Scavenged Restoration 55 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 55

-VB-

Jaime Wolf… did not know what to think about the Capellan Confederation under the reign of Chancellor William Liao.

First off, he saw that the new chancellor was a man worthy of respect. While he did engage in espionage and intrigue, he didn’t needlessly cause strife. From what Wolf Net could gather, the man had tried time and time again to seek a better way constantly, but time and time again, it was the Inner Sphere that let him down. 

That kind of tenacity and desire for a better life for everyone… Jaime could respect that. 

What he didn’t respect was what he was doing now. 

He was running away. 

No, not quite. 

He had thrown in the towel for the throne of the Star League, calling it “needless and unwanted title.” And he did so even as he reinforced his navy with a warship, fortified his borders, and created new if odd mechs to bolster his planetary forces. He and his Dragoons haven’t gotten the chance to face off against any of those Star League era technology incorporated monstrosities. He suspected, however, that they would be no match for the Dragoons. 

No, what worried him more was the mass wave tactics of those Firebees. 

The Capellan Confederation deployed those in truly stupefying numbers. So many, in fact, that it wouldn’t matter if he brought the entirety of the Wolf’s Dragoons together to fight a decisive battle.

The Capellans would always have more.

“Which is why,” he snapped. “We shouldn’t ask the First Prince to change our current assignment. If we get embroiled with the Capellans in future wars, then we will be whittled down to nothing by sheer volume of fire, missiles, and lasers. This is not the way forward for the company and the mission.”

Here in the heart of the Star Lord jumpship owned and operated in full by the company, they could talk without having to obfuscate who they were. 

“I still say we should test their mettle,” Patrick Chan grumbled from where he sat. The commanding officer of Alpha Regiment’s Baker Battalion had been a strong proponent of taking the fight to the confederation, not only to test the mettle of the new chancellor but that of his supposed upgrades that savaged their current employer. Of course, some of it had to do with kicking in Capellan and League teeth; there were many mechwarriors who still held contempt for the fractious Leaguers and duplicitous Capellans. 

“I’m here on behalf of the naval personnel of the Home Guard,” the elderly Colonel Jeremy Ellman spoke up, silencing the entire room. “We wish to test ourselves against the Capellan warship in a batchall.”

Some drew in hissing breaths at the declaration. 

“Denied,” Jaime immediately declared. “There will be no batchall against them. First of all, it wouldn’t be sporting to take the best of Clan Wolf’s warships, if a little outdated ones at that, against a barely functioning warship with a barely experienced crew.”

There were murmurs of agreement over that. 

“And second, how the hell do you expect me to explain the existence of a warship to the Inner Sphere?” he hissed out. 

Colonel Ellman didn’t look deterred. “You won’t have to. We will sail around the Inner Sphere and bounce around in this new ‘Aurigan Commonality’ until the Capellans send their warship.”

“And if they have more than one?” Natasha Kerensky, ever casual in these meetings, asked with a grin.

Ellman grunted. “Good. It’ll be a fair fight.”

That got a lot of officers laughing.

“No,” Jaime grunted out. “I am not allowing you to do so. It risks everything we have done so far.”

Ellman looked at him calmly, and Joshua was worried that the older mechwarrior just might challenge him to a Rite over this.

But nothing happened. 

The other colonel just grunted and leaned back, accepting his decision. 

Joshua let out a sigh of relief at that and moved the meeting along. 

“How goes the fortification of Outreach?”

-VB-

“Pirates are getting uppity,” the new Precenter Atreus Niah Wan growled. 

Timothy Monroe, the Primus of ComStar, blew out a sigh of frustration. 

Ever since the Terran Trade Corridor was established, things have been hectic in the star systems around Terra. 

Because pirates. 

When the treaty was signed, the Great Houses handed over security of the Terran Corridor to ComStar. And almost immediately, pirates took advantage of this. Weaving in and out of the Trade Corridor and surrounding nations, they struck shipping only from one or two nations while using the other two or three nations they didn’t strike as safe harbor. 

