InaG Chpt 21-1

==It's not a Gundam - Chapter 21 -Part 1 - The Young Bull- Book 2 -==
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Office of The Protector
Taurus, Taurian Concordat
March 3027
For better or worse the Guild and the Cooperative were not the Star League.
 
Unfortunately his father didn't see it that way.
 
Edward Calderon like Thomas Marik was being groomed to take leadership of their nation. But while the latter had warmed up to the Junkers ... his own had chilled.
 
Before Atreus, Taurus was inundated with speculation. Half excited to the opportunities a Periphery-born alliance could create, half concern that it wasn't the Taurians who were building it.
 
After Atreus? Well, his father slammed the door on his face as the elder Protector and the movers-and-shakers of the Concordat locked themselves in a room and barely, if ever, stuck their heads out.
 
With a sigh Edward sat in his father's desk, documents that needed the Protector's stamp of approval would have to do with the stamp of a Future Protector instead. As if to punctuate his headaches the Mayor of Junker sat across from him like some haunting specter.
 
"I'm surprised you didn't meet with my father." he spoke to Cid.
 
"Could've." Cid shrugged, "But he didn't want to speak with me. I didn't plan to either."
 
"You expect me to believe you came all the way here and NOT speak to the Protector?"
 
"Yes." he said with all the blunt honesty an old warhorse like him could muster, "I actually came here to see my grand daughter but then Cameron lost his mask. It was bound to happen ... but the timing could not be worse."
 
"You knew?" he said surprised.
 
"Of course I did." The mayor spoke, "I know all my people. That's what makes me a good Mayor."
 
"And you accepted him. Just like that?"
 
"We have. He wasn't Ian Cameron. Or even a Cameron to us. Just Exarch."
 
"I find that hard to believe." Edward admitted, "Why would someone who had claim to be First Lord decide to stay in a backwater? No offense-"
 
"-None taken." Cid grunted, "Except for the damn pirates we Junkers liked to live day by day. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you weren't supposed to be future Protector?"
 
Lazy days. Quiet days. Peaceful days. The weight of the lives of millions not placed upon his shoulders. Except the duty of the Calderon family was not a burden that could simply be handed off.
 
"I can't imagine." Edward half lied.
 
"I can. I'd like to think Ex wore the mask because he wanted to be treated and seen for what he did. Not what he happened to look like."
 
Taurian intelligence had found enough to confirm that Exarch was a Cameron. Whether he was one of the mainline Camerons they had yet to prove without access to Terra's genetic records.
 
But a Pretender to the throne was not unheard of.
 
But a man with so many accomplishments under his belt could not be ignored. Cameron or not.
 
"Truth is he's not his dad, whoever he is. I'm not my dad either. And you're not your father, otherwise you'd be in the same room as him plotting to nuke a city or two."
 
"We would never do that." He protested, "That is just a stereotype."
 
"I've heard plenty about what the Fed-Rats did to your people ... and plenty about what you Bulls did to the Aurigans."
 
"That-"
 
"Calderon." Cid looked at him, old hardened eyes to younger ones, "If the Federated Suns was defenseless. If the Taurians still had all their Warships. Right here. Right now. Would you Bulls exact your revenge?"
 
Edward tried to find the words. Something. Anything. But in his heart he knew that it only took one man full of hate to burn a world. Ostergaard proved it.
 
"You are right that I'm not my father." Edward finally replied, "I don't see the Davions as an enemy as many on Taurus do."
 
As they spoke there were protests in front of Guild offices across the Concordat. Some unfortunately more violent than others. If not for the exhaustive efforts of the police and the sheer restraint of Guild Security there would be things more serious than bumps and bruised egos.
 
"You don't have to like them. Just don't be a damn monster or I'll have you get a kiss from Mack's Hunchback."
 
Edward blinked, "I'm surprised you are so casual about threatening me."
 
If the Taurians were stereotypes as being stuffed to the gills with Nukes, the Junkers were becoming synonymous with that damn Harpoon gun. There was only one confirmed Dainsleif in existence ... but more than one of the TDF's analysts said that if the Guild could make Gauss Rifles and Linear Rifles then more Dainsleifs were not an impossibility.
 
