ICHaFBI 15

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=I, Corvus; How a Fool became Imperator of the O'Reillys - Chapter XV -=
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----<Character & Faction Directory of I, Corvus>----
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===Plan of Action===
Vulcan Forgeworks Compound 
New Venice, Marian Hegemony
3032
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“What I’m saying is, the Flaming Circus is getting antsy cooped up in those dropships. We’re going to need to let them out, sooner or later. It’s been six weeks. I’m amazed they stayed calm this long.”
 
Sean tried to keep his voice stern and measured, like his father had with his subordinates. “You’d better find a way, Metellus. They’ve got six more weeks minimum before we hit dirt on Alphard. You’ve got one job, do it.”
 
Metellus shut up and turned back out the window. Sean could tell he wasn’t happy. Fuck him. It had been almost two months since his secret coronation on Algenib and the high of having power over the man who threatened his life daily for a year and half hadn’t abated. Sean wondered if it ever would.
 
Sean looked out the window too, watching as what seemed like an endless convoy of trucks headed passed them towards the spaceport. Supplies for the campaign, no doubt. Dozens of Jumpships with dozens more dropships, loaded with the most elite warriors the deep periphery had ever produced. He knew exactly how the Algenibi warriors felt; he was practically vibrating in excitement over his homecoming.
 
He turned back to the car to try to regain his focus. Ambrose drove the car, an unassuming civilian vehicle notable only for the illegal level of tint in the windows. Metellus continued to sulk and look out the window. He’d expected Wrench to do the same. Nothing at all like a modern city existed on Algenib, afterall. Hell, he’d even given her the front seat to enjoy the view from. But she’d been running her hands along the dash, the door, even the goddamn ceiling the whole time.
 
Eventually, the car drove through the gates of the Forgeworks and into an underground parking structure. An elevator took them not into the office tower as he expected, but into the atrium of a crude villa that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Algenib. Ambrose led the way, but he didn’t need to. The tell-tale sound of his godfather’s hammer was easy enough to follow.
 
The moment he saw Gurdeep, the veneer of authority vanished and he was a child again. He ran up to the man and embraced him. He fought back the tears. Gurdeep threw down his hammer and hugged him back. They stood there together, for a long time. Finally, Sean spoke. “I’ve missed you so much, Uncle Gurdeep.”
 
“I’ve missed you too, child. You’re in safe hands now. Now, where is Livia?”
 
“She...she’s not coming.” He shuffled his feet in discomfort. “We’re not on speaking terms right now.”
 
“Ah. That will change, with time. Ambrose told me what you’ve done, and what you’ve had to become. She’ll grow to understand. We all grow, we all change. So long as we don’t lose sight of who we are at the core, we can endure. There will be time for all of that once the crisis has passed. I shall have to find time to come to Alphard then, there is so much of you two growing up that I’ve missed.”
 
A voice from behind him called out. “You might want to hurry it up a bit. This conversation is costing you 800 c-bills a minute. Not that I mind, but you might.”
 
Sean turned and looked at the man who owned the voice. Sean didn’t recognize the uniform he wore, but it was both clean and worn, as was the man himself. He’d seen that sort of look on quite a few Praetorians over the years, generally the ones you didn’t fuck with. He was sucking on what looked to be his sixth cigarette of the session, given the number of butts at his feet.
 
“What the fuck is it to you?” Sean called back.
 
Gurdeep put a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Keep calm. I promised Ambrose that if he could deliver you to me, then I could deliver you an army. Here is that army. Allow me to introduce your great uncle, Lucius O’Reilly Jr. You may also know him as Daryl the Hun, his stage name, if you will, commander of the Boyz Movers Limited.”
 
He knew both names. Lucius was mentioned in hushed whispers, as a deserter and a traitor to his father. Daryl, well, rumors of triumphs and atrocities throughout the planets of the former Rim Worlds Republic had filtered through to the court as far back as he could remember.
 
“How can we trust a man who betrayed my father?”
 
Lucius laughed. “I’m loyal to the C-Bill. My grudge against your father died with him. You haven’t done shit to me, but you will pay me. Don’t pay me, then we have a problem. Do we have a problem?”
 
Gurdeep shrugged. “One day, we’re going to have to have a talk about your father. He was a good man, and I loved him, you loved him, he was good to both of us. He wasn’t good to others, sometimes unfairly. I trust Lucius, and I hope you trust me enough to follow my advice. Unless you have another army, we need him.”
 
