Scavenged Restoration 79 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 79

-VB-

Hohiro (the Second) didn’t know what to feel about the current situation at hand. 

On one hand, he was to meet his future peer, someone who would undoubtedly possess some if not many of her father’s traits, which meant he should endeavor to keep her on his side. 

On the other hand, periphery barbarians had invaded coreward worlds from New Caledonia to Richmond and advanced quickly towards the coreworlds. He should be out there fighting them off like his father did against the Davions and Steiners. At the same time, the Lyrans were also getting trounced if ComStar was to be believed. 

More importantly, these periphery barbarians possessed some sort of advanced power armor; the garrisons across the coreward periphery managed to capture pictures and videos of those power armors in action. The barbarians also possessed Lostech and new battlemechs.

But, like the barbarians they were, they claimed animalistic names for their “states,” if they even possessed such a thing. 

What the fuck were “Clan Smoke Jaguar” and “Clan Ghost Bear”? It sounded like someone was trying too hard to be “edgy.” 

Whatever the case was, he should be out there, leading the Combine’s soldiery to glorious victory!

Instead.

He was here.

Waiting.

For a goddamn princess.

With a giant fleet.

How the Chancellor convinced his father to allow them access to Combine space was a mystery, but however it happened, he was expected to follow along. 

And intentionally guide her toward invasion corridors of the periphery barbarians. Which she was also expecting him to do.

Because the Chancellor and the Coordinator both agreed that this invasion could easily grow out of hand if left alone, and his father told him that the Chancellor knew this because he had scouts on their periphery borders. It irked him that the Capellans dared to operate in what was clearly the Combine’s sphere of influence, but he knew that he and his father couldn’t do anything about it because they depended on the Capellans for … so much.

So much.

He hated it. 

He hated how weak the Combine was. How much it had to rely on their “allies.” His father might say it was something else in public, but his family knew what this relationship was in truth.

The Draconis Combine had, over the course of a decade and a half, become dependent on the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League. 

The Capellan Confederation had the technology.

The Free Worlds League had industrial capacity.

The Draconis Combine had the discipline.

But discipline and even mechwarrior skills meant nothing in the face of superior technology. The War of Lyran Aggression made that very clear with how the Capellans rolled over the Federated Suns. 

His father didn’t give him excuses. 

The Capellans rolled over the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth. 

The Draconis Combine lost world after world. 

The Combine was weak.

And the Combine will continue to be weak if nothing changed.

It was why father let the princess into the Combine with her fleet; the Capellan Chancellor offered father another piece of Lostech for the “honor” of helping them with the periphery barbarians.

As if … as if the Draconis Combine hadn’t boasted the strongest military for hundreds of years. As if he was taking pity on them.

That made him mad.

But… he was not his namesake. He knew the realities on the ground and in space. He knew that his people were not innovators by nature. They were warriors. It meant that his father’s reforms to change that was taking effect too slowly for Hohiro to see its effects. Perhaps he’ll see it in his reign. Perhaps it might occur during his children or grandchildren’s life.

It was an unenviable position but one he had to swallow his pride and learn to work with.

Perhaps that’s why his father agreed to have him meet the Capellan princess. 

She was a quid while he was a mech jockey. She excelled in all of her studies while he couldn’t stand to learn about the detailed microeconomics. She was hotheaded while he was … mostly calm.

“My prince.”

Hohiro stopped his rumination and looked to his aide, a thirty-something year old woman. Impeccably and sharply dressed, Emma Shosinoha was a political appointment assigned to him by his father to be his advisor in many things, etiquette being one of them. 

“Yes, komon?” he asked. 

“The princess’s dropship is entering the atmosphere.”

“I see,” he said and then rose up. “Then we shall go meet her. And evaluate her.”

Because that’s what this first meeting was supposed to be about. 

---

Anastasia looked at the ramp of the Princess-class dropship her father insisted she use. It was the royal dropship, after all, and it wasn’t like he was using it, he had told her. 

She did not like the Princess-class dropship.

Aside from the fact that it exuded luxury, it was barely armed, armored, and possessed minimal cargo space. It irked her as someone who valued efficiency in her fleets. The jump collar for the Princess could have been used by a Mule, and the latter would have provided close to five thousand tons of additional supplies for her fleet to use, including ammunition.

But daddy didn’t want her to travel “cramped.”

Ugh.

“Tokka.”

“Yes, ma’am,” her wetnurse companion and lifelong childhood friend said. She refused to not be “formal” and “polite” in public. 

“Remind me again who I am meeting?”

“... You are meeting Crown Prince Hohiro the Second of House Kurita, heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne of the Draconis Combine,” she sighed exasperatedly. “With him, there will be other politically important members of House Kurita as well as those of lesser houses and important military leaders of DCMS.”

“I assume there will be ISF agents planted here and there?”

“But of course. The Maskirovka has been excellent in picking out who among the delegation might be ISF agent, though with modern spyware technologies in both wet and dry equipment, they might be wearing face skins to disguise themselves.”

“Hmm. As long as they don’t act out, it won’t matter. And what of our own Maskirovka agents?”

“Spread throughout the fleet as you demanded, princess, but we have two agents here in the dropship with us.”

Anastasia hummed. “And the fleet?”

“Aside from your flagship, they are all still in position over the nadir of Benjamin star.”

“And no one is making threatening moves?”

