InaG Chpt 13

==It's not a Gundam - Chapter 13 - More Post-Roman Thoughts==
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===Silent Cries of a Songbird===
City of Nova Roma
Alphard, Former Marian Hegemony
June 3025
In the Marian Hegemony, the hierarchy was clear and rigid.
 
The Imperator, The Patricians, The Plebeians, and the Slaves.
 
A Pirate King who fancied himself an Emperor; his lackeys dressed up to look more aristocratic than they really were; commoners by any other name; and the Slaves both born into it or taken from the Marian's many raids.
 
The latter was itself divided between the house slaves and field slaves. The former treated relatively better ... but were slaves nonetheless. The threat of beatings or to be sent to toil and labor under the heat of the arid Alphard sun was enough to keep many in line.
 
She had no name. Just a nickname: Songbird.
 
A pretty face with a pretty voice who didn't know her mother, but knew horrifically well her father. For all the pretty dresses and nice food it was still a gilded cage.
 
Then the war came.
 
The months stretched as the empire that the O'Reilly family built crumbled under their hubris. World by world. Legion by legion. Rome fell.
 
Her father who never recognized her, whom she called Master would find his estate burned and he and his 'actual' family lynched by an angry mob.
 
Then the war left. The occupation took its place.
 
Monuments to the tyrants were torn down, every last collar was deactivated and sent to the scrapper, the pirates were hunted down one by one.
 
And now The Songbird was alone, no family, no money, no home, no skills to her name as Alphard changed around her.
 
Mechs that reminded her of a life she had before in another time and place now worked to undo the destruction wrought on Alphard.
 
Statues to the O'Reillys were demolished, Slave hovels replaced with rows of prefabbed houses, and infrastructure once concentrated around rich gated homes now snaked across Alphard providing power, water, and roads to those in need of it.
 
There was some truth to the rumor that the Exarch had a make-anything Lostech machine.
 
But for the Songbird? She found herself sitting alone on a bench as giants erased the past and created Alphard's future.
 
She sighed. Were it so simple.
 
"Ma'am."
 
A masculine voice called to her. Unlike many it didn't demand her attention or compliance.
 
"Ma'am, is there a problem?"
 
It was also electronic. She looked left and right until she finally looked down and saw a machine not unlike a Zako. It was one of the newer ones. The more serious ones. Where the cyclopean Zako was comical and somewhat childish, the visored face of the new 'Police' was cold and grim. Far from the hired thugs of the former Alphard police.
"There is none ... Officer."
 
"My Bio-sensor says otherwise." The robot replied, "I detect signs of stress."
 
"You wouldn't understand."
 
"Unlike the Marian 'Police Force'." He said, tonally flat yet somehow spitting acid, "I am here to protect and serve the people."
 
"You are a robot. A machine."
 
"...Then you aren't embarrassing yourself speaking to another person."
 
So the Songbird spoke. It was one half an emotional dump, the other half a verbal salad. The robot stood and listened. No judgement, only silence and patience.
 
Her confession was only interrupted by the roar of a jet engine.
 
Up above she could see the familiar sight of the Aries hover over Nova Roma. Then joined by another. Both of them doing the mundane work of lifting up some of the last debris of the battle the month before.
 
"They will be mass producing the Aries soon." The police robot spoke, "Some for civilian use."
 
"But why?'
 
"They were built for one purpose but nothing is stopping them to do something else."
 
What was stopping her?
 
"What if they were useless?"
 
She flinched as the machine looked back at her.
 
"They have no one to prove to but themselves."
 
An armored gauntlet reached out to her holding out two business cards: 'Alphard Provisional Government Services' and 'Junker Guild - Alphard'.
 
"...What they can do matters more than what they are."
 
This was no longer about Land-Air Mechs.
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===Headaches in wake of Revelations===
Junker City
Junker, Junker System
December 3025
They started a year with just a maze of metal and machinery to call their own. They were ending it with the makings of a new nation.
 
Well, something close to it anyway. While it was a Cooperative Agreement between multiple planets, it included a few system-wide states, major business stakeholders, plenty of Spacers of the more nomadic type who never set foot on terra firma, and a few mercenary units that realized where the wind was blowing.
 
Some of Cid's people even mumbled they were making their own Star League and the Mayor was unsure if they were just joking about it or not.
 
For some years Cid watched his home change through good times, bad times, and now extraordinary times.
 
The OE-Carbon Plant and the Haro factory were both up and running. Together they joined Exarch's ACE Builder, tirelessly building a future for their part of the Periphery. One Mech at a time.
 