Metellus opened his mouth, but Gurdeep shushed him. “I trust your Circus are brave warriors, but they would only die bravely against a regiment of seasoned mechwarriors. Ambrose, if you would, please grace us with your knowledge.”
 
Ambrose nodded, pulled something from his pocket, and tossed in onto an anvil at the heart of the force. A holo projection of Alphard filled the room. “Sertorius initiated a major expansion of the legions when he usurped the throne. These reserve formations, the Rorarii, have completed their training and are currently being sent away to reinforce the existing legions. You can see their training areas here, here, here, and here. You’ll note that two of them are within a day’s travel of the capital. One of those is the camp of Prefect Enis Yassin, who commands the 10th legion, the only complete legion on the planet. We don’t know the loyalties of the individual legati in charge of each wing and battalion of rorarii, but Yassin’s is the largest and the only one organized as a full legion. If we aren’t able to overcome the Praetorians immediately, then he'll hold the line against the others while we fight the Praetorians. This is a worst case scenario, as even with several rorarii formations already off world, Yassin is outnumbered 3:1.”
 
“As for Alphard itself, the usurper’s failures have played right into our hands. The Circinan attack on Alphard leveled half of the capital and knocked out half of the Praetorians. The remainder are still licking their wounds. Gibson has completely taken over the government since Sertorius left. His co-consul, Sean’s grandfather on his mother’s side, is on Islington and is completely ineffective. If we take Gibson and the Praetorians, then we have the Hegemony. It’ll be a fait accompli before an HPG signal can reach the rest of the legions.”
 
“What if we don’t?” Metellus asked.
 
“Then we have a civil war. And it will be nasty. The Imperial Legions are on our side, but the Morituri aren’t. The other legions, I honestly can’t tell you. They’ll probably split down the middle. Some will stay where they are and declare neutrality. The mercenaries will side with Gibson, he’s the one paying their bills. We absolutely have to make this work.”
 
Sean nodded and thought for a moment. He reached forward and spread his fingers. The holo globe zoomed into the capital. He looked to Lucius. “All right, we paid you for your expertise. So show us what you’ve got. How would you carry out a coup?”
 
Lucius tossed away his last butt and ground it under his boot. He scratched his chin for a moment, then stepped forward. “Gurdeep here has been in communication with Gibson and offered to broker a deal calling the Boyz Movers in to protect Alphard. Gibson is all for it, since he knows he screwed up bad and the people need to feel safe again. We’ve got the element of surprise, which means more than I can say with words. So I’ll say it with numbers: it’ll save millions of C-Bills and thousands of lives. I’ve knocked over the government of a lot of tinpot dictators, and if you can do it all at once, they go down easy. You screw up, and you’re in the shit for months, years. Hard, fast, sudden.”
 
“Yeah, Ambrose already said that.”
 
“Listen and learn, kid.”
 
Sean simmered with anger, but kept it cool. Father had reinforced with every mock-report and battle plan he turned in, that he needed to listen to his experts. This one might be annoying, but he was the best they had.
 
“Gibson thinks now that Marius is dead that I’m coming home to stay. We can use that. I’ve asked him to meet me at the spaceport with an honour guard. We’ll roll out the mechs right then and there, snag him and his best men. That’ll be my formal welcome, the rest of the Boyz will be camped outside the city. The medium mechs are going to make for the HPG while the lights go in and rush the Capitoline and Palatine barracks. The Black Warriors tried something similar, even partly succeeded at the Capitoline. We can do it faster. Especially if you people,” he pointed at Wrench and Metellus, “and all of your fastest vehicles can get there first. You’ve got all of Gurdeep’s toys to play with too, take the fastest thing they can manage to drive somewhat straight. Snag their mechwarriors before they know what’s what, and their mechs are ours. That’s the military side dealt with, and the offworld comms. I’ll have battle armor in Assault Dropships ready to go, low altitude combat drops over every radio, television, and holo station, plus the HQs of every internet provider and telephone company on the planet, which conveniently for us are located in the capital thanks to senate subsidies.”
 
Ambrose clicked his tongue. “That’s a hard thing to pull off, even the Praetorians don’t play around with combat drops..”
 
