Scavenged Restoration 83 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 83

-VB-

With the peace - and subtle cooperation - still in place between the Federated Commonwealth and the Kapteyn Accord, Anastasia made good timing crossing the Inner Sphere to return home. 

However, it was still a journey spanning close to seven hundred light years across. The quickest route back to the confederation from Luthien, the safest system to start the journey from, required twenty-eight jumps. Even with lithium fusion batteries on her warships, it would have been a journey that took close to four months. 

However, Anastasia chose not to do so because it would involve leaving behind most of her jumpships, dropships, and salvage. So instead, she chose to take it slow by taking her entire fleet with her while on the move. 

Call it her sentimentality, but she felt that it would be a disservice to her sailors and soldiers of the fleet to just leave them behind so she could reach home faster. 

They fought with her! They died for her! They deserved respect! 

Even if her mother did not agree with her on this, father gave her permission to travel slow with her Phoenix Brigade. 

“Princess, Colonel Zheng is here.”

Colonel Zheng? He was the man father put in charge of her mech regiments, not that she used them well. They had three planetary engagements in the months of her campaign. 

“Let him in,” she said as she closed her laptop and set it aside. 

The doors to her office slid open, and Colonel Jeremiah Zheng walked in. The thirty-nine year old mechwarrior of House Dai Da Chi stepped in and gave a deep bow. 

“Princess Anastasia. Thank you for allowing this audience.”

She nodded. “Step forward and speak your honest mind, colonel.”

He took exactly one step forward and stood at attention. 

“Princess, I request your permission to remain in the Draconis Combine and aid our allies against the periphery barbarians.”

She raised an eyebrow. 

That … was not a surprise. 

Three planetary engagements. Less than a total of fifty enemy mechs engaged. That was basically two battalions to the two regiments she brought with her and was put under his command. Even if these Clans technologically surpassed them, there was advantage in numbers that they could not overcome. 

Artillery, LRM, ASF bombing runs from beyond the range of battlemech weapon ranges… All of them had been used perfectly in combined arms warfare against them by her two regiments. Of course, this also ruined quite the number of mechs, but she still salvaged enough to contribute to the confederation’s armory and research efforts. 

Five years from now, the Capellan Confederation, with its superior research teams and manufacturing efficiency, will be able to field Clan-level battlemechs… Ten years at the very least, if they failed to find success quickly. 

But that wasn’t the point of this conversation. 

The point was that the colonel and many mechwarriors under him felt like they were promised great battles (they weren’t) and found very little instead. 

She didn’t blame them for thinking or feeling so.

After all, her father’s instructions had been clear to her from the start while her instructions to them had not been. They had followed expecting a regular campaign. They found a nearly completely void-dedicated campaign that left them bored and without achievements. 

“You were attached to my brigade as my personal guard.”

“I know, Your Grace. And I know that I am asking for a lot. My soldiers and I have already been granted great honor by being assigned as your protectors, and yet I stand here, asking you to allow us to fight away from you for our personal gains.”

Honest. Well, she did ask for it. 

“You believe you can fight the Clans without the numerous pocket warships and warships that is part of my Phoenix Brigade.”

“The Draconis Combine also have them.”

“Which would you put under their tender mercies,” she drawled out. “And if you think the Combine will care about you just because you are helping them, then you are wrong.”

“I know that they won’t care. Which is why I am requesting this leave… with the jumpships and two warships needed to secure our security.”

“... Bold.”

“I must be.”

“Unfortunately, I won’t give them to you.”

His jaws tightened before he relaxed them manually. “May I ask why?”

“... I did not choose this mission, colonel.”

He looked at her.

And then his eyes widened as he saw the truth of the matter. 

“You didn’t? I and many others in the brigade were under the assumption that you requested this.”

Anastasia snorted. “I enjoy warship battles, tactics, and strategy. I am competent. And I am at my father’s service just like you. I may receive the education the heir of the confederation needs, but my father is not someone who will keep me close at all times to keep me safe. If I am useful, then I will be used.” She leaned in. “I led this fleet because I have been ordered by my father. Which means it is also my responsibility to ensure that this fleet returns home as best as it could, which is something I have already failed by losing one of the three precious Shenmazus.”

Colonel Zheng looked at her before nodding. “I understand. Though it was announced that this was your fleet, it is more that it was entrusted to you, not that it is yours.”

“More or less, colonel.”

He bowed. “Thank you for enlightening me about this, princess. If I may be excused?”

“You’re dismissed,” she nodded. 

He left her office, and she sighed once she was alone. 

‘So father deals with this all of the time, hmm?’ she thought to herself. 

While the conversation hadn’t done anything like making her heart race or lock her into a battle of wills and wits, it did require her to think, understand the wants of the warrior-colonel, and find the correct path forward to reject his request without angering him by being dismissive or rude. 

A shiver ran down her spine as she realized an enlightenment of her own. Or rather, a confirmation. 

She didn’t want to be stuck on the chancellor’s throne. Or rather, she didn’t want to get on it for as long as possible. If father suddenly died today, then she might become the chancellor and be stuck there for decades upon decades. If she was particularly unlucky, then she would be on the throne for a hundred years. That was more than possible with the medical technology available to the Liaos. 

A hundred years of dealing with people like Zheng who made stupid, greedy, needy, and whiny requests.

No fucking wonder her family’s history was filled with crazy people.

Anastasia shuddered in revulsion. 

“... Father better stay alive until I’m in my fifties,” she grumbled. 

He was good at being the chancellor. He should keep being the chancellor and leave the space battles for her. 

-VB-

IlKhan Leo Showers knew that he was not going to remain the ilKhan for long. 

