FSRB Chpt 248

==The Federated Suns Reborn - Chapter 248==
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March 3072Interlude: Sons of the Dragon
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Imperial Palace
Pesht District, Luthien 
Draconis Combine 
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Coordinator Minoru Kurita walked onto the balcony in the white tunic and black trousers of the dress uniform of the DCMS. The high red collar of his tunic alone of all of the officers of the DCMS was unadorned and didn't carry the rank tabs that others wore. Occasionally, the Coordinator would deign to wear the gold katakana and bar of a Warlord yet today he had decided to omit any rank insignia as a symbol that he was outside and above said ranks. As were the boys standing in attention in grey uniform jumpsuits below. Arrayed in line after line they filled one of the smaller inner courtyards of the Imperial Palace in silent formation. Along the edges of the formation the drill sergeants and retired officers who would be their instructors stood just as silently but with eagle eyed intensity looking for any of their charges who might stray from formation or in any way disgrace them. 
Standing for a second with his hands leaning on the smooth teak of the railing of the balcony the Coordinator took in the silent ranks. Exactly six hundred boys stood at attention before his gaze. Not one of them so much as flinched or shifted even slightly under his gaze. Extraordinary. The oldest of them was eight years old and the youngest six, yet already they had absorbed the discipline of their teachers and stood expressionless as they were presented to their lord for the first time. His recruiters had been as meticulous as he had commanded and had clearly accepted only the most disciplined and focused youths for his purposes. It was not enough that they be from honourable families, no. He needed only the finest warriors that the Combine could provide, disciplined and capable of the physical and mental training to pilot a battlemech, regardless of background and young enough to be trained to be the perfect soldiers for House Kurita. Looking out over the full courtyard he nodded, yes his recruiters had done well. Very well. 
Slowly he straightened up from his observation and spoke to them for the first time. A speaker built into the railing projected his words to even the boys at the back. "Welcome, my sons. For you are all my sons. You are the Sons of the Dragons. You and your brothers on Benjamin, Pesht and Galedon. All of you have been given by your families to the Dragon. From this moment on you have no last name. It matters not whether you were the son of a noble or a shopkeeper before. Now you are the Son's of the Dragon. Every one of you has been gifted by your family to serve the needs of House Kurita and the Draconis Combine. From this moment onward you live, fight and die at my single command. You will be instrumental in rebuilding the Draconis Combine under my rule into the dominant power within the Inner Sphere. Together we will rebuild the ancient Star League in our own image!"
He paused and smiled benevolently upon the assembled Son's of the Dragons. "Serve with honor. Serve me well. Your service will be returned with honour, recognition and reward. You will rise according to your talents and will become the most feared military unit in all of known space! Clan Trueborns will quake at the thought of facing you across the battlefield and the Dragon's Eternal Enemy the hated House Davion will wail for the losses you will inflict upon them! You will be the first! You are the Son's of the Dragon and you will form a new unit within the DCMS, the Konoe Shidan!" 
As he saluted them one of the old officers standing at the front of the assembled boys snapped his bamboo cane against this thigh and let out a roar. "BANZAI!"
The six hundred assembled boys from all corners of the Combine snapped a salute and roared out the word the traditional three times. "BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!" 
As he looked out over the cheering boys, Minoru's smile grew. Over the next ten years these boys would have the finest military education that the Combine could give them. They and the other three "classes" as well as the follow on groups. Within the decade they would flow from their training camps, classrooms and simulators and renew the muscle and blood of his military formations. Let Victor Davion sit upon his homeworld of New Avalon and imagine that he had finally subjugated the Dragon... Combined with the huge new LAW industrial facilities being built on Pesht and New Samarkand and the Wakazashi Enterprise plant on New Samarkand and by the time they were ready for battle he would have the MechWarriors and Battlemechs to raise entire new regiments of Konoe Shidan! He would re-forge the DCMS stronger and harder than it had ever been and like a master crafted Katana it would be the perfect weapon for his hand to wield against House Davion...
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