Scavenged Restoration 64 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 64 

-VB-

In the throne room, I sat on my throne staring at the report from the Maskirovka while the Prefectorate waited for me to call upon them.

Instead of my metaknowledge, this came directly from actual spies planted within the DCMS and the internal courts of the Draconis Combine. 

And oh boy… my ally was very upset. 

Not that he wasn’t justified in that anger. One of the Panther factory worlds got leveled along with some one billion people. 

Alshain, the world that the Lyrans struck, was not some mining world or an agri world with a factory that couldn’t be moved. It was a very well populated, very well defended, and very treasured world. 

Losing that many people and a factory on top of that wasn’t just a stain on House Kurita but an outright crippling failure on their part. 

At the same time, I knew that this couldn’t be something Katrina would have sanctioned. No, the Steiners and Davions were doing their goddamn best to catch up to me to be trying this sort of reckless declaration of war, especially with nuclear bombs involved. 

This was … not a good thing for me. Oh, if the Combine, Suns, and the Commonwealth duked it out, then I would gladly watch it with a bucket of popcorn. Or rather, a cup of my most expensive tea and mapo tofu as a snack. However, I was allied to the Combine, which meant that the Federated Suns were sure to attack me and my confederation again. 

This was not a good thing because I didn’t want to reveal what I had in hand. What was already known to the FedCom Alliance wasn’t enough to push the Federated Suns. I had needed another decade or two to build it up to retake what I’d lost. Instead, what I had on hand was finally enough to tightly secure my borders and keep any invasion at bay but not enough to counterattack. If I did reveal my secret warship fleet, then the FedSuns would focus on me, which wasn’t what I wanted. 

I didn’t know what the full situation at hand was in the Free Worlds League but what data I did have told me that the Free Worlds League was in a similar position as I was, except worse, because I was pretty sure that they didn’t have a secret warship fleet. 

Because of how they operated, everyone knew how many shipyards they built. While my confederation also built shipyards… we also made a few more shipyards in secret over Necromo. 

Which was a system on the border and potentially a target for the Federated Suns. And if they attacked me there, then one of my secrets would be revealed. 

Again, I didn’t want that. 

I blew out a sigh.

With both the League and my confederation unable to push out, we wouldn’t be able to keep the Davions and the Steiners distracted enough for the Combine to defend themselves effectively. 

I let out a sigh of frustration. 

My focus on quality had backfired. Strictly speaking, I had an army and a navy to push into the Federated Suns. I had just enough of both to match the Federated Suns in a 2 to 3 ratio in their favor. However, I had more jumpships than the Davions did, which meant I was able to sustain my economy better. This meant that as long as I did not take high attrition of my troops, then I could outlast the Davions economically, especially if I used my warship fleet to strike deep into their territory at their core worlds. 

“The Draconis Combine has declared war upon the Lyran Commonwealth for the tragedy the Lyrans committed on Alshain,” I declared out loud. “And have called in both the Free Worlds League and us into the war as part of the Kapteyn Accord.”

At the same time, I couldn’t afford to not answer this call to arms. The Capellan Confederation needed the Accord to survive. 

And that was the problem right now. 

Instead of being overwhelming, this current war would lead to a stalemate where only after millions of deaths across hundreds of worlds would the Accord gain the upper hand. It would be a pointless war where gains would be minimal and the losses high. 

… Perhaps I am being too dismissive of my allies. My allies were, despite some tech being stolen, still technologically superior to FedCom. To my surprise, ComStar hadn’t flooded the market with LosTech or released more techs to balance the scale, and this meant that there shouldn’t be any surprises, right? 

I looked at the members of the Prefectorate, which included my sister. 

“I intend to answer this call to arms, but make it clear that we are not in a position to cross a hundred light years of hostile territory to reinforce their position. Are there any recommendations from among the Prefectorate?” 

“I believe it is in our interest to help the Kuritans,” someone replied. 

I turned to look at the speaker. 