And he gave a tour of the newest industrial complex to add to his beautiful eyesore of a city.
 
"I've heard of XL Engines." his companion spoke, "But not XXL Engines."
 
"Believe me the Exarch is full of surprises, Barrett," he explained to his old friend, "While our neighbors joke that we are a mech factory the reality is that we simply refurbish and reconstruct old equipment in an efficient and timely manner."
 
 Barrett snorted, "Are you done humble-bragging?"
 
 "No." Cid huffed, "As I was saying with E-Carbon and the ultra-compact fusion reactors we've been able to produce these Ultralights."
 
 And what Ultralights they were. Tonnage that could be counted on the hand, a full company of Leos could be made from the same amount of material it took to make the Tieren. A VTOL workshop could make an Aries with parts from a Leo factory. A Hovercar motor pool could make a Tragos, a fire-support/artillery hovertank/mech hybrid. A shipwright could make TWO different aquatic-focused battlemechs, the amphibious Pisces and ASF of the sea Cancer.
 
If there was anything that could describe Junker City it was a valley of repair shops stacked on top of repair shops.
 
"All this..." Barret looked across a hanger full of Leos, "It's hard to believe."
 
"Well your staring at it." the Mayor grunted, "This is the THIRD batch. Did you know how tall these bastards were for the first batch? 16.2 god-damn meters for 7 tons empty. I had to tell the techs to shrink the things so the armor and chassis weren't so fucking paper-thin!"
 
 Indeed they were shorter than their original schematic. Same performance but denser armor and smaller profile. The Leo was a workhorse but it looked like it could be brought down by a short AC/2 burst and THAT ruffled his feathers.
 
"THOSE we turned into Workmechs. They work well with our Heavylift Aries."
 
His friend looked at him as if he grew a second head, "Land-Air Industrialmechs?"
 
"Yes," Cid admitted without a hint of shame, "You should know me by now Barrett. Don't worry: we got tougher Leos for your Cascade-"
 
"Avalanche." Barrett corrected, "We'll need them. We lost plenty on Alphard..."
 
Cid patted his shoulder, "I know, but the Marians are rotting in hell."
 
"Where they belong." Barret agreed, "If we're signing on with the Junk Guild you promise me we deal with the rest."
 
 "We will," he promised, "One dead slaver scumbag at a time."
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===Seeking Allies===
Niops Association Council Chambers
Niops VII, Niops Association
March 3026
Niops was a technocracy. The intelligent elite ruled over the uneducated masses. Unlike most of humanity, they never backslid from the heights of the Star League. Their technology was advanced as a result of being founded by scientists and engineers ... who took in many, many refugees ... for a price ...
The masses knew their place. They could not maintain the machines that kept their hab-blocks alive without the work of their betters. If they weren't laborers then they were soldiers in the Niops Association Militia enforcing the rule of the technocrats and being their defense against the Marians and other pirates.
 
That changed with the war.
 
Where they once saw savages and techno-barbarians on all sides they now saw a growing power: The Junker Guild. Led by the Exarch who possessed technology they had never seen before or a frame of reference and was not afraid to spread it. Cities were rebuilt, new infrastructure laid down, and knowledge thought lost or coveted spread freely among their neighbors. Especially medical technology and computers that put the power of some of their most powerful designs into a spherical toy.
 
Hunger mixed with hostility. While they were scientists at heart, they also wanted to keep their power, and that power was threatened by the expansion of the guild-backed Cooperative. Plenty of heated debates happened every other day.
 
Or so he heard.
 
Things were being spread by word of mouth. 'Dissidents' and 'Radicals' were calling for change. They demanded the Association to align themselves with the Junker Guild. THAT would be a hard-sell alone. Niops' rulers weren't amicable scholars, these were ruthless and prideful academics. Not only would they have to admit they weren't as intellectually superior as they claimed to be ... they would also have to make political and social reforms to be accepted.
 
It was useful to him at least, without Marius around he was in need of another puppet.
 
Demi-Precentor Wells approached a wall of cold, calculating eyes of men and women that Mengele would have liked not as some neo-barb peasant asking for handouts ... but as a peer from distant Terra.
 
"Greetings. I am Demi-Precentor Wells of Alphard. On behalf of Blake's Blessed Order, I would like to propose an offer..."
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===Negotiations with a Lady===
Royal Court, Crimson, Canopus VI
Canopus, Magistracy of Canopus
July 3026
One year. That was all it took.
 
