Scavenged Restoration 77 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 77

-VB-

“Father, what is the meaning of this?”

It was not the first time that my eldest banged the doors open when things didn’t go her way.

I knew that it was an act, her mother knew that it was an act, and I knew it was an act. 

“It’s dinner. We talk business after dinner,” Allison narrowed her eyes and looked at our daughter from my left. Around the long table, all of our children and immediate relatives ate, Kai and Candace included. Tormano was away on business to the Taurian Concordat, but his wife, Hanya, and their three children, Treyang, Sasha, and Tarik, were with us. 

Anastasia looked around the table and sighed before taking her place to my right and sat down.

Instead of an ostentatious table that stretched on for a hundred meters or something weird like that, our family long table was just big enough to seat fourteen people. My father did have one such table, but I had it trashed early in my reign. Or did I give it away? I can’t quite remember anymore. The only fact that mattered was that it was gone and in its place was this third rendition of our family table. 

It was a simple gold-included marble table, three seats wide and four seats long. The designer, a post-graduate sculptor from the University of Sian apprenticed to one of six master marble sculptors of Sian, engraved a tasteful motifs of dragons and phoenixes at each corners of the table and filled it out with jade, silver, and gold as it was customary for “noble” furnitures. The table’s six legs all came from a wood gifted to us from Terra. Something …. Bristlecone pine? 

Whatever it was, it was an extremely dense wood. 

And any of my children who dared to chip it or make a dent in it had been grounded over the years. They may be princes and princesses of the realm, but I was never going to let them become just another noble. No, I made sure to put in the effort to put in the right philosophies and values into their noggins. So far, I think Alison and I did a great job so far. At the very least, all of my children knew that being a ruler was about a lot of headache-inducing and backbreaking work, no ways around it. 

… Maybe too well, considering that only Anastasia was up to inheriting the chancellorship while the rest were horrified by the amount of work I had to do every day. 

“What’s for dinner?” Anastasia asked. 

“Since you weren’t here, we voted to have South Sian Rock Salmon,” Allison responded. 

My eldest groaned.

She wasn’t a fish person.

I was.

“Why Rock Salmon of all fish?” she whined and her siblings and cousins all giggled. Well, except for Kai. Kai was way too stoic for his age. “You know I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like any fish.”

“Exactly, mom.”

“Let us be thankful for any food we get for they are the product of our people’s hard work.”

The adults all nodded. 

“Dad, can you drop the benevolent dictator mask when we’re at dinner? I thought we were supposed to relax at the dinner table.”

And we were supposed to.

It was one of the earlier rules we made. 

At the dinner table, there were to be: no business, no fighting, no horseplaying, and no fasting. 

“So Anastasia,” I spoke up. “How was your day?”

“... Boring,” she huffed. “Most of the admirals (kong-jjang-jun) and colonels (kong-sang-shao) were horrible at their jobs. The best tactician among them was the Strategic Director, but that’s… you know?”

I hummed. “I do know.”

For all of the good that peace had done for the development of the Capellan Confederation, the same could not be said for its military. Raids from neighboring nations weren’t common compared to the Third Succession War. The most the CCAF got to stretch its legs was when I assigned them to clear out the Reach’s pirate clans and coordinate with the Taurian Concordat’s Concordat Navy to root out pirate clans around the Concordat. But even then, the task force for both operations only took up five mech regiments, ten infantry and armored regiments, and five warships, leaving close to eighty percent of the CCAF sitting around bored.

The overextension in our colonization efforts were what kept the CCAF busy these days.

Border patrol? Phah! Aside from smugglers and very stupid mercenaries, the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth were scared shitless of me to attempt anything, especially not when the truce was still ongoing.

“Oh. Dad, did you hear? Apparently, one of the jumpship companies secretly sold five jumpships to pirates of all people.”

I hummed. 

It was better if she didn’t know the truth about that. Not yet, anyway. At the same time, the Maskirovka should be “dealing” with the “traitors.”

“I heard. Maskirovka is on the job,” I drawled. “And what about you two, Maria and Zhuge?”

“Zhuge is not playing with me!” 

I raised an eyebrow and looked at my eldest son. 

Zhuge pouted. 

“Maria hurts. A lot. She’s more of a boy than all of the boys I know.”

“I am not! I am a mechwarrior!” 

Kai snorted. 

“Be nice to your brother, Maria. I hope you didn’t forget about our promise?”

“Nope! Better I am each month, the more hours I get in the mech!” 

My little girl loved her battlemechs way too much. So much, in fact, that it was the only gift she was willing to accept for her birthdays. She was very much a heavy mech enthusiast on top of that. Except for Cataphract. She called it “ugly fat man.”

“Treyang? How are your studies going?”

Tormano’s oldest grimaced. “... Not great?” he eked out. 

His mother did not look impressed with him.

“My son is too busy playing with girls to study properly but won’t give me grandchildren.”

“Mother, please.”

He sounded desperate to not have that particular conversation.

“Sasha?” 

The eighteen year old girl tried her best to look prim and proper. “I was accepted into the University of Sian with a full scholarship. I, of course, asked them to use the scholarship funds for someone else.” 

