ironically enough, precisely because their passive resistance got Amaris to pack up without rage-nuking everything like in so many other worlds. So perhaps they were right. With the Inhibitor back online, it would almost go back to the Star League era level of quality of life.
Would I walk on water by the time they were done?
At least I could stay away from the reporters for now, surrounded by so many fine gentlemen. This world was amusing me with its Victorian mores… at least, most of the Victorian mores. They weren't prudes and they had a far more egalitarian view of women as well.
My mind wandered briefly to another matter entirely. I'd begun recruiting for my 'corporate security' unit, which I'd nicknamed Hasegawa's Valkyries, and by its very name betraying its nature, I was sticking to recruiting women only for piloting duties. Poor Ryoko had looked so crestfallen when she realised I wasn't going to bring in hotties for her… until I pointed out that she could always default to sweaty chested techs after they performed maintenance on the unit's autocannons. Totally worth being chased around for a few minutes, laughing all the way.
On a similar note, I'd also gone ahead and given the techs marching orders to upgrade most of the mechs with LosTech from the stockpile. The firepower upgrade would be substantial, to say the least. I didn't much care if Takashi found out, it's not like he wasn't currently jumpstarting production of all the toys anyways.
I'd eventually have to add to the toys being produced, too, but the Rapier would have to wait. The priority was jumpstarting the shipyard, first by enabling maintenance and repair capabilities for jumpships, then expand capabilities and capacity for production of new jumpships and maybe even enable warship construction down the line. The tugs Takashi had earmarked for me from the Columbus cache he was sending for would certainly help.
I smiled. Life was good, at least for now.
----------------------------------
And from now on if you have to ask, It Was Walpole.
Next up will be... toasters?
----------------------------------
Telos IV itself was not the nicest of worlds in the Inner Sphere, but it had nothing to do with the gravity or atmospheric pressure and composition. At almost three quarters standard gravity, it was good enough for humans to inhabit without needing particular precautions and it was also good enough to sustain a breathable atmosphere. The issue with the world was primarily the horrible weather. Tornados and heavy rainstorms were a constant.
Back in the times of the Star League, a network of storm inhibitors had been installed to improve the weather patterns, but Amaris, may he burn in hell forever, destroyed the system, along with the shipyard and fleet base I now had, when he abandoned attempts to occupy the world. Any and all efforts to rebuild the system were for naught, since. I idly wondered if the Helm core could help with that… in fact I suspected a new storm inhibitor system could be developed based on the information it contained but it would take years, if not decades, to get it working. It wasn't an immediate concern for me as I travelled across the capital Triumph, located in the continental landmass the locals called Dulles.
One of my biggest concerns about the shipyard was supplying it properly, both consumables and all the capital goods it'd require to function. For that reason I was making the rounds in the capital, visiting all the major businesses and industrialists to check out what they could provide. So far I'd found suppliers for most raw materials I needed - ores, processed metals and alloys, plastics and many electronics. However, there was a major problem I was finding myself in. The inhabitants of Telos IV had never accepted occupation by the Combine. They'd been passively resisting for over two hundred years already by essentially refusing to do anything at all for the Dragon that they could get away with refusing… and often even what they couldn't. The locals, despite believing me to be a Terran, treated me just as I had expected once they found out I wanted to restore the yards and, thus, wouldn't supply me with anything other than the basics… food, water and other basics for survival. I hadn't stooped to begging for their cooperation as I knew that would just mean they'd know they had me cornered. I had to somehow get the locals to play along with me.
The car stopped in front of an office building belonging to the Telosian Preservation Society. A non-profit society focused on preserving the world for Telosians, or so I was told, and frequented by all the high strata of business and intellectuals on world. It was a highly respected institution and I thought if I could get their buy in I could finally get that cooperation. I wasn't sure yet how I would get it, but I had one card to play which hopefully would work.
Stepping out of the car in a business suit, I headed to the reception where, after introductions, I learned I couldn't get in without a member invitation or being a member myself. Inquiring further about becoming a member led the receptionist to take me to an office where the Director himself was, presumably to interview me.
Seems I couldn't just sign a few papers, pay a fee and boom, get a card to let me into Heaven. Oh, well.
Sir Richard Walpole, Director of the Telosian Preservation Society, waited at the desk. A stout middle-aged man likely in his 40's, with black hair and a few gray ones in a fine business suit. And a very tastefully decorated Victorian style office, just like a lot of the décor. That was another interesting bit about Telos. It had almost entirely rejected the Japanification attempts of the Dragon, as if doing anything more than learning japanese was tantamount to treason for anyone short of those holding the highest offices.
Some pretence had to be maintained for the benefit of visiting Combine dignitaries, after all.
