26

Chapter 26

-VB-

He lifted a hand up and then placed it back down.

The brush he held in his fingers pressed down lightly against the thin calligraphy paper, and he made sure to start moving on the spot.

No thoughts. Just action.

He already had a phrase in mind.

His arm moved, not the wrist. Supported by his free hand, the arm swerved across the air, and the brush followed.

A steady curve appeared before he abruptly struck to the left with intent but not motion. In motion, he remained calm and firm just as he ought to be as the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine.

Takashi Kurita lifted the calligraphy brush and set it down against just a bit to the right of the first line he'd drawn and moved.

He did not acknowledge the woman who entered the room and sat down across from him in seiza.

Firm and guided, he moved his arm as he must move his realm… something which he hadn't done for years, apparently. It took a future enemy to infiltrate his own palace, to read the royal records, and piece together something that his own physicians had missed.

But he did not execute the physicians, because he knew fully well who was the cause behind their lack of diagnosis.

Him.

It was him.

He was the one who dismissed their initial concern.

Wrathful, he may be, but he did not think of himself as an unthinking tyrant who would punish his servants whose jobs he had interfered and dismissed.

Takashi Kurita himself had been the root cause of the changes he underwent, and in the privacy of his room and self, he would not deny this.

He did, however, demote the physicians for not pushing the issue further. Their jobs were to ensure that he, the core of the Pillar of Gold, remained healthy as possible to lead their nation. To fall back so easily when they knew a potential issue might exist was … excusable.

He knew more than most that his wrath was like none other. Not mindless like that of his father's but directed, concentrated, and intentful.

His arm made a long draw on the paper before doing it again just below the horizontal line he'd made.

Theodore … his child was devious. No, not devious. Thoughtful and wise. Proud when he needed to be, calm when he needed to be.

Takashi was proud of his son.

Proud but such an expression in public in any shape or form would see the warlords attempt to support his son and usurp him as those powerhungry men oft did.

The new physicians took their jobs seriously, and he'd seen an immense recovery, and if Theodore succeeded in his mission, then the Lostech he would bring home might see him recover even more.

It was something to look forward to.

Yes, he knew that there was a condition to receiving a lesser copy of the Memory Core, but he also knew that the Capellan Confederation could not withhold such an item to the Draconis Combine. The Combine may be less powerful without the League and the Confederation to distract its enemies, but that did not mean that his realm was weak. On the other hand, the Confederation would be destroyed by its spinward rival if he pulled his support from the Kapteyn Accords.

Takashi stopped and pulled his pen away so that not one more drop of ink would stain the paper more than necessary.

He stared at what he'd written.

喜怒

Kido.

Joy and anger.

He hummed.

With practiced ease and control, he set the calligraphy brush down and looked up to see his guest.

The forty year old Keeper of the Family Honor, Constance Kurita, stared at him impassively but also with judgement.

"... You are recovering."

"I am," he hummed, replying calmly to the woman who was twenty years his junior. "The physicians are making sure that I am taking my medicine."

To need medicine in the first place was a shame and a show of weakness. It meant that he had not been taking care of himself. That he had not been proactive in securing the core of the Pillar of Gold and thus neglectful in his approach to rulership.

The Coordinator was the Draconis Combine, and the Draconis Combine was the Coordinator. His neglect of his health had been … a neglect of the Draconis Combine.

In a way, he had done the very same thing that his father had done many years ago.

For all of his faults, his father Hohiro Kurita had been a very healthy man until his assassination, and kept the Draconis Combine strong in his own limited ways. Takashi still didn't agree with his father's simple minded "reforms," but it didn't change the fact that, at the very least, Hohiro Kurita had been personally strong and thus kept the core of the realm strong. A strong core withstood even bad reforms, after all.

But now, Takashi's own son was forced to fight against him however subtly, the weakened core of the realm.

For that, he was proud.

"Good. I would have had to support Theodore even more in his bid for the coordinatorship if you were to stubbornly fight your medication," she hummed casually as if she hadn't just spouted treasonous words.

Perhaps it wasn't when it came from the Keeper.

"So why are you here?" he asked her.

"... The call for truce has been accepted by the Capellan chancellor, and your son failed to acquire as many worlds as the Free Worlds League."

He frowned.

It was a roundabout way of saying that his son had failed the chancellor's demand for a civilian grade memory core.

"I was still addled when I gave him those limited regiments," he hummed as he reached to his left and picked up his cup of tea. "I see no reason to punish him." Even though certain warlords will expect him to. "He conquered Lyran worlds more than any of my warlords who participated in the war." A good reason to thrust into the bickering warlords' faces when one of them asked about punishments. Instead of them snipping at his son, he'll make them worry about their own positions.

"Will you be heading to the truce summit?"

"No," he snorted. "Let my son dictate the terms."

He was proud of his son, and knew that Theodore will not fail him in diplomacy.

He'll never say it, though.

… Perhaps he will make sure to send a notice to Theodore about pushing for even a partial acquisition of the memory core knowledge. Just in case.

-VB-

In the opposite side of the civilized human space, another ruler had similar thoughts… just in the opposite direction.

Still beautiful even in her scarred state, Alexander couldn't help but evaluate his High Lady.

"What do you think, Alexander?" she asked him from his left as they looked over the reports streaming in from the Inner Sphere, most important of which were reports regarding their coreward neighbor, the Capellan Confederation.