Oh, ComStar immediately put bounties on them, but when a Leaguer struck a Lyran convoy and slipped into Combine territory, it wasn’t the Lyrans complaining to the League or the Combine… but Comstar! 

It was the same with the Combine, FedSuns, and the League. They all complained to ComStar about why they were not ensuring the security of the Terran Trade Corridor as stated in the Terran Trade Corridor Accords. 

The four Great Houses touching the corridor almost seemed like they were working together to put pressure on ComStar! 

Except… Primus Monroe knew that wasn’t the case. 

For the Draconis Combine, they had the least number of raiders and pirates associated with their worlds. The Lyrans (and the FedSuns) had the highest number of systems adjacent to the corridor, but because of just how many new worlds needed to be garrisoned and defended, they couldn’t spare additional force, mercenary or regulars, to chase after the pirates. The League just lost one of their major aerospace manufacturers, and screeched at each other in a state of fractious uproar over how they were going to recover from the loss of Andurien. 

And the only Great House to not be connected to the corridor, the Capellan Confederation, merely raised an eyebrow and shook their head at the situation as if they weren’t the ones who had pushed for the corridor’s existence. 

With all member parties of the accord suffering from some form of naval deficiency, they saw ComStar as a great scapegoat to point to the problems in that region. 

It was ComStar’s fault for not keeping up with security. 

It was ComStar’s fault for not using their “numerous”  mercenaries to defend the region. 

It was ComStar’s fault for not properly utilizing Terra’s rich manufactories to stabilize the region.

On.

And on.

And on.

What it was doing, inadvertently, was reducing the public’s trust in ComStar. 

It was slowly becoming a problem.

“We should release the existence of ComGuard and secure the region,” Precenter Sian Tejh sighed. “At this rate, we’re going to -.”

“To do what?” Monroe asked. “Be forced to reveal that we hid our military might? That we deceived the entire Inner Sphere?”

“We could say that the ComGuard was made to enforce the security and peace that was given to us,” the new Precentor Dieron John Se-Octria hummed from his screen. “At the very least, it gives us a chance to be able to wield some of our military power in plain sight instead of having to rely on ROM for almost everything. ROM can take this chance to specialize in espionage and internal security like they are supposed to.”

“How naive can you be, John?” Precentor New Avalon Marcus de Salome-Turn drawled. The fattest precentor had gotten even fatter. “The more we expose our true capabilities in response to something this small, the less cards and leverage we have when the true need displays itself. No, it is in our best interest to hire mercenaries to secure the safety of the Corridor.”

‘It can’t be another scheme of Chancellor Liao,’ Monroe thought to himself. ‘They’re not even involved in the piracy or anywhere close to the Corridor.’

Indeed. Despite the fact that the confederation was the one to propose it, they benefitted the least. 

But what Monroe didn’t understand - as well as Precenter ROM Maria Solomon didn’t understand - was how easily some of the technologies were leaving the Capellan Confederation without their consent. 

Or was it consent? 

Oh, ComStar found at least half a dozen attempts at tech smuggling over the confederation borders by either deep infiltration units or other means. Whatever the means had been…

It came from the Capellan hands too easily. Too … smoothly.

Too easy. Too smoothly. And not a peep of alarm or condemnation from the Capellans about the spying. 

Which suggested to Monroe that the Capellans wanted the technology to be leaked. 

But that made no sense! 

Sure, the automation manual they leaked to the FedSuns wouldn’t work perfectly well (in fact, it was an altered manual with built-in obsolescence and long-term high-maintenance, which was brilliant in Monroe’s opinion) and a few of the technologies the Lyrans obtained were fully operational with no alterations, but at the end of the day, even small technological gaps being closed was a disadvantage for the Capellans! 

On top of this, they were indifferent to the rampant piracy in the Corridor as a result of ComStar “inability” to quell it while not condemning any specific nation, even though this level of instability reflected badly on them; they suggested it and it was not working out as far as the Inner Sphere could see.

