031. Phan recalls, Takashi Reflects

It had taken but a week.

A single week.

Phan Eggers looked down at the gestating tubes of metal and glass. The babies were too small to be visible, but the displays above indicated they were alive and healthy.

The Wolverines had revealed slightly more of their origins with this move.

Definitely descendants of the Star League in some form or another. Yet, at the moment he could feel nothing but mild joy and fatherly happiness to the embryos in the Iron Wombs.

Matched, of course, with the terror that four small Katherine's would bring.

He had known he had been rolling the chambers of the revolver every time he and Katherine... did the deed. Smashed the Atlas. Stabbed the Dragon. Breached and slaughtered the terrorists with shotgun and fire. Whatever euphemisms he wanted to name.

But! But he had been successful in avoiding it after Huu had been born.

The idea of a small child with Katherine's temperament... he wasn't sure he could handle it. He could barely handle Katherine!

Huu had been a relief. With Katherine's enthusiasm, but tempered by his body. Developing into a hermit of an adult. If he had both her enthusiasm and her body? Would he already have to deal with complaints about a bloodthirsty monster along the Combine border? Instead of this... business venture that had ballooned so?

As it was, Lohengrin was raiding terrorist and dissenter cells on a constant basis. Around the clock.

There was even a sub-department of LIC devoted specifically to Blackjack due to the influx of people, people with extremely valuable skills at that constantly arriving. All having to be checked across enormous computer databases. Those that didn't exist automatically passed onto the Wolverines, to be checked, accepted or rejected.

Five different computer systems were in use, lest they experience a computer virus of the malicious sort. One that would alter information to allow certain individuals in. Each computer air-gapped. If they were corrupted regardless, it meant that the databases, held in the capital cities of planets across the Commonwealth, had been sabotaged. Yet, they did what they could and filtered out the most pathetic and unconnected of terrorists.

But now he had four more children on the way.

These damned Wolverines had given her the means of having as many children as she wanted. No longer bound by one or even two at a time, she had gone for broke.

Instead of choosing a nice, rational number like zero... Katherine went for 4.

Four small Katherine-s, all demanding war, demanding slaughter.

A shudder moved through his body.

Dammit! Why had the bastards done this? He was going to reveal just where they came from, just as revenge! Not that he hadn't been trying to do that, and LIC, and LCAF-MI, and every other intelligence agency with reach into the Commonwealth.

He hid a frown as he surveyed the room. The incubation chamber a mere ten metres squared, set inside a Block of its own. The rest filled with machinery and armour... but mostly armour.

Deep inside of the Eggers Section, a truly enormous structure designed by Katherine to house a family of hundreds, yet practically, only housed Katherine and himself, (Huu being elsewhere). Katherine with this technology seemed intent on populating the entire building on her own.

He shuddered.

Leaving the room, nodding to the permanent guards on rotation outside it. Katherine's personal retinue, ferociously loyal to her. Often, individuals that had been rescued from difficult situations and turned into ferocious killing machines by his rather precocious wife. Their loyalty to her was nigh unbreakable.

It was the reason he had felt attracted to her in the first place. As a former agent of Lohengrin, he had been attracted to her, at first, in a maternal manner.

For Lohengrin did the same, the anti-terrorist team of the Lyran Intelligence Corps. Trained alongside Loki, they were deployed within the Commonwealth to eliminate threats to the government or its policies. Recruiting solely from orphanages of the Commonwealth, the children are barraged with indoctrination. The Commonwealth became their mother, the focus of their loyalty.

It is said that in terms of fanatical patriotism and loyalty, only DEST of the ISF are equal. Indeed, their sister branch, Loki, with whom they cross-trained on a constant basis. The terrorism branch of the LIC had never had a member turn traitor.

A fault in his manner of indoctrination had seen Phan become romantically attracted to one Katherine Eggers. During a mission to destroy a Mercedes-Benz factory producing sub-standard cars, harbouring a terrorist of Austrian ancestry, he had fought alongside her. The infantry to her mech. Storming the facility, Lohengrin suffered 75% fatalities, of which 30% were fatal, acceptable casualty rates in all for a Lohengrin mission. As command had said, there are always more orphans to recruit in the Commonwealth.

But he had survived with minor wounds. Yet serious enough to be in the medical bays when she had arrived.

He had observed Katherine Eggers walking amongst the wounded, of those civilians, she had recruited several for her mercenary company. Using some arcane method to divine those that had the most use to her. Phan, in the after-action evaluation, had reported his attraction and this break in his indoctrination.

Had been given a rather frank discussion involving puberty, and how he had been dispatched too early. A mistake on their part, one of procedure. It was not his fault, and so he had been spared from a bullet to the head.