I honestly was not sure just how much Takashi knew about how little the Telosians thought of being ruled by the Combine, but I couldn't imagine him not knowing at least some. I recalled the suggestions to look for manpower and suppliers from nearby systems as well - quite prescient advice if I failed to get local buy-in.
We cordially greeted each other and I took the offered seat before the conversation started in earnest.
"So, Ms Hasegawa, how may I help you?"
"I'm looking for help with my rather ambitious project and I can think of no better a place and people to approach than the members of the Preservation Society."
"What project would this be, if I may ask?"
He probably already knew, I was willing to bet, but humored him anyway. "Restoring the shipyard to full operations. Get jumpship maintenance and production going again, in the very least. There's fewer of them every year and it's only a matter of time before the entire Sphere collapses from having too few in service."
"Ah. An ambitious project indeed. How do you plan to achieve this?"
"I have a data core, I have money and I have technical assets. I just need more people and suppliers for all the rest. There's good money to make, from mining operations, alloy plants, electronic fabs and many other fields. I also want to use local labor as much as possible."
"How well is that effort going?"
"I have not spent long on it yet," I replied. I didn't want to admit it was a flop so far.
"Patience is a virtue."
"It is, but it is also, unlike stellar fusion, a limited resource. I'd hate to resort to outside labor and suppliers but I'm fully prepared to do so if I must."
Shot across the bow, Mr. Walpole.
"It would cost you a lot more to do so. But we digress, Ms Hasegawa. If it is membership you want, I'm afraid it is not so simple as to walk in and ask for a card. The Preservation Society only accepts notable Telosians and those few foreigners who make a great contribution to it."
"What kind of contribution does the Society require?"
"Nothing as demeaning as a mere financial contribution, I'm afraid."
"Would a copy of Helm's data core do?"
He smiles. "That would've done had we not already gotten ahold of a copy."
"Oh, woe is me. Dare I ask how?"
"No skullduggery needed. We got a copy addressed to us delivered by a mysterious benefactor. I assume it's the same one who sent copies to just about everyone else."
"The weather inhibitor system Telos had isn't in there, though."
"No, it's not," he admitted. "We're working with what is actually there to figure out how to build the missing pieces."
"Missing pieces? You mean to say the system isn't completely destroyed?"
"Correct. The inhibitor towers were mothballed after Amaris bombed the ever living daylights out of the C&C centers and the weather satellite production facility. The Star League placing the Inhibitor C&C centers next to the SLDF garrisons was a mistake we're paying for even now."
I nodded, then laid down the card. "It's a Westland & Takeda Planetary Weather Inhibitor system, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"Would rebuilding that system do for a contribution?"
He just looked at me.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Ms Hasegawa, the Helm data core is insufficient to do it and we do not need assistance to develop the missing components."
"Who said anything about developing? I have the blueprints for the whole system."
"... Forgive me, but do you have proof of your claim? The blueprints have been lost for centuries. Not even ComStar has recovered them."
"I put no faith whatsoever in ComStar's claims to anything. But as a matter of fact, I did think to bring with me the proof," I replied, taking out a noteputer from my suitcase. After a few moments authenticating and finding the relevant files, I turned it over to Walpole for his perusal.
It was only a small fraction of the blueprint and data catalog comprising the W&T PWI system, but it had the high level blueprints showing the installations of the C&C centers and the high level blueprints for the weather satellite. And a sub-index titillating the remaining data files that were not in the noteputer.
"It seems you do have something worthy of consideration, Ms. Hasegawa. What do you propose?"
"Simple, Mr Walpole. You have a good idea of what I need and know what I have. I am willing to rebuild the system should someone find the funding for it. In turn, I need my needs to be seen to."
He thought for a few moments, considering the offer. "If you can write up a project proposal, with cost estimates for the Society to consider, we can likely find the funding. Otherwise, it's unreasonable of me to make any promises. We only have so much capital on hand, between ourselves and our esteemed members. Have you considered selling or donating the blueprints instead?"
I shook my head. "I apologize, but if I were to do that I would be giving up too much too early. I can release to the Society the full blueprints once the project is complete as a backup in case it ever gets wrecked again, but giving them up front I am reluctant to do."
He nodded in understanding. Giving up all my leverage was too much to ask for.
"How soon can you present a proposal, then?"
"I'm not certain… couple weeks, maybe? I need to get some of my techs in on it to get a full rundown on what is needed in order to get a reasonably accurate cost breakdown done. I assume the towers don't need any work from me?"
"The towers were mothballed long ago and we still have the plant that produced some of the spares for them. Also mothballed. That's thankfully something we never lost."
"I won't waste time on making cost estimates for that component of the system, then. Just the satellites and the C&C centers. And the plants to build and maintain them. Sounds right?"
