Scavenged Restoration 31 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 31

-VB-

The first bit of news I received while traveling through the Free Worlds League to reach my realm was Janos Marik’s stroke and coma. 

I had seen it coming but it still irked me that it happened, especially because of what would follow. 

With Janos Marik out of the picture temporarily, Duchess Catherine Humphreys was going to do something stupid and ill-advised by anyone who had even an iota of experience of what happened during the Fourth Succession War. 

But that was the problem for her and her partner in crime, wasn’t it? Neither she nor Magistratrix had enough spies within the Capellan Confederation to see what was happening. All they saw were surface intelligence that they could gleam from merchants, ComStar News Network, and maybe a few confirmed sightings here and there. 

They knew nothing about my people’s new manufacturing capacity. They knew nothing about the experimental mechs that crushed Frederick Steiner and his allies. They knew nothing about the warships that I was building in black sites. Not even ComStar knew about the warships, so I don’t expect the Magistracy and Anduriens to know about that, but the confederation’s quickly escalating mech building speed was slowly getting more known across the Inner Sphere.

Just as I reached the League-Confederation border to cross over, I received the second news. 

The Duchy of Andurien cleared independence from the Free Worlds League and, together with the Magistracy of Canopus, declared war on the Capellan Confederation. 

… Idiots.

Well, I supposed that it was a good time as any to put other experimental mech designs into use for field testing. 

Ravens might finally see the limelight in this timeline.

-VB-

When the war was declared, CCAF Colonel Lin Shuhao knew what he had to do. 

When he first arrived here in the rimward periphery of the Capellan Confederation where it was far from the frontlines, he had been in two minds about his position. One, had he frustrated or angered his peers or superiors to warrant such a remote posting? Two, this might be the end of his career and potentially life depending on how badly he pissed someone off. 

But he didn’t know who he might have pissed off. 

That was until he received a nonsensical order directly from the Chancellor’s Palace. He had been ordered to prepare for a defensive - and then an offensive - war. Dropships and jumpships would be headed his way as soon as the Fourth Succession War came to an end, but until they arrived, he was ordered to do his best and hold the border worlds near the Duchy of Andurien and the Magistracy of Canopus. 

He thought someone was toying with him. 

Why would the Magistracy of Canopus, those literal whoresons, prostitutes, and ex-patriot idiots, attack the Great Confederation? Or the Duchy of Andurien, which was a mere province of the greater Free Worlds League, attack them without incurring the wrath of their Captain-General and the rest of the League for attacking an ally in the middle of a war? 

Or that the Fourth Succession War would come to an end so soon after it started?

He even requested a clarification, taking a chance to show his confusion in writing about the orders and their contents. The palace returned his reply with a professional response. Yes, those were the correct orders, and no, he did not piss off someone wrong, but this was instead an opportunity for him in the near future. 

So… Colonel Lin Shuhao put his men and women to work. He fortified the border worlds most likely to be attacked. He assumed it was going to be that the League would betray them. How else would the Anduriens attack them? So he prepared not just a few worlds close to the Duchy of Andurien but all border worlds along the anti-spinward League-Confederation border that he was in charge of. 

Because it was impossible that just the Duchy of Andurien and the Magistracy of Canopus will invade them. It had to be all of the League! 

But one by one, it happened. 

The Fourth Succession War had come to an end. 

The Duchy of Andurien declared independence. 

And then the combined Andurien-Canopian alliance declared war upon the Capellan Confederation. 

It happened exactly as the Chancellor said it would. 

As if … as if the chancellor could look into the future. 

It would explain his action in the rimward parts of Sian Commonality. The Celestial Wisdom moved troops way before the war came to an end. He instructed commanders like himself to prepare. He foresaw one of his peers getting into a coma. He knew another war was right around the corner right after the Fourth Succession War came to an end.

It was a monstrous insight into not just the minds of lesser men but his own peers. 

The Celestial Wisdom.

Truly.

And then they came to New Roland. 

Good.

They’ll burn here.

-VB-

Major Wilhelm Archal didn’t expect much resistance. 

In fact, he expected to take New Roland without a hitch. 

It was brilliant how the Magistrix declared war on the weakest of the Successor States right when they should be at their weakest. Sure, in his opinion, the magistracy could have gotten more if they declared at the peak of the Fourth Succession War, but it came to a surprisingly quick end. 

But he also understood that the magistrix was not working alone, and thus had waited for her ally, the Duchess of Andurien.

Even though he was supposed to be their ally, it surprised him that the Duchy of Andurien so boldly declared independence, seceding from the Free Worlds League, just as the Captain-General had a stroke and slipped into a coma. 

