Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs
Tags: commissioned, Gundam UC, Gundamn AU, OC-MC, reincarnated into gundam, one year war, limited inspired inventor MC
Notes: starts after 20+ years post-SI reincarnation
-VB-
Project PHAETON
Chapter 1
-VB-
Tap tap tap tap tap.
Space was troublesome.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
There were so many things a person had to take into account that they wouldn’t otherwise need to on any planetside colony.
The mass the colony had, the less structure and mechanism it had, the less of everything meant that each colonist had to do more work to keep their human bodies working optimally.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
Raw sunlight was harmful, so they needed to find a dedicated place that could filter out some of the radiation. If the gravity wasn’t high enough, then the bones would start to dissolve from the lack of stress, so they needed to spend some time in normal gravity environments and exercise a lot.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
So for people who loved to exercise, either because it was a hobby or requirement for stress relief, living in space was a chore. What could be just six hours of exercising a week ends up becoming twelve hours a week, which was a huge investment and outside the number of hours most people could allocate.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
On many of the Side colonies, there was enough space for the colonists, and the colonies themselves came with artificial gravity and moderated sunlight in an effort to mimic Earth-like conditions as much as possible. Because of this, most of the Side colonies didn’t
Tap tap tap tap tap.
However, in the Jupiter Fuel Fleets where extra space was an extravagant commodity, having a private room for exercising was considered a mark of the elite. It didn’t matter if someone had money; money by itself did not grant someone the status necessary to get a whole room for exercising. Everyone was scheduled a limited time they could spend in the grav room, and those that ignored the grav room always died earlier and sicker.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
It became a cultural part of the Jupiter Fleet. Becoming an elite wasn’t just about money and power; it was about getting access to things that were required for a healthy life. If you were worse than useful to the fleet, then you actually lost the privilege of access to the grav rooms.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
Despite the fact that Noctis’s people splintered from the Jupiter Fleet and ended up in the Belt, the importance of grav rooms, exercising, and their association with the elite stuck around as a cultural residue.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
Because it was still true that elites had the best access to sports, exercising rooms, gyms, and grav rooms even here in the Phaeton League. Well, at least until proper colonies were set up when he was a child. Father worked really hard to make that happen.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
But with only the resources the Phaeton League could scrounge up from the Belt’s hazardous conditions, the size of the colony was smaller than those of Earth Federation’s Side colonies. The League made up for it by having more colonies.
Tap tap tap….
Noctis took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he brought the run on the treadmill to a slow walk to let his muscles cool down and rest.
Sure, so what if Phaeton League didn’t have a single colony with more than two million people? They had twelve colonies with at least a million people and hundreds of smaller colonies spread throughout the Belt, all of which were outside the control of the Earth Federation and the Jupiter Fleet. It was a league of interdependent colonies helping each other. That was much better than the near autarchy of the Jupiter Fleet or the corrupt, elitist Earth Federation.
Haaaa…
“My lord.”
He snorted as he got off the treadmill and looked towards the doorway of his family’s small but well furnished private gym. “Adrian, I told you you don’t have to call me that.”
The shorter man with a “Malfoy style” hair - as Noctis’s father always said about Adrian’s hair style - merely sniffed disdainfully. “I am a servant of the Great House of Caelum and the lead servant of its heir. How could I act so … plainly?”
“Because it would make me comfortable?”
“Perhaps, my lord. However, if I allow myself to relax, then I would not be prepared when I need to be. As such, I cannot.”
Noctis sighed. “Fine~,” he drawled. “So what are you here for right now?”
“Your father has called for you. He is … concerned about the current situation in the Inner System.”
“Right. The Zeon Issue.” He let out a suffering sigh before he stood up. “Okay. Let’s go talk to Father. Just give me some time to freshen up.”
And so, he stepped into the shower room that was attached directly to the private family gym.
As warm water accompanied by light sonic vibration washed over him, he stood there to consider the Zeon Issue.
Saaa….
Father… was very concerned about it. So very concerned that he had upped the military production of all of the colonies under his direct control and urged the other “clan leaders” of the League to do the same.
Saaa….
The Principality of Zeon had only been declared official independence from the Earth Federation some five years ago, and they declared it with violent intent to “fight to keep their independence from the Earth Federation” right when he was coming out of high school, actually. But even back then, Noctis knew Prince* Zabi to be a power grabbing instigator. Everyone in politics with even an iota of brain cells already knew that the Side 3 colonies were de facto independent of the Earth Federation, even if they were de jure still part of the Earth Federation’s sphere of influence.
Saaa….
He used a bit of soap to wash himself. Soap was valuable on most League colonies. It wasn’t that they were hard to make but using more soap meant using more water, and though there was plenty of ice to turn into water in the Belt, that took energy and effort, which was the real value.
Saaa….
So to be like his people, Noctis took on their habits, including very short showers with just enough soap to keep himself clean and odorless and a lot of vigorous scrubbing.
Saa.
It took him just five minutes when he stepped out of the showers and only another two minutes to fully dress himself as was expected of him.
Adrian bowed when he came out in his “casual” “noble” attire, and followed him through the manor’s corridor.
And as he did, he glanced out of the narrow windows to the city beyond and below.