“Why do you say so?” I asked the Minister of Foreign Relations, my brother Tormano Liao. 

“Unlike a regular raid or even deep strike, the Lyrans carried out an attack with multiple nuclear bombs on a scale we haven’t seen since the Second Succession War.”

It was true that while nuclear bombs had been used during the Third Succession War, none of those events included seven such bombs going off at once to kill a billion people. Most of the Third Succession War nuclear bomb detonations had been in defense as well. 

“If we pull out when our allies are getting nuclear bombs detonated on their deep worlds, then this would indicate that the Capellan Confederation is too weak or afraid to retaliate. The perception would be that the confederation will easily break alliances, which would make our periphery allies … upset and re-evaluate their stance.”

By allies, he was including single world fiefdoms in the rimward Capellan March/New Colony Region. Of course, these alliances were preludes to future vassalizations and integration, so losing these alliances will stymie our expansion into the New Colony Region. 

More importantly, the Taurian Concordat would question our freshly minted alliance. Worse, the alliance itself would become a source of suspicion. 

“Strategic Military Director, what is your opinion on this?” I asked as I looked to the other side of the room. 

A decade, it would have been Pavel Ridzik standing there, but the man had retired just a year ago. In his place was a less experienced officer but someone who had distinguished himself on Styk during the Fourth Succession War. 

James Teng, one of the Twin Architects of Styk’s Defense, stepped forward. Dressed in a traditional green mangfu the courtiers wore for this occasion, he bowed his head while holding his huge sleeved arms up and in front of his face. After a good two seconds of respectful bowing, he lifted his head back up and put his arms down. 

“Chancellor, it is the humble of this servant that we will be able to maintain a firm defense of our borders,” he began. “However, any plans for deep strikes are sure to fail as we lack the raw manpower to continuously reinforce any deep breaches.” Something I already knew and had taken into account. “However.” Oh? “It has been close to a decade since the end of the Fourth Succession War. During that time, our people in the so called ‘Sarna March’ have suffered at the hands of Lyran and Davion mistreatment. There lies some possibility that we might be able to rouse the populace in those worlds to rise up and stand beside us. As long as we can take a hold of those worlds within the first two months of operation, we will be able to hold them indefinitely.”

I leaned back into my throne. 

Retake the worlds of the Tikonov Commonality, huh? 

I looked around. 

Many of the ministers and Prefectorate members all looked eager at the thought. 

“And what if the Davions resort to orbital bombardment?” 

“Their ships,” Director Teng smiled. “Are small. Most are of the corvette class. Very few are heavier than frigates. Our average warship, on the other hand, are destroyers.” He was taking the secret warship into account. Without it, the average hull tonnage dropped to frigate. “Should the Davions resort to orbital bombardment, we hold the advantage in that and they will suffer more than we will.”

“I would rather not have my people suffer, director,” I chastised him lightly but nodded after. “But you are right. We do hold many advantages, but would it be enough to overcome their planetside numerical superiority?”

He kept firm but I saw telltale signs of a grimace. 

No.

We didn’t.

We had more jumpships. We had more dropships. We had more warships. 

But we were numerically inferior to them, especially since they would be the defenders with their own militias on the ground. On top of that, it was not the Davions who held the Tikonov Commonality worlds but the Lyrans. In a mech regiment to mech regiment comparison, even their militia outtonagged the CCAF.

I drummed my fingers on the arms of my throne. 

Their opinionated words - and lack of it in some - only confirmed what I knew. They knew just as I did that this war would be different from the Fourth Succession War. 

I sighed. “I will make my decision tomorrow,” I declared. “Go. Rest. And be ready to receive my word.”

They all bowed. “We hear and we obey.”

---

The Red Phone was not a phone. 

It was a text messenger. 

For such a long distance communication, realtime communication was not possible. This discrete text communication was the best we could do. The bandwidth was low, information that could be carried was limited, and it was, over all, a very temperamental thing. 

As such, we had a rule over the Red Phone. 

