A/N: watched The Hunchback and Tywcross by BPL while writing this.
Scavenged Restoration
Chapter 89
-VB-
Kai … moved.
The mech he piloted for this exercise, a Raven light mech, thundered forward with surprisingly light footsteps on a full sprint.
‘So this is the new Raven Sprint Module,’ he thought to himself.
With this module, the Raven maintained a ridiculously smooth ride even at full sprint.
But as he was coming to experience it again, the Sprint Module had a problem. He looked down at the heat gauge, and it did not move down despite the fact that he used nothing else on the mech’s arsenal. In exchange, the Raven now ran faster than a full sprint Locust at 135 km/h. Was it only slightly faster than a Locust? Yes.
But compared to the generic Locust’s a medium laser and two machine guns, a Raven’s standard loadout of two medium lasers, one SRM-6, a Guardian ECM, and Beagle active probe meant that a Raven with with the Sprint Module was a better scout and target painter than a Locust. The Raven also had more armor.
But the Sprint Module had a critical flaw: it took up a lot of space, and because of this, it could not be used with Ravens built with an endo-steel chassis. This meant that Ravens that could use the Sprint Module exchanged raw defense for evasion defense. The end results had a similar cost, but the Sprint Module could be removed to make room while endo-steel could not be.
Kai made the Raven duck underneath a low hanging steel beam before skating across the muddy ground to make a hard ninety degree turn in the simulation city.
The Raven ran hot, having been unable to sink its heat since he began full sprinting.
But it was soon over because -!
The Raven sailed over the last obstacle, a fake Urban mech, by jumping over it and nearly crashed into the ground even as he kept running full tilt, and only brought himself to a stop once he crossed the finish line.
A buzzer rang loudly in his ears.
“[Time! 62.01 seconds!]”
… It wasn’t his best. He was slowed by a half a second due to unsteady ground in the middle of the course.
Unfortunate.
“Damn close to your personal best, major,” the lieutenant in charge of the course commented as he walked up to the Raven as Kai got out of it to let the inside of the cockpit cool. Sure, the mech cools itself down, but opening the cockpit lets it happen faster. “How are you feeling?”
“... Same,” he replied. “I probably need to get used to piloting a Raven.”
“It really is different, isn’t she?” the lieutenant asked with a hum and a smile. “Nothing like a Locust or Jenner. Would you say a Sprint Raven is better than a Jenner?”
Kai stopped and thought about it.
Jenner was slowly becoming popular among the confederation’s light mech enthusiasts because of a new deal the confederation and the Combine made. The Combine could not produce enough mechs to keep themselves properly armed, not with the Clans ravaging their worlds and taking out one industrial world at a time. On top of this, there was a high demand for duelist mechs like the Grasshopper, , so the Combine’s manufacturers decided to focus their manufacturing capacity on those mechs. Because of this, the Combine finally caved in and offered the confederation the Jenner license in exchange for ten percent of all production, though the confederation would not pay royalties in exchange.
The confederation, or rather Chancellor William, accepted the license on behalf of the confederation’s manufacturers, and then proceeded to sublicense it out to all willing manufacturers. Which was a uniquely Capellan management that no other state could copy.
Because of this, Jenner began to show up everywhere. Hell, there were even people who were making the mech by hand in some of the Aurigan Commonality’s factory-less worlds. As long as a tenth of the mech production was either sent off to a shipping hub or handed over to the local militia, it was all fine.
From what Kai knew from being close to the crown princess, he knew that the confederation now produced half of all Jenners produced in the Inner Sphere while the Combine’s manufacturers were pivoting to heavy and assault mechs with imported Capellan components.
The most popular of these was the Capellan Missile Tracker, which worked to both get its rockets to an enemy and track enemy rockets coming to it. Missile support mech manufacturers in particular loved the CMT, because it was the same price as off the shelf market parts (in Capellan space) while outperforming most proprietary missile guidance systems. It did that during the War of Lyran Aggression, and the latest model produced by the Liao State Microchips (a state-owned corporation) still outperformed any other dedicated missile guidance processors.
The Sprint Module, however, was not a new concept in the Inner Sphere.The Star League made the MASC, but Kai thought that the Sprint Module was because using it long term wouldn’t ruin the mech like MASC was wont to do. And he knew this because the Lyrans and the Fedrats used the MASC since they couldn’t afford to spare the R&D for a better version of it, unlike the confederation.
And as much as the wider confederation would find success with this… the Raven - with or without the Sprint Module - just wasn’t his thing. He didn’t want to run around. He wanted to pilot something … heavy hitting. Meaty. But still with some speed so that he would not have to stand and hit like a Lyran assault mech. Had he been a Fedrat or a Lyran, then he might have asked his uncle for Hatchetman.
But.