And how, he now had a choice given his accidental subversion.

Stay with the LIC but, expect to be moved to another branch now that he was less trustworthy, compromised even. Separated from Katherine Eggers. Or to be transferred to LCAF-MI in a liaison position... while keeping an eye on the new focus of his attention.

Still serving the Commonwealth, yet not compromising valuable intelligence.

He had chosen the latter and hadn't looked back. Staring at her in admiration whenever possible, as much a focus of his attention as the Commonwealth had been just years prior. It had been several years until she had noticed him and had decided he was 'hers'.

The skills he learned in anti-terrorism serving him well during this time and what came after. Intelligence gathering, sorting out the loyal and disloyal, striking as needed to purge threats to the Commonwealth, and by extension, Katherine. All to keep Katherine safe.

She was his focus, as lightheartedly he had treated the topic. Everything else, even Huu, came second place to that.

Some had called it tragic, that he was a broken human being.

Phan considered himself lucky that he had even this. For all the tragedies he had experienced, it had brought him to Katherine.

So many others had nothing compared to that.

+_+

Takashi Kurita sat in silence with his aunt, Florimel Kurita, Keeper of the House Honour.

At the age of twenty one, he was Coordinator. Having barely just graduated the Sun Zhang Academy, and been assigned to the Third Sword of Light to command a Lance.

A life of honourable battle, to seek the destruction of the enemies of the Combine and to die with honour. For in living with honour, he would, like all Kurita's before him, die peacefully, knowing that he walked his honour road.

Instead, the Commonwealth, the weak, the pathetic had moved.

As had been espoused by the Combine's Bushido, the Commonwealth was the weaker opponent. The Suns were the true enemy, a capable foe, worthy of killing, worthy of dying to. Turning from them in the first succession war, the Dragon had ever considered the Commonwealth the weakest of foes, the Steiners the weakest of House Lords. Venal merchants and pretenders of martial might.

And so, they had been ignored, had been left on their own.

Hoping, beyond hope, that the Commonwealth would soon develop into a worthy foe. For that was their Bushido, to shame the weak by ignoring them, for them to grow from that shame and confront the Samurai again at a later date. Stronger, ready to avenge their shame, for the defeated to die with honour, the stronger to live with honour.

Instead!

Instead, they demonstrated treachery and guile.

Infantry! Infantry had slaughtered the Combine's best.

A cultural war with media, with weakness, with failure. One that espoused everything that the Combine had stood against! One that every citizen, from the Undesirables to the Warlords knew to deny, knew in their very bones to reject. A venom that had worked its insidious effects against the citizenry.

Fortification, when one should instead be developing their warriors, to prove their worth on the field of battle.

To prove, they were worth the courtesy that the Combine had shown them since the first days of the first Succession Wars!

Instead, Steiner had struck at the Dragon's eye. The one weakness that a Dragon possessed, the path that led directly to its heart. A path that the Dragon itself had not known of until this very moment. A bolt into the very eye of the Combine, tearing in two the heart that lay behind it.

The eye being the citizenry.

The heart being the citizenry.

For the citizenry were both the Combine's greatest weakness... and the Dragon's greatest strength.

The weapon had been culture, had been food, had been weapons. Not aimed at them, but supplied to them.

That they had seized and used to turn on the Dragon itself. The poison in the Combine's body had proven too much. Built up over generations of weak Coordinators, the poison fed directly into the Dragon's very veins, enough to fell even the mightiest of beasts. The heart had no longer been able to support the Dragon itself, and it collapsed.

Not because it was weak, but because the body had failed to nurture it.

...

The anger fled him.

He did not slump like some weak willed fool.

No, he was upright, allowing his emotions to flow out and away.

To reach the point of zen.

Like water descending a waterfall, it drained out in an instant.

...

For all their cowardice, for all their martial failures, it had worked.

The Combine, no matter their military strength, was a beast on death's door.

Twelve Regiments had struck back in vengeance to avenge their honour, the Coordinator at the helm.

Three had been left in any fighting shape, Hohiro Kurita, his father, dying in one last, final charge, to salvage his honour... and the honour of the Combine.

Thus proving Takashi's thoughts on the matter. No matter the might of the Dragon's arm, it mattered not if the Dragon's Heart, the Dragon's Joy were incapable of moving, collapsed, near death. When one's arm was the only limb capable of movement, then one's reach, one's ability to do anything else, was limited.

Like a crippled veteran. The knowledge of how to slay a million foes was in his mind, and yet his body allowed him to do nothing with that knowledge, wasting away.

The mighty dragon brought low, not by enemy action, but their own weakness.