“Oh? What major did you sign up for?”

“Biochemistry. I am fluent in its workings, and it seemed like the confederation needed more biochemists in the research field.”

I nodded. “Don’t be afraid to switch if it doesn’t suit you, though.”

“Of course, uncle.”

“And you, Tarik?”

The fourteen year old shrugged. The youngest of his three siblings, he was a quiet boy. He too liked mechwarriors and battlemechs, but preferred talking about upgrades and refits rather than actually being a mechwarrior.

“I visited the royal refitters. They were using something I wasn’t familiar with to upgrade the myomers.”

Hmm? What could he be talking about?

It wasn’t like I knew every single little development that went on with mechs. My daughter was like me in that aspect: we were both squids. 

“Did you see the Augmented Double Lean Myomer?” Maria bounced in her seat, earning herself a disapproving look from her mother.

“Was that what it was?” he asked. 

“Yeah! It’s a new myomer combination thingy that uh … someone invented. I forgot their name. It’s supposed to cut down on weight while giving the same effect!” 

Before the two mech nerds could go into depth about the mechs, the door opened and the cooks brought in the food. 

“And you Kai?” I asked.

“... Good. I’ve received your orders.”

“Hmm.”

The cooks set the Rock Salmons down in the middle of the table and lifted the cover. 

Anastasia shivered as she stared at the human torso-sized fish.

“Let’s dig in,” I declared and dinner officially started.

-VB-

Two hours later, Anastasia, Allison, and I were in a private room. It wasn’t my office but could serve as a mid-tier functionary's office if need be. There were many rooms in the palace that did not have any use but merely there for future potential use.

“Dad, why did you sign me up to tour the Draconis Combine?” she began immediately. 

I took a sip of my wine and hummed. “Do you remember what you said when I asked you what your day was like?”

“That all of your admirals are shit?”

“Language,” Allison glared.

“Yes,” I replied. “And that is the truth. Despite my best efforts, the CCAF seems to be stuck in the ‘land battle’ mindset while you are far more flexible. I could go so far as to say that you are perhaps my best naval strategist and tactician wrapped up in one.”

She preened. 

“And that’s why I am sending you to the Coreward Inner Sphere. A new enemy approaches.”

Both of my girls looked surprised. 

“A new enemy?” Allison frowned. “In the coreward Inner Sphere? You can’t be talking about the Combine or the Commonwealth…”

“They’re from beyond the Coreward Periphery,” I hummed as I set the wine glass down on the table between me and Allison. “And they have already conquered all of the civilized worlds there.”

“And how do you know this, dad?” Anastasia asked seriously. 

“... do you also remember talking about the jumpships that were sold to the pirates?”

She nodded slowly. 

And then she paused. 

Her eyes widened. 

“Each of the Great Houses monitor every other Great Houses, including those we are not in active war with,” I began. “Jumpships are one of the main indicators of a Great House’s prosperity and operations. Of course, a jumpship operated by corporations or jumpship clans of a Great House would not be allowed to access the worlds of other Great Houses they are not allied to, but to scout out and reach the Coreward Periphery, the fastest route from the Capellan Confederation is through the Combine and Commonwealth. At the same time, I couldn’t afford to give either nation reasons to believe that I suspected something.”

“Suspected what?” Allison asked quietly and tensely. 

I smiled. “Where the Wolf’s Dragoons came from.”

Anastasia sat stiffly. 

“I had all of the ‘stolen’ jumpships secretly hauled to Necromo by using uninhabited systems and made them appear like legitimate jumpships. While there, I had them refitted to house lithium-fusion batteries to allow them double jump and the best sensor equipment that the confederation could put on them.”

I snapped my fingers, and one of the servants in the room, who had been waiting quietly like a statue, stepped up with a briefcase. He set the briefcase down on the low coffee table between the three of us, bowed, and left the room.

“This is what they found.”

It showed the vast emptiness of the Coreward Deep Periphery.

Empty, yes.

But mapped.

And at the far edge of that map?

A cluster of systems highlighted with various colors. 

The Pentagon Worlds.

… Of course, the jumpships that I sent over to scout out the Deep Periphery did not find those worlds. I fudged some of the data and had Maskirovka put it together, but a lot of the worlds and systems that were shown on the map were legitimate places that the scouting force had mapped out. 

“Kerensky’s descendents call themselves the Clans now,” I said quietly. “They are a strictly meritocratic martial society that implemented a genetic-based caste system upon their people. And they ruthlessly enforce this system through bioengineered soldiers. Or rather, they themselves are bioengineered. Iron wombs, they call the technology. And trueborn, those who are born through this artificial womb technology.”

My heir and wife both looked at me intently. 

“And they have begun their invasion. Within months, they will be invading both the Combine and the Commonwealth. Now, I do not care about either of them. A weaker Combine is one dependent on our mercy. A weaker Commonwealth is a leash that drags down the Federated Suns. But they are the only ones standing between the Clans and Terra, and if the willingly given information from the ‘captured’ Clan mechwarriors was of any indication, then it is that these Clans will unite into one giant confederation under whichever clan reaches Terra and conquers it.”

“... You want me to run interference.”

