Scavenged Restoration 50 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 50

-VB-

Magistrix Emma Centrella felt … oddly calm. 

As her personal dropships lowered its ramps, she stood at the front with her bodyguards. Between her and her bodyguards were some of the attendants and nobles of her realm, and they waited for her instructions. 

“Magistrix.”

She glanced to her right before looking forward again. “What is it, Countess Mambalay?” she asked the noble in charge of New Abilene Province. 

“Do you truly believe that we will need to go so far?”

Emma hummed. 

Truly, she didn’t know, but from what she has seen so far of the latest Capellan chancellor, she believed she might need to. 

“Considering what my mother did, we may have to.”

What her mother had done was not just a simple invasion of the Capellan Confederation but a breach of truce the Magistracy of Canopus had with the entirety of the Inner Sphere. As far as the Inner Sphere was concerned, the Magistracy of Canopus was a place people went to for fun and medicine. It was why the Magistracy was never ravaged by the Free Worlds League during the Reunification War; both the League and the Magistracy understood that a wanton war on each other’s worlds was not what either nation had wanted. 

This time it was different because the magistracy struck first and did so without declaration. Such an action was as much a declaration of intent as it was a declaration of war. What her mother intended for the Inner Sphere to hear didn’t matter. What they saw was a periphery nation attempting to conquer worlds and systems from an Inner Sphere nation. This one act broke centuries of perception, bias, and expectations. 

Now, the Magistracy of Canopus was not a nation to ignore but a nation to watch out for. 

A nation that might declare war upon an Inner Sphere or periphery nation.

A nation that was a threat, however weak and small. 

After all, had the Canopians declared war upon the Capellans with the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, then they surely would have shattered the confederation. It was just their stupid mistake that they declared after the war. 

Those weren’t Emma’s thoughts or beliefs.

Those were ideas and beliefs spreading into the magistracy from the Free Worlds League. Yes, big volume trade was halted but smaller trades still plied the trade routes, and they told the Canopians what they heard within the League. 

Because the League’s periphery worlds and provinces now looked at Canopus as a threat. 

And it mattered because that perception - the idea that the magistracy was a bunch of harmless catgirls and gamblers - was what had kept the Magistracy of Canopus safe in many regards. But now, they weren’t just harmless catgirls with gambling addiction. They were reckless and aggressive gambling addicts willing to wage war with people who had zero issue with them.

Which meant that as far as the other periphery powers were concerned, the Magistracy of Canopus was no longer a nation to be ignored but to be conquered, if only so that they don’t get a war declared on them.

After all, if the Magistracy of Canopus was able to assemble a force they might have been able to defeat a Successor State, then that was more than enough force to subjugate and ruin any other periphery state nearby. 

But in their current weakened state, the magistracy will not be able to defend itself.

A perfect opportunity to strike. 

So Emma was here not just to offer peace terms and accept them as dictated to her but to offer more and entice the Capellans into becoming the magistracy’s protector. She wouldn’t go for a full vassalage but it would … it would come close. 

Then she glanced back at Countess Mambalay. The thin woman was attractive in a way that Emma wasn’t. Emma was attractive. Hot. Beautiful. And that wasn’t just her ego talking; she was always within the top 100 most naturally beautiful women in the Magistracy of Canopus, according to The Canopian Veil, the biggest gossip magazine on Canopus itself. But if she was beautiful, then Countess Allison Mambalay was beautiful in a stately manner. Noble with high cheekbones and a cool expression. Lithe yet not flat. 

But more importantly, Countess Mambalay was a piece she could trade away without causing the entire Canopian economy to collapse. The New Abilene Province consisted of the most spinward of the Canopian systems. These systems were often poor because of a lack of people, underdefended due to a lack of resources, and frequently raided by pirates because they were the worlds closest to the Capellan Marches (not the Capellan March of the Federated Suns but the Capellan Marches of the rimward periphery) that sat between the magistracy, confederation, and the now absorbed coalition. 

It was a region fraught with danger and problems, and so… Emma intended to give the entire New Abilene Province to the Capellans as restitution. It would ease the burden of defense on the now severely reduced Magistracy Defense Force. 

And if she had to marry off the countess to achieve it, then that’s how it was going to be. 

The countess knew this as well; they and other nobles discussed potential terms and reparations that the magistracy would have to give. A beautiful noble wife given to the chancellor along with a whole province that they had yet to touch as a show of submission? It was the best they could hope for. 

Thunk.

The dropship’s ramps finally began to lower. She and her retinue stared out impassively as Sian’s sunlight poured into the brightly lit dropship’s hold and their eyes adjusted to its intensity. Sian’s light was certainly brighter than that of Canopus. 

And as she finally found herself looking out of the dropship, she found herself staring down lines upon lines of mechs and infantry regiments waiting for her with a single long red carpet laid out before her dropship. 

This … was a statement. 

But it was a statement she had expected to a degree, so she stepped out with her retinue and bodyguards.

However, the degree in question started to impress itself on her when she realized that she wasn’t looking at just a regiment or two. 

No, there were enough mechs standing at attention in columns and rows that there had to be at least four regiments in mechs alone. 