Again.

It made no fucking sense.

‘Unless you think about how the current chancellor spoke of the throne of the Star League to be not worth the effort.’

Did they truly not care anymore? What about the Tikonov Commonality? Did they not care about that and their people there, too? 

“Primus?”

The call broke his train of thoughts and he looked up. “Hmm? What is it?” he asked. 

“It’s… about the security situation, Primus.”

“Right. Security for the … Corridor,” he muttered. “... I think we should hire ASF-centric mercenary companies.”

His suggestion brought about another round of discussions, leaving him to think about the Capellan Conundurum (as ROM analysts were calling it). 

-VB-

Archon Katrina Steiner felt… 

Uncertain. 

The future had seemed so bright and firm, and now, even small wins leave her doubting whether or not this was a win or just another pitfall waiting to drag her down even further. 

And before her was the very thing that Chancellor William Liao once offered her: a memory core filled to the brim with medical wonders that had been lost since the Star League Era. It came to her via several LIC initiated third party purchases, license agreements, and business deals, most of which were fake and the Capellans were going to realize this. 

Except…

Were they fake? 

Did the Capellans, whose Maskirovka have proven to be the most far reaching, deep digging, and quietest of the Inner Sphere’s intelligence agencies, truly let this seemingly perfectly harmless memory core go without even checking who they were handing off to? 

Truly? 

Staring at her copy of the Sian-Canopus Medical Knowledge Memory Core, which was what the Capellans were calling it, made her feel … uneasy. 

Everything within it checked out. 

Every bit of data had been perused by the best electronic securities Lyran money could buy.

So why why WHY?

She knew why. 

It was too easy. 

This kind of intelligence initiatives have been tried before, but the Capellans have been the most insular and paranoid against such attempts. It was as if sniffing out spies in their midst had been a genetic requirement to be a Capellan.And all such attempts have failed. 

So why did this one succeed? Because the Capellans were expanding so quickly that it was leaving the Lyran economic analysts wide-eyed and nervous? Because the Capellans had suddenly grown in size, with territories and people who weren’t true Capellans? Because the Capellans “relaxed” as one LCAF general suggested? 

She fired the social general who suggested that. Threatened to strip him of his titles if he dared to spew his stupidity anywhere outside of his home. 

No.

The memory core came from Capella, not Andurien or former periphery worlds. 

Capella. 

The birth place of the confederation. The world and system that the paranoid rimwarders derived their name from. 

After all attempts failed, they somehow succeeded this time?

No. 

She refused to believe it. Her closest advisors were the same, but what could they do except copy and distribute this seemingly unaltered and pure treasure trove of knowledge so that the Commonwealth never lost it ever again?

LIC also noted that the Federated Suns, Draconis Combine, and Free Worlds League scored their own intelligence wins against the Capellans… after hundreds and thousands of previous failures. She refused to believe that the Capellans somehow became stupider just because they won a few wars.

Which left only one logical conclusion.

‘Why did you let me have it, William?’ she thought as if she was asking the man himself. ‘Why did you allow me to have this?’

It was the very thing he tried to use to lure her into a truce before the wedding. 

It was the one thing she craved out of everything else the Capellans had. Not even the warships made her envious as this memory core had. 

So why just hand it over to her under the guise of “losing it” to her intelligence agency? 

The thoughts plagued her mind, and no answer would reveal itself to her. 

Her fingers drummed on the memory core’s shell before handing it back to the castellan of the Triad. The man bowed and left to return this copy, one of three within the Triad (because obviously, she had to keep up with the theme of the Triad’s three’s), back to its place in an underground bunker-library. 

The future of the Lyran Commonwealth looked brighter, and the people will suffer less in the days to come from diseases that once left fathers and mothers weeping next to their still living children.

But to her, this bright future hid the unknowable murky abyss her feet and ankles waded through, not knowing when she would stumble and fall. 

She coughed.