“Child’s play for the Boyz. Ten minutes, and every means of communication are ours.” He pointed at Ambrose. “Your worry about your own people. The Vigilis teams seize the palace. That’s the tricky part. You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you’ll adapt.”
 
Sean found himself nodding along the whole time. Something about the way the man talked, the way he stood, everyone in the room seemed under his spell. Without authority of rank or title, he commanded the room. The plan sounded perfect, too perfect and Lucius too confident. It was exactly what he wanted. Sean grinned, “That fuckstick won’t know what hit him.”
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===A Proposal===
Improvised Vehicle Staging Area
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Wrench did know why she was even here. Her head was best put to work inside an engine. And besides, she’d been in enough war councils to know they were usually excuses for the men to swing their dicks. Even if they listened to her ideas, they’d pretend they’d come up with them to begin with if they worked. But a wartruck with her stamp on it, no one could dispute that was her achievement.
 
She ignored the chatter and looked around the smithy. It was strange. Most of the tools were primitive, even by Algenib standards. Sure, they were excellent quality, but obsolete for millennia. Sean had told her about automated factories that made vehicles twice as large as anything on Algenib! With all the wonders of technology at their disposal, why would a man choose to use these?
 
“You are wondering why, Miss Kisser?”
 
“Uh, call me Wrench, or Wrench Kisser. No one where I come from uses ‘miss’. And yeah, I was wondering-” she commented
 
“I know. Everyone does. Do you know who Vulcan was?”
 
“No.”, she responded
 
“God of the forge in ancient Rome. I was born with the name Singh, but when Marius gave me my own world, my own company, I took the old god’s name and gave it to myself and the company. It’s branding, of a sort. A personal brand. I dress like the old god, I live like the old god, I work like the old god, and people treat me like an old god!” He laughed a deep belly laugh. The sort that Wrench couldn’t resist laughing alongside, even if she only half understood. “But you know what? I enjoyed it. It’s like meditation working here. No one is allowed to enter without my invitation. There is nothing but me, my fire, and my steel. It feels good, to make something with you hand eh? It’s different than sitting in the office and watching numbers go up from the factory floor.”
 
She nodded along. That she understood. “I get into that sort of trance when I’m in the shop. If you’re a good mechanic where I’m from, then you’re kinda like a god in your own sorta way. The elders, the warriors, the healers, no one gives you shit. Sometimes, I even feel like one, in a way. I look at a piece of scrap and think ‘what can this be’. I kinda feel it, look into its soul, and see what it wants to be, and then I make that reality. Like I’m imposing myself on the universe.”
 
Gurdeep nodded along. “I think we will have much in common, Wrench. There are many marvels in my world I will enjoy introducing you to, as there are many marvelous ideas in that brain of yours that I want to empower you to make manifest in the world.”
 
Wrench rested a hand on her toolbelt, casually. This guy was starting to sound weird, and when men started to sound weird, they usually did something that required a wrench. “Uh-huh? And what do you mean by that?”
 
“Sean sent a message ahead to me before he landed. He thinks very highly of you and had a special reward in mind for you. And, I have to admit, having a talented Algenibi machinist on staff opens up a world of possibilities for Vulcan Forgeworks. I’m to give you full run of the factory, any vehicle or part or raw material you desire. A custom shop if that is your want. All I ask in return is that you apply that ingenuity to my factory. The Forgeworks has been having...hmm...issues, let’s say. We’ve been working endlessly to produce enough armored vehicles for the expanded legions, but with all the extra material and weaponry we’ve been diverting towards Sean’s restoration, the factory is, err, let’s say overtaxed, and undersupplied. A band of Algenibi though, you can turn a paperclip, a hairband, and a wad of chewing gum into a weapon. If I gave you a child’s wagon I’m sure you could turn it into a formidable weapon or war by tomorrow! What I’m asking is, will you join me here, with as many of your colleagues as you’re willing to take on as your subordinates, and apply everything you know to our facility?”
 
She stood, open-mouthed, her hand slipped from her belt.
 
“If not for me or for yourself, then for Sean. All the vehicles we’re diverting for his forces, for your own Circus to ride to Alphard. Well, it makes us look at if the factory is unsound, and we can’t have Gibson’s inspectors coming in to find out why production has slowed and discover our plan, now can we?”
 
Finally, she blinked her surprise away, “Fuck man, if you let me play around in this place like that, I’ll call you a god myself.”
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ICHaFBI 15