Some of them were wholly alien, too, reminiscent of a Thunderbolt yet much more heavily armored and up armed. 

As her feet finally touched down on Sian’s ground, Magistrix Emma Centrella realized that these mech regiments could not have been deployed from elsewhere. They were too clean. Too uniform. 

Too… new.

Her heart stuttered.

Factories. 

Everyone in Canopus knew by now that the Capellans had either started building factories and refurbished existing ones. How else could they have produced their damnable Firebees in such quantities when they hadn’t been seen just prior to the Fourth Succession War? 

But it was now clear to her which of those had been what the Capellans did. 

They hadn’t refurbished.

They had remade their factories. Made more factories. 

And the results of their work, no doubt championed and directed by Chancellor William Liao, now stood before her. 

Numerous and powerful.

Just like the Firebee Swarm.

Just like the Cataphract juggernauts. 

She wasn’t here to negotiate with a battered and bruised but still standing Successor House. 

She was here to negotiate with a Capellan Confederation that had clawed its way out of its increasing irrelevancy. 

‘The best terms for magistracy just burned away to nothing,’ she thought to herself as she realized just how powerful the Capellans were. It was one thing to fight them but it was another to see that they had more at the ready, just waiting for the orders of deployment. ‘Even without their warship, they could have overwhelmed us in a heartbeat. These regiments alone would have taken care of all other worlds other than Canopus.’

Emma felt a wrathful indignation. 

While she had been suffering on the ground and dealing with her mother’s stupidity…

Her eyes glanced over to the only Capellan who stood away from the columns and rows of mechs, armored vehicles, and soldiers. The said Capellan smiled and gestured for her to … walk down the red carpet. Where there were cars waiting on the other side with a bunch of men.

The Capellans had been playing with them.

The realization nearly gave her an aneurysm, but she held on. 

And walked.

Her attendants, guards, and retinue followed behind and around her. 

The Capellans said nothing as they forced her to walk something close to half a kilometer on foot. 

She knew that this was part ceremony and part humiliation. 

There was no doubt in her heart and mind that this very instance was being televised on every holovid channel. 

She schooled her features … and walked. 

And finally, at the end of the long, red carpet was a man richly dressed and guarded by soldiers in some kind of heavy armor. 

Emma recognized who this man was. She’d seen his face too many times on data tablets and papers over the course of her journey to Sian for her to not recognize him.

“Chancellor Liao,” she greeted the man.

The half-lidded blank stare of the stern-looking man dug at her. 

It wasn’t the eyes of a man looking at his peer.

It was the eyes of a ruler looking at his lessers. 

“Magisitrix Emma Centrella,” he spoke blandly. “Welcome to Sian. I hope the trip was uneventful?” 

“It was,” she replied with a nod and a smile. “Thank you for the welcome.”

“Of course. Even if we are nations at war, proper decorum should be observed.”

‘Oh? Was that fucking why you had me walk half a kilometer just to meet you face to face?’ she thought acidly. “And I hope that such a state would come to an end by the time I leave Sian.”

“Yes, let us hope so.”

“Then let us take a ride to the palace,” the chancellor declared, at which point, two dozen or so drivers stepped out of their vehicles and the group began to get separated. 

Except for her. 

“If you would?” the chancellor asked as his own driver opened the doors to his car (what kind of a brand was Porsche?).

She nodded to Countess Mambalay and one of her most trusted guards, and they followed her into the chancellor’s personal limousine. 

It was … luxurious.

But that was the weird part. It wasn’t as luxurious as the vehicle could be. 

It felt far too mundane and normal - for a given definite of normal experienced by the rich and powerful - for something that was being ridden by the chancellor.

“It seems that the confederation is stronger than ever,” Emma noted. 

“It is,” Chancellor Liao nodded with a smile. “It has been a work that the entire nation has been building toward, and despite the Davions and Steiners’ attempt to put us down, we thrived.” A pause. “And the Anduriens and your people learned exactly how much we have thrived.”

She didn’t grit her teeth or glare impotently at him.

No.

She was just tired. 

“My mother’s decision is not mine.”

“How convenient.” 

“We usurped her to put an end to this war. That must have some bearing in the coming negotiation.”

“Perhaps. At the same time, you realize that I cannot simply accept that,” he replied with a fixed smile. “No one person can take the blame for the consequences of an entire nation’s action. Not even I could, and you know just how powerful the chancellor is within the Capellan Confederation.”

“I’m afraid I do not,” she denied. “As far as I was aware, the chancellor is not only the most powerful individual within the Capellan Confederation, all previous chancellors have equated the confederation to their persons.”

“Oh? You mean those fools who nearly ruined my nation?” he asked with a knowing grin. 

She had tried to say that an individual could take responsibility by pointing out the confederation’s own standards, but he parried it by denouncing his own family members and the previous chancellors as being foolish and thus attempting to repeat their actions would be foolish as well.

… The negotiations have already begun and she was already on the backfoot. 

“That puts us in a similar position, does it not? Both of our predecessors have damaged our nations beyond their ability to repair. That certainly makes for a mirror, doesn’t it?”

She was going to use every dirty trick and tactic to pull through.