Complacency and slothful indolence in Hugai, unrestrained savagery with Hohiro.

Now it was left to Takashi Kurita to salvage what was left of the Combine.

In a way, it was almost a blessing.

Hugai had left behind a Combine with a military unable to act, no matter how much it wished to.

Hohiro had left behind a military unable to think if it had wished to act.

With total power concentrated in the Coordinator, where all decisions had to pass before the DCMS could act.

This was where he was standing.

The position of Coordinator had been left with unprecedented power.

With a population willing to accept anything so long as it was not his father's policies.

With a DCMS willing to accept anything, so long as he was not his father or grandfather.

Assuming, he could hold the position of Coordinator.

There had been many pretenders, there had been many who wished to see the title pass to one that was not as incompetent as his father and grandfather, the worry that their ineptitude had bred true was strong.

This had not mattered, he had claimed the throne, had the ISF execute his detractors, had consolidated power.

Takashi had seen it differently. He was young. He had clear eyes, unblinkered by tradition and the sheen of failure that Luthien had veiled itself in over the last five decades. He had looked from a different perspective, had seen conclusions that none of the others had. Understanding, in that moment, he was the only hope that the Dragon had of surviving into the future. To accept other than he, was to accept the carving of a dozen petty buffer worlds between the Steiners and Davions. Warred over like prizes in a child's playpen.

Unacceptable.

And now.

And now he had to walk the road of the Coordinator, for the Coordinator was the Ku. The spoke of the wheel, the aspect that defined the wheel. For without the Ku there was no wheel, and in accepting this, one accepted that without the Coordinator there would be no Combine.

His path was the Combine's path, his way was the Combine's way.

And his way could not be the way of his father.

Or his forefathers.

He was not stupid.

He was not blind.

He was the Dragon.

And like the Dragons of old, he must shed his skin to adapt to this new reality that the Combine had found itself in.

Where the preeminence of the Battlemch had been challenged.

Where the very nature of the battlefield was changing, shifting.

Where the necessity for an aerospace arm of the DCMS had changed from important, to critical.

Where the infantry, the peasants, were now of equal importance to every other arm if he wished to actually break the enemy's fortresses.

He was, in short, dealing with a complete reversal of the Dragon's doctrine.

Dealing with an enemy that made itself an antithesis to the Dragon's culture and doctrine. Both of which were very much one and the same within the Dragon.

In previous times, an escalation of the conflict would have been sufficient to return matters to a stable state, that which the Dragon relied upon for its survival. For he knew that the Dragon tilled crippled soils. Mined barren lands. Held on only through the unrelenting savagery of their Samurai.

Yet, now.

Matters had been altered to the point where such was impossible.

The use of Nuclear weapons would have little appreciable effect. Not when the Combine's entire strategic stockpile would do little more than harm a single world.

The deployment of mech regiments would do nothing but provide them with valuable scrap if not supported by entire armies.

The borders had been closed to prevent yet more exploitation of the Dragon's Eye. The citizenry were hungry, demanded Commonwealth culture, demanded weapons to free themselves.

...

The war economy could not go any further, not without destroying the Combine. Not when they were already focusing almost the entirety of the Dragon's industry to war.

To ensure the Dragon's survival, there must be change.

A truly enormous amount of change.

As he had thought earlier, it would be akin to the dragon shedding its skin.

If the Lyrans used their culture as a weapon, so too must the Combine.

If the Lyrans used their peasantry as a weapon, so too must the Combine.

If the Lyrans fortified their worlds until they were impregnable by entire Regiments... then so too would the Dragon do the same.

If the Lyrans were developing their orbital infrastructure to prepare for the deployment of entire army groups to every world, so too would the Dragon.

If the Lyrans were using the might of primitive weaponry to shatter the balance of power, so too would the Dragon.

If the time of the Samurai were to pass into the era of the musketry, so too would the Combine adapt. As their ancestors upon ancient Nippon had.

It was a stupid dragon that died because it could not adapt.

Takashi was not stupid.

He knew that this would forever alter the Combine, the peasantry would be given more power, for their efforts would shatter armies.

The Samurai would be relegated to exploitation forces, no longer would the bulk of the battle, and thus the honour, fall on their shoulders.

The Warlords must be given more initiative and yet less. To defend their worlds, they must act independently. Yet, an offensive would pull the entire might of the Dragon. Small regiment sized forces were now nothing more than detritus to be swept away. No longer could the Dragon's Arm act independently, it must act in concert with the whole.

The universities must be given more manpower, more money, more prestige. For innovation was now truly necessary if the Combine wished to remain superior.