One year to turn the world upside down.
 
Kyalla Centrella knew about the Junkers; it was one of many worlds that traded skilled expertise for access to Canopian medical science as part of her 'Service for Service' policy.
 
While Canopus became a byword for bread and circuses and extreme hedonism, their second most profitable industry had been medical tourism. They had some of the best doctors in the Periphery and the Inner Sphere and maintained medical technology still from the Star League era.
 
In one year that changed.
 
The Guild's growth was explosive, building on preexisting ties between dozens of minor worlds and carving a swathe of the Periphery for themselves. All because of one man.
 
A man who was close to the Free Worlds League if the women he was courting was anything to say about him.
 
Inexpensive prosthetics and artificial organs, regenerative therapy, among other things that threatened the Canopian monopoly.
 
Junker and Alphard was drawing away the skilled labor that would have normally gone to Canopus. Both worlds acted as hubs as they and their neighbors underwent industrialization and redevelopment not seen in centuries.
 
It rankled her just as much it intrigued the Queen of Canopus.
 
The Guild was not a nation, but like Comstar they were an organization that could not be ignored.
 
Sitting up on her throne she looked across at the delegate sent from the guild. To her disappointment it was not The Rose Knight. Many women desired Mr. Cello and he seemed a worthwhile conquest for a Magestrix.
 
"Magestrix." The envoy bowed slightly, "I am Wedge of the Junker Guild. You sent an HPG message asking for Cooperative membership. I am here to negotiate on the Guild's behalf."
 
Instead it was a man known only as 'Wedge'. Straight laced, married, gay, Canopus expatriate. She could not seduce him and she doubted the many handsome men that she had in her court could either. He stared at her, grim and hardened from bitter war and hard labor.
 
"Welcome Mr. Wedge. I will be blunt: Canopus officially applies for full Cooperative membership."
 
"There are caveats."
 
"The Magistracy boasts a great amount of freedoms. And we have the largest economy in the southwest Periphery. I am sure you would see the value of Canopus within your alliance."
 
"That remains to be seen." Wedge answered, "You are a Matriarchy."
 
"We are not."
 
"Culturally." The man spoke, "Believe me I would know. Your anti-discrimination laws must match our own. No glass ceilings. None."
 
"Done."
 
Canopus was a democracy. The fact that many Canopians defaulted to voting for House Centralla was just how it was.
 
"Second is that every member has to contribute. If it's not money, it's manpower or material when it comes to law enforcement, peacekeeping, and humanitarian aid."
 
"Done."
 
Outside the Cooperative the Magistracy would have less economic and political soft power than inside. Money and population had a power all to it's own.
 
"Third: we are a defense pact. We will not be dragged into any war you start. ESPECIALLY between members and our partners."
 
Kyalla was raised to know who her real enemy was. Wedge met her eyes. What she knew of him said that he was of The Exarch's Inner Circle. The Steiner had her hand in the same cookie jar as Marik, just to ensure that the Guild would not turn on them in the inevitable 4th Successor War. Fine. She would do just the same.
 
"...Done."
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===A Warrior should be ever vigilante to change===
Mess Hall
Argo, Coromodir IV Orbit
Coromodir System, Aurigan Coalition
September 3026
Darius didn't approve of their current company. Kamea Arano was fine. She and the Marauders had been through much in a few short years. It was the company that she brought that made him uneasy.
 
Kamea was playing a high risk game of politics. Her house was stuck between the Centrellas, Calderons, and Liao. All three trying to exert influence on her tiny nation still wracked with devastation by a civil war caused by one scheme or another. She was wary of Canopus, her original backers and she gritted her teeth shaking hands with Taurian diplomats, the men who backed her uncle's former regime. To the Inner Sphere the Capellans were the smallest of them all but to the Periphery one giant was no smaller than another.
 
He watched the High Lady provide a tour to a gaggle of Federated-Boeing businessmen and NAIS researchers. Who she was trying to curry favor from was obvious.
 
The Marauder 2nd-in-Command frowned but did little else as he chewed on another bite of his sandwich. Their navigator was more vocal.
"I like the Argo." Sumire admitted, "I do. But you know what they say about Lostech..."
 
"You mean what you say." their Chief Mechtech Yang snorted, "Lostech or not the big players are going to fight over the same metal and same balls of dirt."
 
"The boss needs to sell the Marauder's share in the station. That Exarch's ship is catnip and the Argo is the second best thing."
 
"There is a big gap between first and second." Yang commented, "But you have a point."
 