We answer each other’s questions as honestly and strictly as possible. Don’t ask questions we know won’t be answered. Don’t tell any of the other Successor Lords that the Red Phone exists.

These rules existed for three simple reasons. 

If we do not answer each other honestly over emergencies and/or critical situations, then the very point of the Red Phone was moot. We cannot ask each other questions that impinge on national security or private life; both of us know neither of us will do that. If the other Successor Lords found out about the Red Phone, then both of us will lose credibility in each of our respective alliances. 

And before I’d gone to meet with the Prefectorate, I had tossed Katrina a few questions.

Did you sanction that attack?

Did you supply them with the bombs? 

How did this happen? 

What will you do?

When I came back from the three hour meeting, she had answered all of my questions. 

No.

No.

Unknown. Under investigation. 

And she didn’t answer the fourth question. I wouldn’t know how to answer it either. 

She had left her own questions. 

Will you use nukes offensively? 

Will you support the Combine aggressively? 

… they were questions that toed the line of our rules. Toed it but not crossed it. 

I wrote out my quick replies and sent them. After that, I hid the Red Phone and leaned back into my chair. I closed my eyes and tried to keep the impending headache from manifesting. 

I made the choice based on what will happen in the future, even if I wasn’t proud of the choice. 

-VB-

Across the Inner Sphere at the same time, Archon Katrina Steiner was about to blow a gasket. 

No.

She wanted to beat the shit out of someone. 

Her anger was so great that she wasn’t even feeling the pain or fragility anymore! Oh, there would be hell to pay if she actually acted on that wrath, so she stayed put in her wheelchair.

Instead, her cousin Duke Frederick Steiner was put to the task of rooting out everyone involved with the Alshain Bombing. If someone so much as filed the wrong paperwork, then they were to be chained and dragged out for the tender mercies of LIC … and LOKI. 

In this, she and he were of the same mind. 

The Lyran Commonwealth had not been ready for war. They were playing catch-up. They lacked the jumpships to move their armies, lacked the escort firepower to keep those jumpships and dropships safe, and lacked warships capable of going toe-to-toe with the League. 

The League, under Captain-General Thomas Marik, had invested everything into making destroyers and cruisers while the joint effort between the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns produced many corvettes and frigates. After the first two the FedCom alliance had made five years ago, they made eight more since. But eight corvettes and frigates wouldn’t be able to stand up to either the League’s three cruisers and three destroyers or the Confederation’s three cruisers, three destroyers, and three frigates made in the same time period.

This coming war will devastate their void assets, and undo the past decade’s effort, even if it came to a quick conclusion. 

“What does Kurita want?” she hissed out.

Her sister grimaced. “Everything,” she whispered out with a resigned sigh of a woman who saw trouble. “First, he wants the heads of all those involved in this operation. And those of their families.” Obviously, that wasn’t going to fly with any of her subjects or the Federated Suns. “Second, he wants five border worlds in exchange for the damages that occurred on Alshain. Equal number in population plus ten percent.” Again, not something she would accept and certainly not her people. “Third, he wants us to hand over the secrets of our mass manufacturing.” If this had been the only demand, then she might have acquiesced. “And finally, he wants Victor betrothed to Theodore’s eldest daughter.”

Katrina nearly bit her lips until it bled. 

“Fuck no.”

Nondi grunted. Whether it was in approval or acknowledgement, she didn’t know. 

“Then it’s war.”

Katrina closed her eyes, still trembling in burning anger and resigned acceptance. 

“It is war.” 

But she needed to go and check how William might have responded. 

She let out a series of coughs. No, well, she didn’t let them out so much as she stopped holding them back. 

“Get me my doctors, please,” she hissed out. “These coughs are getting worse.”

Her sister nodded and left her alone in the room.

That’s when Katrina wheeled over to her desk and pulled out her Red Phone.

And she saw William’s answers.

No.

I will not on the condition that you do not take their Terran corridor away. 

She let out a sigh of relief.