It was the best time for it, the DCMS was at its weakest point, the population even more so.

Already the ISF had spent itself against the civilians, three times as many heads had been cut off in this week alone compared to the average. They would spend themselves further, unable to continue operations outside the Combine. Not after that disastrous attempt on the facilities of Blackjack. No, now the DCMS, the nobility, the industrialists, all would need pruning if they were to accept the new way. They were the old, the skin that needed to be shed for a new, stronger Dragon to emerge from within.

The need for their removal was evident in how rebellions were constantly being incited. The people no longer trusting the Coordinator or those that represented him.

All focus had been turned inwards, only the fact that the Warlords, using the limited initiative that had been allowed to them under Hohiro. Had fortified their border worlds with immense bunker networks. Using whatever funds they had been able to scrounge, using substandard materials, but fortresses all the same. Sheer number making up for production inadequacies.

It had been all that had stood between annihilation by scavenging pirates, Davion warriors, and Steiner failures. For all the might of their citizenry, the Steiner Mechwarriors, remained encouragingly pathetic.

Shattering upon the defences before leaving, the Steiners leaving the most salvage behind. Whatever the citizenry had experienced, Steiner military command still operated under the mallus it had always had. That which had caused the Dragon to ignore it, as it clawed pathetically at the side of the road.

And yet, in the end... who was the most desperate?

The Combine.

He refused to allow a sigh to pass his lips.

He was young, yet from this point forth, his every motion must be perfect.

For he was now the blade, and the blade was moving for the killing blow. A single moment of weakness, of indecision, of poor footwork, and he would fall.

The Combine would fall.

He turned his eyes upwards, to Florimel.

For it was her, as the Keeper of House Honour, the one that wrote the Dictum Honorium. That work, which comprised the Combine's concepts of honour, having never had a word redacted. Merely words added over time. From the original 1 volume it had, over the existence of the Combine, expanding to 6.

Yet, it must change, as the Dragon changed.

He was now going to ask her, for the Dragon could not command the Keeper of House Honour.

She would, as her predecessors had proved, die to maintain the honour of the position. For it is by their purview that the Dictum Honorium was written. Maintained by their own independent ivory trade routes, ivory being the representation of the Combine's faith, philosophy, and codes of conduct. They could remain independent, hiding if he had her killed, or tried to force a change, for they had done so in the past.

Emerging only when sympathetic Coordinator emerged. Of which, there would be none past himself if he failed here.

He knew that torture would avail him nothing, for to be the master of the Order, Florimel was a master of Ki. Nigh impervious to pain, to exhaustion, of limitless strength, she would not break.

And so, he had to entreat her and convince her, to explain to the Keeper of the House Honour, that this path forward was the only means of keeping the Dragon's Honour.

He could not complete this without the Order of the Five Pillars and Florimel, the leader.

For what he would do, was to ask the nigh-impossible.

To change the Dictum Honorium, to bring about the changes that he had planned. For without the Order of the Five Pillars supporting him, the Combine would cease to exist within his lifetime.

This he knew with a certainty that ate at his soul.

Also in the room was the director of the ISF.

Both were predisposed to him, both had supported his rise to Coordinator from amongst the competitors of his relatives.

Yet, they had not heard of his full proposal as yet.

The reforms to the DCMS.

The need to increase production of civilian goods and primitive goods within the Combine.

The abolishment of the resource system, where worlds only produced one material, that as then shipped as necessary to different worlds for finishing work.

The formation of actual universities seeking academic excellence, and not a war college calling itself a university. Or technical and vocational schools.

Increasing agricultural production to meet the needs of the population.

To produce their own weaponized culture with the aim of countering that of the Steiners cultural offensive.

In other words, to alter the Combine until it could fight on this new battlefield that the Dragon had found itself upon.

This was but the first of such meetings. Meetings to convince them of all of a single fact.

All Five Pillars must move in concert, for they were the very embodiment of the Dragon.

Gold, himself and governance.

Steel, the military. The Warlords, the military academies, the leadership of the conventional forces.

Jade, the economy and commerce. The business leaders and the government, for the government controlled all aspects of the economy.

Teak, culture and art. The National Treasures school was the only place he could identify, for art in the Combine is intensely personal, widespread dissemination of culture outside of schooling or indoctrination usually revolving around poorly produced soap-operas. Worse, art and beauty was almost solely focused upon the nobility, for only they were allowed the luxury of 'luxuries', that which was not vital to their role in society. Much work would be done here.

Ivory, the faith, philosophy, and codes of conduct. Exemplified by The Order of the Five Pillars.

All would need to be convinced for the Combine to survive.

For the Dragon must shed its skin so that it might survive in these new environs