The confederation did have something that, in his opinion, was better.
The Vindicator-P03, the Pillager-03 variant of the Vindicator. It was an upgrade of the first melee weapon wielding Vindicator first used on Sian itself to defend the capital from opportunistic Lyrans.
Instead of an AC/10 and a hatchet for heavy hits and two medium lasers, his VND-P03 had a four ton spear for its left hand, two medium pulse lasers on its right hand, and an LRM-5 on its left torso.
It was a mostly close to melee combatant with a hint of long range attack to help support anyone that might need it. Or to hit enemies who might be running away just out of the pulse laser’s range. VND-P03 also had two more tons of armor compared to the Hatchetman yet moved just as fast as the Hatchetman.
Yes.
A Vindicator proved time and time again that not only was Capellan engineering superior to the Lyran’s, the ideology and design philosophy of the Capellan people proved itself superior to that of the Lyrans, who could not adapt their existing designs.
Or in the words of his uncle, “All of that money made them simple.”
“Major?”
Kai blinked and looked to the lieutenant.
“Ah. My apologies. I was having a thought. Do you need me to take the Raven to its hangar?”
“Yes, that would be appreciated,” the lieutenant nodded.
Kai got the mech to close its cockpit and walked the now cooled mech to its hangar near the course’s hangar.
As he walked the mech back, he had a thought.
He … knew a lot of things. He considered and made conclusions. But did he really know? His experience was limited; the closest to a prolonged campaign for him was a single combat he participated in during the Jaguar Rout. After that, he has not had any chance to prove himself.
And that got to him.
… Well, he knew what to do about it.
---
“... I see,” Chancellor William, his uncle, hummed.
It was after dinner, which was when the family discussed heavier topics. And for him, the heaviest topic was his lacking experience as a mechwarrior.
He already graduated from the most prestigious officer program, and yet, he remained on Sian, barely participating as a royal guard mechwarrior. And he knew why.
His mother, uncle’s blood sister.
His mother still did not want him to be a mechwarrior. She had not been able to stop him from becoming a mechwarrior, however, so she probably - Kai had no evidence for this - convinced uncle to keep him on Sian.
And his mother was here with him and uncle. Thankfully, the rest of the family had turned in early when they sensed that he was going to be talking about something heavy and personal from the atmosphere around him.
“Kai…” mother began but stopped herself.
“I am wasting away, uncle,” he began with the heaviest blow he could deal. “I am a Liao who does nothing. I am not even a glorified bodyguard. Worse, I am unproven. The longer I remain here, I lose more time, which is already a premium with how much time we spend moving in space. Is this what I am supposed to be?”
Uncle didn’t say anything. He had barely aged in all of Kai’s memory, but even so, he looked tired.
“... You are your mother’s only child,” uncle began with half-lidded eyes, his gaze not rising as he focused on the dinner table between them. “What happens if you die? Worse, come back simple and crippled?”
“Is there a difference between physical wasting and mental wasting? Am I not wasting away regardless?” he asked instead with a grimace. “Aren’t you the one who always told me that a life worth living is one fully explored?”
“And no other avenues of exploration of life appeal to you?”
“... I have tried. You know I have, uncle.”
Uncle didn’t say anything. Because he did. Uncle took the security of their families seriously. After all, Kai, his mother, Uncle Tormano, his family, Uncle William, and his family were the only mainline Liaos left. They had a lot of cousins, sure, but most of them were many times removed from the mainline. The closest was Reginold Liao-Tang, a judge here on Sian, and he was basically a fourth cousin with the closest shared lineage being Kai’s great-great-grandfather.
So he knew why, logically, uncle kept him safe.
But logic didn’t stop him from feeling like a goddamn rotting moss.
“Can? Your thoughts? He is still your son.”
This was … perhaps the only part about his people’s culture that he disliked. Even though he was legally an adult and a member of the armed forces, his more powerful mother and minister held direct say in his place in life.
And mother looked stricken.
This was not the first time they have had this talk, but this was the first time he was pushing it heavily as he did.
She gulped.
But didn’t say anything.
She took a deep breath in and, again, didn’t say anything.
She looked at him.
Looked at him. And he couldn’t meet her gaze, because he knew what he was asking.
After all, one of the main reasons why he had no second cousins or third cousins was because their parents never got the chance to make kids… because they died as mechwarriors and commanders and soldiers of the CCAF.
…And then she finally spoke.
“The first core.”
He looked up.
She looked… exhausted. Exhausted and weak.
“If you ever get cored… you will return home. Then we will talk again about whether or not you will ever leave Sian without an entire fleet.”
He stared at her.
That must have been hard for her to say.
He gulped.
“I will.”
Uncle looked relieved and muttered something like “fucking finally.”
Kai shared the sentiment for a different reason.
Fucking finally, indeed.