"Sounds right to me, Ms Hasegawa."
I cheered in my head. Card played successfully. My plan was working so far and I hoped this was the start of a beautiful relationship between myself and the Telosians.
Little did I know just how much trouble I'd borrowed unknowingly.
---
Walpole uncapped the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a shot after his visitor had left. Yuriko Hasegawa had just dumped an incredible opportunity on his lap, but with it also came great danger. He had plans in motion and the last thing he needed was for any credit for a potential restoration of their weather inhibitor to fall on the Dragon's lap.
He had to find the funding to make the Inhibitor restoration work, full stop. And take credit for it while lavishing further praise and credit to the terran who'd made it possible. She was young, good looking and a foreigner. His mind was already coming up with ideas on how to steer that latest development in directions of his choosing… he just had to figure out the details.
The yellow liquid soon found itself burning Walpole's throat pleasantly and he could not help but grin. Good ol' Terran scotch. Cost him a pretty penny to import but if he couldn't enjoy the small pleasures of life, why bother?
Minutes later, he went back to carousing with his most exclusives' club membership and discussing things best left unrecorded by any analog or digital means other than a human's brain.
---
The brick-laying ceremony was thankfully brief, but quite mediatic as news spread like wildfire and it seemed everyone on Telos wanted to see history in the making. The facility whose foundations were being laid down would be housing tooling for manufacturing tools themselves and would initially be used to build out the equipment needed for the rest of the project.
Once that facility was constructed and operational, a satellite manufacturing facility would be built next to it to provide the space-borne component of the weather inhibitor system. According to the plans, after that the C&C centers would be furnished out while the satellites were built and placed in orbit and the whole system would come online some time afterwards.
Which of course meant any spare capacity the tooling plant had after the weather inhibitor project was done would in turn be usable (and profitably so) to upgrade local industry. I wasn't sure if the public realised this, but I knew Walpole and his Society friends did, and the floodgates had opened since. Suppliers were secured and, with the PR blitz that ensued, workers were becoming reasonably easy to find for the shipyard. Already I had teams doing groundwork on wrecked slips and a large crew working up on the workshop.
Unfortunately, it was still looking like it'd take me at least an year before the first shipyard slip could be ready for using, so I didn't know when I'd actually get any revenues from that side of things. On the other hand, with the help of some local construction companies, I also had a dropship repair facility's construction underway. I did have all the tooling and equipment for it, all I needed was essentially the ceramacrete building to attach all of it to. And that was cheap.
Hmm. It was funny to call a few thousand tons' worth of ceramacrete cheap, but it really was. Battletech had building construction nailed down to an exact and cheap science. Which reminded me about all the economic assumptions and bullcrap that FASA had invented. Kami-sama. FASAnomics, indeed.
Enough of economics, though. The PR folks were embellishing me and my accomplishments so much that, if they kept at it and were to be believed, I could undo all the damage and evils unleashed upon Telos by Amaris and everyone that followed. I thought it was quite the exaggeration… although Telos IV was among the worlds that took the least damage, ironically enough, precisely because their passive resistance got Amaris to pack up without rage-nuking everything like in so many other worlds. So perhaps they were right. With the Inhibitor back online, it would almost go back to the Star League era level of quality of life.
Would I walk on water by the time they were done?
At least I could stay away from the reporters for now, surrounded by so many fine gentlemen. This world was amusing me with its Victorian mores… at least, most of the Victorian mores. They weren't prudes and they had a far more egalitarian view of women as well.
My mind wandered briefly to another matter entirely. I'd begun recruiting for my 'corporate security' unit, which I'd nicknamed Hasegawa's Valkyries, and by its very name betraying its nature, I was sticking to recruiting women only for piloting duties. Poor Ryoko had looked so crestfallen when she realised I wasn't going to bring in hotties for her… until I pointed out that she could always default to sweaty chested techs after they performed maintenance on the unit's autocannons. Totally worth being chased around for a few minutes, laughing all the way.
On a similar note, I'd also gone ahead and given the techs marching orders to upgrade most of the mechs with LosTech from the stockpile. The firepower upgrade would be substantial, to say the least. I didn't much care if Takashi found out, it's not like he wasn't currently jumpstarting production of all the toys anyways.
I'd eventually have to add to the toys being produced, too, but the Rapier would have to wait. The priority was jumpstarting the shipyard, first by enabling maintenance and repair capabilities for jumpships, then expand capabilities and capacity for production of new jumpships and maybe even enable warship construction down the line. The tugs Takashi had earmarked for me from the Columbus cache he was sending for would certainly help.
I smiled. Life was good, at least for now.
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And from now on if you have to ask, It Was Walpole.
Next up will be... toasters?