It made him think that the Anduriens might have had a hand in that occurring. 

But, of course, he wouldn’t voice that out loud. That was a surefire way to get himself demoted. 

No, he was going to do his job, and his job was taking New Roland from the weakened Capellan Confederation and to write his name down upon history as the first Canopian to have taken a world from the Inner Sphere warlords! 

“Sir.”

He looked up. “What is it, sergeant?” he asked the woman manning the comm suite of his Union-class dropship.

“We have an incoming from planetside. Should I patch it through?” 

“... Sure, why not. Let’s hear what the slavers have to say for themselves.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “You’re speaking, sir. The controls should be in your hands, now.”

“This is Major Wilhelm Archal of the 3rd Canopian Light Horse Regiment. To whom am I speaking to?” he asked. 

“This is Sang-Shao Lin Shuhao of the 9th Confederation Reserve Cavalry. You are in Capellan Confederation space. You will turn around and leave lest you wish to suffer the most dire of consequences.”

Wilhelm rolled his eyes. “Ugh. It’s always the same with these types. ‘You will feel the wrath of the chancellor,’ ‘you will die like the worthless foreign dog that you are,’ ‘you periphery barbarians have no right to intervene in the matters of the Inner Sphere,’ and so much other nonsense.”

The bridge crew chuckled at his joke. 

He cleared his throat before pressing down on the  radio button. “It is unfortunate, then. We are at war and I have my orders.”

“And the moment you land here, you and your soldiers will die a pathetic death.”

“See?! God, I can’t stand these Inner Sphere assholes.” A pause. He pressed down on talk again. “Don’t think that your grandstanding will have an effect on us. Everyone knows the confederation lost the Fourth Succession War.”

“You would be wise to assume otherwise. The Capellan Confederation remains strong. Stronger, in fact, in ways you would not understand.”

“Uh huh,” he replied this time without concealing his tone. “Sure. Well, we’ll see you on the ground.” He looked at the comm officer, and she turned it off. “Well then. Let’s get ready, shall we?”

-VB-

Colonel Lin Shuhao rolled his eyes. 

So irreverent. 

Soldiers like this major will fae enemies they underestimate and die. That’s how it always was. 

Worse, everyone knew that the Magistracy Armed Forces was one of the least prepared military forces for military action. They weren’t like the Taurians or even the Outworlders. Even the pacifist Outworlders defended themselves if push came to shove (because you couldn’t force pacifism down everyone’s throat). And Taurians… they always fought the Davions and the Tortugan pirates. 

The Canopians? 

They paid ransom to the Marians, who were no better than pirates. 

“How far away are they?” he asked his sensor officer inside the New Roland’s militia headquarters. 

The young man, a militia officer, gulped as he tapped away at his computer. “... 10 hours away, colonel.”

“Hmm. How many of them are there?”

“We’re detecting … eight dropships, sir. There’s six Unions, one Achilles, one Leopard, and two Gazelles.”

Shuhao raised an eyebrow. “Just eight, six of those being Unions? That sounds more like two battalions, if that.” A pause. “That is if I decided to be generous with the term.”

Six Unions held seventy-two battlemechs and twelve aerospace fighters. Achilles held no battlemechs and two aerospace fighters. Leopard could hold four. Gazelles were tank ferrier dropships, each of which could carry twelve, and thus a total of twenty-eight tanks. This meant that this force had, at best, seventy-six battlemechs, twenty-eight tanks, and fourteen aerospace fighters.

Yes, that was not a regimental force unless the Canopians started calling two battalions a regiment. 

The Achilles could be a problem…

No matter. With barely over a hundred bodies, they weren’t ready for what was coming. 

“Are our fighters ready?” he asked. 

“They are all prepped and ready to go, colonel,” another officer responded. “Though this won’t be a recreation of Sian’s airspace, we’ll make them regret ever flying close to New Roland.”

“Good,” Lin Shuhao smirked. “And the mechwarriors?” 

“The veterans are prepared with clear instructions,” his second-in-command replied. “And all of the volunteers have been placed into Firebees.”

He nodded. 

It would be a hard battle, considering that most of his forces were made out of Firebees.

However.

However.

If the Canopians thought that a seventy-something mechs was enough to take this world, then they were gravely mistaken. 

Let them come.

Let them burn! 

Because there were a hundred Firebees alone defending this world! 

-VB-

Across the rimward anti-spinward Capellan Confederation border, similar scenes played out. Anduriens and Canopians flew into Capellan space and worlds with a battalion or two, expecting weakly defended worlds and unprepared garrisons. 

But in the days to come…

They came to fear the Capellan Bee Swarms.