"We are still contracted to the Coalition." Darius finally spoke up, "And as far as contracts go we are lucky."
 
The Marauders' fortunes were tied to the Aurigan Coalition. But Darius wasn't blind. Canopus' eyes were looking away from the Aurigan Reach. And they weren't alone. The Junker Guild didn't need mercenaries themselves but they subsidized planets in need of them and word had it they outright bought out some smaller outfits, absorbing their personnel and equipment.
 
Their presence could be felt as far as Auriga. Darius only need to look outside. Among the ships from all across the Periphery and Inner Sphere he could see aptly-named Balls fly around. Armed Coromodir Police Balls flew on patrol, while merchant-owned balls hauled cargo between ships. Petite-Mobiles loaded crates of E-carbon while second-hand OZ-series mech parts were handled with as much care as a SLDF Royal would be.
 
Every so often he would catch the sight of an Oggo, a brutish bigger brother of the Ball that was the Demolisher tank to the ASF's mech.
"You aren't worried about trouble?" Sumire asked.
 
 "I am worried about where would we go." He asked, "it's getting dangerous."
 
 Lines were being drawn. Davion and Steiner on one side, Marik, Liao, and Kurita on the other. The wildcard, and possible Kingmaker, in all this was The Guild.
 
 "It's our line of work." Yang grunted, "I know the boss has been lining up contracts. And he's paying a premium to get more 'Mobile Suits' working."
 
 OZ Battlemechs were found on almost every world of the Junk Guild Cooperative and just like the Petite-Mobiles some planets had opted to sell them. The boss had fought against and beside a few of them. And if his boss said the Marauders needed them Darius would do everything to get them.
 
 "That is why we have to adapt and to survive. If that means playing it safe for now then i'll be glad if we ride out a Fourth Succession War."
 
 No matter how many years passed, no matter who was in charge of what, there would always be a war somewhere in the galaxy and someone willing to pay someone else to fight and die for them.
 
For mercenaries like the Marauders? Nothing really changed.
 
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===Ramping up Production===
Vandenburg Mechanized Industries - New Vandenburg Industrial Complex B
New Vandenburg, Taurian Concordat
January 3027
 
Just like the Mackie centuries ago, the Tieren and Aries had ignited a wave of proliferation.
 
Superheavies were possible. LAMs were viable.
 
Her company was the one that built the weapons that the TDF used to defend their people and were proud of it.
 
The moment the Marians fell and the Junkers Guild took it's place, VMI had gotten to work. Their contacts among Periphery merchants and the Taurian diaspora bore fruit. Shrike Units were making their way into the Taurian Defense Force and their variant of the Petite-Mobile was undergoing trials, integrating them into militias and TDF Mechanized Infantry units to provide the extra punch where a tank or mech couldn't be brought to bare.
 
But the rows upon rows of Battlemechs said enough about VMI's priorities.
 
With how many OZ-series Mechs they were making now, their manufacturing rates when they were still producing Stingers was positively anemic.
 
The Concordat was the source of much of the heavy machinery in their part of the Periphery and when VMI had gotten information on what an OZ-mech factory needed ... they hit the ground running.
 
Every Taurian world would have a full Regiment to defend themselves ... and another to retaliate.
 
Cidney riveted another plate in place for a Leo. Simple steel and Polymer for a simple mech. Leos and their cousins were basic and rugged enough that there were already many variants and subvariants. The Taurian version was even more bare bones so that the same chassis could have it's parts swapped out and converted between a Leo, Tragos, Aries, and Pisces on the field rather than needing a dedicated mechbay.
 
Her Grandpa Cid had hit the jackpot. The Concordat would have loved to bring the Junkers and the Cooperative into the fold. The only issue was distance. The Aurigans and Canopians were in the way and Vandenburg pundits decried unneighborly neighbors for trying to stall the Taurian's relationship with the Junker Guild.
 
The exact politics went over Cidney's head, but she knew it opened some avenues for her career-wise even if she didn't have the ambition.
 
What she did know was what was plastered on the news and the TV that hung over her workstation:
 
//Thomas Calderon shaking hands with Maximilien Liao. Between them a freshly signed treaty.\\
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End of Book 1
The story continues in Book 2
*; Wiki Note 1: Term "Book" is more akin to Story Arc than a new book. Chapter sequence remains as the original keeps numbering same.
*; Wiki Note 2: Originally, Chapter 10 was end of the book, but chapter 11 & 12 were published as continuation of Book 1's story.
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Chapter 13