“None, Your Grace.”

“Good. It wouldn’t do well to give off a bad first impression. Now! Let’s see what this Hohiro is like.”

Tokka nodded and stepped back. It was almost too easy to miss but Anastasia’s friend made a slight gesture, and that was only cue the crew needed to lower the ramp.

As the ramp lowered, the artificially brightened light of Benjamin’s star flooded into the artificially lit cargo hold of the Princess dropship. And as the ramp fully lowered, Anastasia saw a full honor guard waiting for her with a teenager at the front of it all.

She knew his face from the dossiers that her father and the Maskirovka provided her.

Clean jawlines. Military-style short-cut and stiff hair. Tall. Broad shouldered. Surprisingly wide eyes. Sparsely decorated military uniform. Stern faced and utterly proud.

Hohiro Kurita.

With her own honor guard, she walked down the dropship’s ramp and slowly walked up to face off against her peer. 

---

To his surprise, the princess came forward not in a naval uniform like he expected her to but in a flowing formal dress in red, gold, and jade. She looked as majestic as one expected out of someone of her position.

As she walked over toward him, he thought about what he was going to say first. 

Would it be a simple greeting? Would he sneer at her for her lack of formal military wear? Would it be to just welcome her to the Draconis Combine? Should he be friendly? 

And then she was here. 

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Crown Prince Hohiro Kurita,” she greeted with a curtsy. 

He gave her a polite bow as well. “Welcome to the Draconis Combine, Crown Princess Anastasia.”

“Thank you,” she said and smiled. 

He stood there for a second before humming as he pulled his eyes away. 

“I did not expect you to walk down the ramp in full royal regalia.”

She huffed. “It is something my father insisted. ‘First impression is important!’ he said.”

He snorted. “Sounds like my own father.”

She giggled. “It seems that responsible fathers are the same everywhere, aren’t they?”

“So it seems.”

Then her friendly smile dropped into a half-lidded polite smile of an impersonal killer, and Hohiro saw her for what she truly was: a bloodthirsty tigress. 

“Perhaps we should take our meeting indoors and away from prying eyes and ears. We have much to discuss. In particular, I am eager to hear where you believe I should first ‘visit.’” 

“Of course,” he replied. “This way, please.”

-VB-

Star Captain Arista of the 225th Jaguar Battle Cluster of Beta Galaxy sneered as she brought her Dire Wolf forward and unleashed all of her medium pulse lasers on the mercenary dezgra infantry. Their feeble attempts at running away instead of fighting only exemplified the waste of lives that they and all mercenaries were. 

“No mercy for the dezgra mercenaries!” she commanded her Binary, and they all acknowledged her command quickly. “But I want their dropship intact and serviceable for the clan’s use!” 

Her Trinary had been the unfortunate ones to have landed near Port Shanty, where there were barely any enemy mech presence. The locals of Virentofta, of course, didn’t understand about the wasteless ways of the Clans, and had ignored the batchall issued by the Star Colonel.

Which may be part of the reason why she was upset. Instead of stepping up to the challenge, they threw mercenaries at her and her Binary.

Her Dire Wolf stomped forward as the dezgra scattered before her like they should -.

And then something came rushing in from the air. 

She looked up and tried to shoot down the aerospace fighter that had come rushing from seemingly the other side of the port, but that ASF swerved away while dropping bombs and missiles on her!

She quickly turned to her side to limit her mech’s profile.

Her mech rumbled and rattled from side to side as bombs and missiles landed on and around her.

With a snarl, she whirled around and fired at the retreating ASF. 

With her trueborn abilities, she nailed the fighter…

Huh? 

“That’s not an aerospace fighter…!” 

It was a conventional fighter!” 

A conventional fighter dared attack a battlemech?! 

She took a deep breath in and let it out. 

This was why a batchall was necessary. Without it, people would waste their lives and materials to do nothing against the Clan’s superiority. A batchall was a mercy being offered, and these … these…

Wasteful.

Useless.

And ARROGANT.

Spheroids… they deserved to burn if they were going to waste everyone’s time like this. 

If they were going to throw their lives away so meaninglessly, then they shouldn’t even be fighting back. Why not just put a bullet in their own forehead, huh? 

She brought her Dire Wolf to a momentary stop as she waited for her Binary to send in their reports. It gave her time to calm down. Gave her time to center herself. 

She opened her eyes…

That was when she saw a Combine soldier.

With a shoulder-mounted SRM.

Her eyes widened. 

“YOU -!” she roared as she whirled around to burn him.

But the SRM fired first. 

And it wasn’t just one or two, and he wasn’t the only one who fired. 

From around all sorts of corners and windows, SRMs rained down on her Dire Wolf. 

Explosions rocked her mech and she rattled inside of it again. 

But as the smoke cleared, her mech strode forth.

Now, Arista was angry.

‘No mercy.’

She opened a channel to her Binary. 

“This is Star Captain Arista. I am giving you all permission to go all out as long as critical infrastructure is not damaged.”

And then she opened fire, ignoring the way her lasers carved into the civilian apartments around the spaceport.

Fire erupted as her laser set something on fire. 

She ignored it and continued to hunt down the dezgra soldiers who made her resort to this. 

They should have surrendered after they saw the Storm Cat in orbit of the planet.

What the hell did they think they could do against a Lola III-class Destroyer?