Allison’s eyes widened in surprise and then fear. “No! You can’t send her to a far away battlefield!” 

“And I am the Chancellor,” I whispered. “I must act as it benefits the confederation. And my heir, my eldest, is the best warship fleet strategist and tactician. I do not know the enemy warship composition, but they do have warships. Just one Clan supposedly possesses twenty warships. Some others have a lot less. Others may have more.”

“And you’re sending her to certain death?!” 

I looked at my wife… and I saw true anger for the first time. The kind that I have yet to encounter with her before. 

“Under the pretense that you need adequate protection, I will be sending you with sixteen warships, including all three of our latest warships.”

Anastasia nearly shot up from the couch.

“You’re giving me all three of the Shenmazu heavy cruisers…?” 

Shenmazu-class Heavy Cruisers. 

I knew that the Capellan Confederation was supposed to be producing the Feng Huang-class cruisers after the Clan Invasion era. However, I remembered that the Feng Huang cruisers were outgunned and outarmored by anything else in its weight class. It was the best that the Capellan Confederation of that timeline could produce. So I decided even before the outbreak of the War of Lyran Aggression that the Capellan Confederation needed heavier warships to stand against my neighbors in the near future and it would use the resources of the rejuvenated confederation instead of the pitiful dwarf state it was in the original timeline. 

The construction yards for those ships had been at Necromo and thus why Necromo had such heavy defenses that even Sian lacked.

I was hiding the literal future of the confederation in that system, and now, after fifteen years of development, they sat ready for the right commander to lead them into battle. 

And that commander was my heir. 

“I will also give you four of the redesigned Soyal II-class Light Cruisers.”

“The ones with Ultralight Mass Drivers?”

“Yes.”

“And what else?”

“Eight Essex-class Destroyers, two Camel-class Transports, thirty pocket warships of various classes, and additional ten dropships, again of various classes.” I already had all of this prepared even before we had dinner.

“You’re giving her a third of the entire navy,” Allison muttered in horror. 

“I expect my heir,” I continued without looking at Allison. “To keep herself safe at all times as much as possible. As much as war is now your newfound duty, succession is also your duty. Understood?”

“Y-Yes, father.” Then she paused. “You didn’t say anything about mech regiments.”

“You are correct about that,” I rumbled. “Because you will receive exactly two: the Right Hand of the Death Commandos and five battalions from all of the Warrior Houses.”

The message here was clear: do not engage in protracted land battles. Her role was in space as the fleet’s commander.

“By this time next week, I’ll have everything cleared with the Coordinator. Theodore should be a lot more agreeable than his father,” I said as I stood up. I walked around the table.

Then I opened my arms up.

Anastasia stood there for a long while before she approached and gave me a hug. 

I wrapped my arms around her and patted her back and head. 

“My little bird is going off to her first war.”

Allison looked … upset. But she held herself back.

“If it comes down to the fleet and yourself and you have to choose which one to save, I expect you to return home safe at all cost. Understood?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Good.”

-VB-

Shenmazu-class Heavy Cruiser

Production Year: 3049

Tech Base: Star League

Cost: 30,000,000,000 C-Bills

Mass: 810,000 tons

Length: 1.4 km

Sail Diameter: 1.2 km

Fuel: 5,000 tons

Burn Rate: 35 tons/day

Safe Thrust: 2 G

Top Thrust: 3 G

LF Battery: Yes

16x AMS

30x LRM 20 with Tikonov II FCS (comparable to Artemis V)

20x Large Lasers

20x NPPC

12x NL35

8x NL45

8x NL55

4x Heavy NPPC

3x Capital Missile Launcher (Killer Whale-T)

1x ???

Armor: 1,400 tons Ferro-Carbide

Heat Sinks: 1,050 double

Dropship Capacity: 4

Escape Pods/Life Boats: 40/15

Grav Decks: 2 x 100 meter diameter

Crew: 275

Misc: ???

---

Soyal II-class Light Cruiser

Production Year: 3049

Tech Base: Star League

Cost: 18,000,000,000 C-Bills

Mass: 750,000 tons

Length: 650 meters

Sail Diameter: 1.3 km

Fuel: 4,000 tons

Burn Rate: 30 tons/day

Safe Thrust: 2.5 G

Top Thrust: 3.5 G

LF Battery: Yes

10x AMS

14x LRM 20 with Tikonov II FCS (comparable to Artemis V)

18x Large Lasers

16x NPPC

10x NL35

6x NL45

2x Capital Missile Launcher (Killer Whale-T)

1x Ultralight Mass Driver

Armor: 900 tons Ferro-Carbide

Heat Sinks: 875 double

Dropship Capacity: 4

Escape Pods/Life Boats: 30/12

Grav Decks: 2 x 50 meter diameter

Crew: 220

Misc: ???

-VB-

NEW Special Group created!

The Phoenix Brigade

3x Shenmazu Heavy Cruisers

4x Soyal II Light Cruisers

8x Essex II Destroyers

2x Camel Transports (supplies, fuel, food, additional berthing, etc)

30x pocket warships

10x dropships

Death Commando, Right Hand regiment

Assembled Regiment of the Warrior Houses