This was the colony of Renovamen, or renewal in the ancient Latin tongue. It was the first true colony built on Ceres by Father and his generation after they left the Jupiter Fleet. There were other smaller colonies they built, but most of them had been very small, capable of housing no more than a thousand people.
Compared to those and even some of the Side colonies, Renovamen was a marvel of engineering and design. As well as technology.
He glanced up at the shimmering energy barrier that covered the domed part of the colony that sat on the surface of Ceres. Energy barriers were but one of the many technologies his father developed in his haste to keep their people safe.
Honestly, Noctis wasn’t sure how his father, who wasn’t a scientist, engineer, or even a weapons manufacturer, came up with it in the first place. But he did, and it was still one of the most highly sought after technologies by all other powers of the Solar System. Unfortunately for them, Father was just as apt at turning his technologies into blackboxes, and even though there had been more than a few energy shield generators lost to “terrorists,” none of the other nations were able to replicate the tech.
Of course, the nation his father was most worried about also have been the most persistent backer of those terrorists, no matter how many times or how fervently they denied it.
His teeth ground unconsciously, and when he realized what he was doing, he had to stop himself.
The Phaeton League was in a high alert status all of the time because of those terrorists, and the goddamn Zeonists used those terrorists as pretext for their war build-up, declaring that the terrorists attacking the “only” independent nation outside of the Earth Federation’s influence must obviously be part of the Federation’s intelligence network.
Bullshit.
Earth Federation was goddamn desperate to keep the League on their good side… mostly because keeping Father on their side as a policy had been something that gave them some technological advantages like the new improvements to mind-machine interface used in most experimental fighters and space tanks prototyped in the League. Jupiter Fleet and Zeon did not have access to those, and the MMI gave the Federation and League’s pilots significant advantage in reaction time and reduced synaptic lag because even the best haptic controls and feedback were milliseconds slower than the MMI.
With the League’s MMI manufactories too tightly secured for Jupiter and Zeon to try to gain access, they focused on infiltrating the Federation’s manufacturing sites for older MMI technologies. Not that the cooperation with the Federation had been for that purpose; the company Father chose to hand the license to just happened to be a rival of a corporation that had ties to the Jupiter Fleet. Just a coincidence.
‘Still, what did Zeon do now that Father called me out of nowhere?’
The Caelum family, or the House of Caelum to those outside of it, had family dinner whenever possible. Generally, it was lighthearted conversations before and during dinner itself and more political and heavier topics after all of the plates have been cleared. If Zeon did something (again), then it should have been discussed then which was … five hours from now.
Minutes later, he was finally standing in front of Father’s home office, and Adrian knocked for him. “Lord Emmanuel, the Young Master is here.”
Noctis leveled his friend a deadpan stare, and Adrian finally gave him a brief shrug.
“Come in, son.”
The doors opened on their own and he entered the room.
What greeted him was a library filled to the brim with paper books, a true luxury for those who lived in space where both space to keep paper books and tree farming was limited. And seated on the other end of this private library was his father.
Sitting behind … a steel desk.
“Are you ever going to get rid of that thing, father?” he asked with a raised eyebrow as he sauntered into the room.
“Never,” Father, Lord Zeyus Caelum of Ceres, said as he looked up. “But I didn’t call you here to get you to complain about my desk. Again.”
“Then what did you call me for? Did Zeon do something stupid again?”
Father let out an explosive sigh. “Yes, they did, and I need you to get out there on my behalf - on the League’s behalf - to bring some important refugees in.”
“Important … refugees?”
“That fucker Zabi initiated a purge of Diekun’s last followers.”
Noctis stiffened.
“I… see.” He paused and thought about the situation. The original founder of the Republic of Zeon, Diekun, has been dead for a number of years. His successor, Zabi, took power and turned the republic into a principality with him as its first prince. While he has been quiet before in putting his people into positions of power, if he was now actively purging Diekun’s followers, then he must be up to something. “And where are they, father?”
Father moved his hands across the steel table, and the tracking devices at the edge of the table took his motion in as a command. They activated a hologram above them. The hologram depicted the Solar System, and Father put in some commands into his personal computer, and soon, there was a dotted white line between Side 3 colonies and Ceres. The line was filled up to a third in red.
“They smuggled themselves out inside an unarmed freighter currently en route to Ceres. However, they fear that they might have been discovered, and so sent us a request begging to be rescued.”
“... And how did they contact us from the middle of nowhere…?”
“We have lightcomm relays, son.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, I want you to take the 2nd Ceres Guards along with the frigate Solan to greet them and give them asylum.”
Noctis stared at him before nodding. “Understood, father. And … if Zeon shows up?”
“Tell them to fuck off,” Father said bluntly.
He snorted. “And if they don’t?”
Father grinned.
It was filled with teeth and malice. “Then it’ll do good to remind that retard Zabi why Diekun tried and the Federation keeps trying so hard to keep us in his good grace, hmm?”
-VB-
A/N:
Prince* - I know that the official title is “sodo” or “lord” for the leader of the Principality of Zeon. But it’s called the goddamn PRINCIPALITY of Zeon. So I’m calling its leader a prince.