Even if the ilKhan was supposed to be an impartial leader of all Clans, his power derived from his position within his Clan and the position of his Clan among the Clans. 

And Clan Smoke Jaguar had fallen from grace. 

Badly.

‘Capellan…!’ 

It was a name that rang with hatred among his warriors. 

They and their princess rampaged across Clan Smoke Jaguar’s new holdings. They refused to engage in battles on the ground and always engaged their void-assets first. 

saKhan Weaver was dead; she headed the defense of their logistical hub after being beaten time and time again. But by that point, they did not have any warships left. Barely any jumpships either. The logistical hub was simply where they had the most number of dropships and aerospace fighters in one place to serve as the artery for their holdings. And they lost everything there. By the end of the Capellan rampage, the clan lost all but two clusters. 

And with it, he was the ilKhan in name only. He fully expected to be called in with a vote of no confidence. 

Worse, he was a khan who was not there to defend his Clan. He fully expected to be challenged once he returned to his clan until he died. 

But his was not the only Clan to suffer losses.

Clan Wolf lost a cruiser to the combined might of Steiners and Davions, though they also lost five lesser warships in return.

Clan Jade Falcon lost a whole naval Star to Steiner’s nuclear perfidy. 

Clan Ghost Bear engaged the Capellan Princess and lost two battlecruisers. 

… It was an unprecedented loss of warriors, materials, and warships. 

He took a deep breath in.

And he walked into the meeting room of khans. 

There was a high chance he might not walk out.

But Leo showers was a warrior of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Even if he knew he was walking into the maw of a tiger, he would do so anyway because a Smoke Jaguar does not run from his enemies.

Sarah didn’t. His saKhan died with honors. 

He should at least match her.

---

ilKhan Leo Showers did not last long as the ilKhan once his clan lost all warships they brought with them to the Inner Sphere and most of their galaxies. 

Though he should have been left powerless, the ilKhan used his imminent loss to advocate for the activation of reserve Clans and four additional clans to be brought up as reserve Clans. The Grand Council agreed, and Clan Nova Cat, Clan Diamond Shark, and Clan Steel Viper took Clan Smoke Jaguar’s place. In their place, Clan Hell’s Horses, Clan Coyote, and Clan Ice Hellion became the new reserve Clans. 

The next item on the agenda was the Lyran Commonwealth’s recorded use of nuclear weapons against the Clans. Specifically, in the void engagement in the nadir of Blackjack against Clan Jade Falcon’s Jade Eyes, the naval support of Jade Falcon Galaxy, by Lyran Commonwealth’s First Royal Naval Squadron. Outnumbered three to one in an ambush they initiated, the Lyrans unleashed close to a hundred nuclear-tipped LRMs and a dozen nuclear-tipped Killer Whales. The resulting nuclear explosions destroyed seven Overlord-C dropships, two  Union-C dropships, three Aegis-class Heavy Cruisers. This constituted half of the Jade Eyes’ warships and dropships. Enraged by this, the Jade Falcon naval star tried to engage the Lyrans, but the Lyrans had already fled, using their lithium fusion battery’s already charged power to escape the battlefield once they confirmed that the nuclear weapons had detonated all across the Jade Falcon line. 

For this, Jade Falcon sought to start a Trial of Annihilation against the Lyran Commonwealth. However, more than half of the clans present at the Grand Council voted against such a measure, but agreed that the Lyrans were dezgra and as such, there was no longer any need to extend them the offer of honorable combat; from this point on, all Clans were encouraged to use their invasion force’s full might to bring Lyran worlds under control.

However, this did not change the fact that Leo Showers had shown to be an ill-fit leader for Operation REVIVAL. It did not matter whether it was his fault or not; he was the leader and the consequences of his invasion force’s near annihilation was upon his head. 

And so, towards the end of the Grand Council meeting, he was challenged by Khan Elias Crichell to answer for his ineptitude. And despite the urging of many of the khans present for the Grand Council, the ilKhan accepted the challenge but limited it to a personal one-on-one duel, citing the dire state of his clan.

Elias accepted. 

ilKhan Leo Showers died on the floor of that meeting room aboard the Dire Wolf with three dozen stab wounds. 

With the death of the ilKhan, the Clans found themselves split on how to proceed with the invasion, and eventually, despite the uncomfortable state their invasions forces were in, they chose to head back to the Homeworlds for a new Grand Kurultai while leaving their invasion forces to hold their newly conquered worlds.

But just because they chose to go back home it did not mean that the war had stopped. 

And the Inner Sphere had learned at least one method of dealing with the Clans from seeing the success of the Capellan Confederation and the dubious achievements of the Lyran Commonwealth.

-VB-

“Their leaders are … going back to their home worlds?” General Frederick Steiner asked incredulously.

“Yes. Significant warships - most of which are flagships of each clan that still have warships in the Inner Sphere - have been sighted leaving the Inner Sphere towards the coreward Deep Periphery,” the intelligence officer standing in front of him reported.

All around him, senior officers of the Third Royal Guard RCT murmured among themselves at the implication of this movement from the Clans. 

The Clans had slowed their advances to a crawl while their flagships were leaving, allegedly with their leaders aboard them. 

This had been a boon for Frederick and the soldiers he led. Just last month, they landed on Sudeten and prepared themselves to defend it, but instead of defense, they were being told that the invasion force they had expected to see was not coming at all. 

Instead, they had been ordered to take the fight to Clan Wolf on Vulcan. 

Frederick was not against this. 

In fact, the removal of so many warships from Lyran space was a welcome reprieve he very much intended to take advantage of.