Alexander took his time to look at the final numbers and the more striking but confirmed testimonies provided to him by mercenaries who completed their contracts with either the Liaos or the Davions.

And what he saw a shift.

"I believe that we must become warier of the confederation," he concluded. "It is no longer the smallest house of the Inner Sphere."

"... Didn't they just lose the war?"

"On the surface, yes. They lost significant amount of territory. However, please consider the following. The Liaos lost worlds that held no significant strategic value to them and retained all of those that did. Styk and Tikonov in particular were battlegrounds that saw the Davions thrashed utterly throughout the entire war, and the confederation even regained some of the systems bordering their St. Ives Commonality."

"And?"

"Tikonov has become a salient now," he noted. "A heavily fortified and experienced salient that will not break under a heavy Davion assault due to its near self-sufficiency. The Davions now have to post many strong garrisons around Tikonov while also having to worry about their new border with the Free Worlds League. The lost of those systems near St. Ives Commonality also means that unlike the Davions, the Liaos can free up some of their regiments."

He pulled up the holographic map of the Inner Sphere and updated the map to its current borders. "This war has also crippled the Federated Suns more than it hurt the Capellan Confederation economically. We know this because we have confirmed that the Capellan Confederation was, while in the middle of this war, producing far more mechs than the Federated Suns and shipping them to the front lines in enough quantities while the Davions had to strip their core worlds of defense.

"And then there was the failed raid on Sian."

Alexander saw his friend and liege nod along. "Yes. It was a disaster for the Eridani Light Horse."

"More than a disaster. It'll take them decades just to make-up for this mistake. Their situation is … on par with ours."

Kamea nodded sullenly.

The Aurigan Coalition had shrunk drastically since the death of her father, the previous High Lord of the Aurigan Coalition. The Arano Restoration War had gutted the worlds closer to the core than the periphery. Worlds like Enkra, Zangul, Ryan's Fate, and Ichlangis had ceded from the Aurigan Coalition. Others like Artru, Katinka, Regis Roost, Qalzi, and Aea had just fallen off the radar.

If that wasn't all, then all of the biggest companies operating within the Coalition had also suffered. A good example of this was Gwendor-Dorwinion Cartel, the largest jumpship logistics company to have ever existed in the entire Aurigan Reach, had lost a third of their fleet in the civil war, either because they were forcefully requisition by the Directorate or lost due to piracy.

The "core" of the Aurgian Coalition remained: Coromodir, Guldra, Itrom, Tyrlon, Smithon, Mangzhangdian, Panzyr, and Weldry. This was in line with the four remaining Founding Council houses: Karosas of Smithon, Madeira of Guldra, Arano of Coromodir, and Gallas of Itrom. It was just their luck that they managed to find a relative of the Karosas who was willing to take up the name, though the man was going to need a lot of help since he's had no formal education past secondary school.

Effectively, the Coalition had been cut down to a third of its original size. At this point, they weren't even a Periphery power anymore, and would have significant trouble if any of the larger bandit kingdoms of the Periphery and the Deep Periphery came knocking.

"What concerns me is the troop movement along confederation border. They are pulling the few regiments they have along their rimward spinward border towards the rimward border," he noted and saw Kamea grimace.

After all, that was along their border.

"Do you think that they are looking to make-up for their loss in the core with our worlds?"

"Possibly," he sighed.

As of right now, the ruined Aurigan Coalition had two mech regiments, both of which were of veteran status but only at 60% operational capacity.

If even two Capellan mech regiments came roaring into their worlds, then that would be it.

"We must seek an audience with the Capellan chancellor," he said at long last. "Diplomacy is the only way we'll stay alive, one way or another."

Kamea bit her lips … but nodded.

One crisis after another.

But Alexander was sure that they'll get through this, too, like they got through all of the other crisis before this.

-VB-

Allison Mambalay frowned as she looked at the six mech regiments occupying her world of New Abilene V.

As the world closest to the Capellan Confederation and an agricultural world, she oversaw a lot of activities as the Countess of New Abilene V. However, this was new.

It was obvious to her what her liege lady might be planning, especially because two of the six mech regiments did not carry the banners, sigils, or icons of their homegrown Canopian mech regiments but that of Andurien regiments.

She understood why this was happening.

The Capellan Confederation was the weakest it has ever been in its history since the founding of the Star League, and though her country was not one for conquest, it would be foolish to not take a bite out of it before someone else did.

"Allison."

She paused in her rumination and looked up. Her dad, the former consort count of New Abilene V, stood in front of her desk.

"Hi, dad," she smiled. "What is it?"

He looked uneasy.

"I think it's best if you look at this."

He reached out from his back and showed her a letter.

She recognized that envelope. It was from her second cousin Anne Renessa. The girl was out there in … Capellan Confederation.

She hurriedly took the letter and read through it.

And read through it again.

And again.

And her face paled.

"I-I need to get this letter to the Magistrix, dad," she stuttered out. "We're about to make a very big mistake if a war breaks out!"

But it was too late.

By the time she made it to Canopus proper, the magistrix had already declared war only three weeks after the signing of the truce on Terra …

And the Andurien Secession following Captain-General Janos Marik's stroke-induced coma.

-VB-

A/N: next chapter: William travels to Terra to meet the other great lords once more…