Cid pointed to the empty air beside him, "This is where I grow them."
 
Edward looked at the spot, there was nothing there, "Your what?"
 
"My fucks." Cid said, with none to give, "Ed, and for now I am STICKING to Ed, there is more to life than revenge or some fancy title. If you don't want us in the Concordat then we'll just leave."
 
"That's it?"
 
"That's it. I've had plenty of worlds drop talks with joining us. Plenty of them demanding concessions. A few of them already want to leave."
 
Cid pulled out a flask, exactly how it got past security Edward shifted in discomfort.
 
"We're not the conquering type. We'll just pick up our ball and go home. Whatever happens next ain't our problem."
 
Burton, Brisbane, New Ganymede, Sterope, and Ishtar made up a large chunk of Taurian worlds with Guild offices and support stations. They were also all worlds that called Edward their ruler. He could imagine the Junkers leave. Taking their trade and industry with them. Just as Comstar could interdict a nation ... the Guild could just blacklist the Taurians. Having the simple majority of Spacers refuse to do business in the Concordat would be as equally punishing as it was easy.
 
"So rather than demanding change from those who refuse it, you will just ignore them." Edward frowned, "I would think the Knights of St. Cameron would follow a man who would recreate the Star League."
 
"That implies we want it back the way it was. You imagine we want to create some kind of Co-Prosperity Outer Sphere?"
 
"Isn't that where things are headed? Soft Power instead of Hard Power? Anyone who won't conform will redevelop, rebuild, REARM."
 
"As it has for thousands of years." Cid shrugged, "It's a damn see-saw of whose on top and whose on bottom."
 
"Not for the next thousand if I can help it."
 
The Concordat would have peace. Whether under a Protector or a First Lord, Edward Calderon vowed he'd leave a better Concordat than he came into.
 
"Just like Cameron." The Mayor huffed, "He's not a skeptic like I am. Probably why he got more shit done in two years than most in a lifetime."
Cid stood up and brushed his clothes, "Nice to speak with the future Protector. I'll give you a tour of Junker if you ever decided to visit."
 
Edward lifted a brow, "Your leaving? Just like that."
 
"I am. Tell your old man I said hi. I've wasted enough of my vacation when I could be knee deep in tequila right now. Oh and Ed?"
 
"Yes?"
 
"Nothings lasts. Good times ... also bad times. Just make sure the first ones last longer."
 
Cid left the office and once again Edward was left alone with his thoughts and his father's paperwork. Among the mountains of bureaucratic tedium he saw a picture of the Periphery. It corroborated what the mayor spoke of; and more he did not.
 
Canopus would stay in the Cooperative, their counterbalance against the Junkers mattered more than ever.
 
Those that spurned the Junkers was offset by many more from the Inner Sphere hoping to curry the favor of the Last Cameron.
 
And while the Outworlds Alliance was making platitudes to appease the Draconian Combine it's constituent members were all to eager to accept the Guild's presence no matter how thin the logistics chain it was connecting Junker to Alpheratz. Should war come the OWA would be less likely to be caught in the crossfire as the FedSuns and Lyrans struck at the Snakes; alternatively it put the Combine in check, surrounding them on all three sides like Davion was by the Taurians, Combine, and Capellans. It was a game of chess played with the lives of millions.
 
It was in today's mail that he found a letter from the Free Worlds League Embassy. A handwritten letter and addressed to him specifically and not the Office of The Protector.
 
Every line after deciphered line he read the penmanship of the Atrean ambassador. With every word Edward Calderon paled.
 
Just moments ago he had worked to prevent his father from dragging them into a fight with the First Prince.
 
Now? Now he had to worry about a multi-party that could tear apart not just the Concordat... but humanity as a whole.
 
Edward shot up from his seat and called for his car.
 
He was going to get answers. Even if that meant wringing them out of the local Precentor himself.
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Chapter 21-1