Scavenged Restoration
Chapter 9
-VB-
Boring.
Bloody fucking boring.
Like … ugh.
I hated this part about traveling. The waiting.
Personally, I used this time to go over reports from all over the Capellan Confederation that I was able to bring along but not necessarily what was up to date. Even then, my work helped me paint a better mental and physical picture of the work that I was undertaking.
But it also felt like that was all I did these days.
Gather information. Process. Summarize. Review. Theorize reform. Receive advice. Change theoretical reform. Review. Receive advice. Rinse and repeat until the theoretical reform becomes "good." Implement reform.
This process got applied to everything I had my hands in.
The new factories for Firebees, the development of another militia-focused mech made with Vindicator chassis, the Cataphract factory's move from Tikonov to Capella even if it cost the entire confederation at least a fifty new heavy mechs that could have been produced in the meantime, recruiting Candace and forming the Ministry of Citizens, and focus on armored vehicles and tanks for militia …
I did all I could.
Which meant that nothing I did right nowcould help anyone else.
So… I think I should take this time to relax. It'll take three months at a minimum to reach Terra, and that was because I was taking the shortest path and not the scenic path that would allow me to visit important Capellan worlds along the way.
I really did push this as far back as I could.
… But what was I supposed to do?
Even if the Princess-class dropships were the most luxurious dropships, it meant jackshit when it was attached to the jumpship. Even when the jumpship my dropship was attached to maintained its 0.1 G thrust to keep itself from falling towards the star, that was barely enough gravity to do anything.
That's less than the Moon's gravity!
It was why … for the first time in a long time … I was pumping iron. Kind of.
"Urk…! AGH!"
"Chancellor, give me just another mile!" the sergeant brave enough to become my temporary instructor yelled from my right as he pumped his own legs.
Instead of gravity-reliant exercises and machines, I was doing my goddamn best against a mechanical device: a stationary exercise bike.
Sweat dribbled down from my face, neck, arms, and back. My thighs screamed at me to stop but I didn't.
I didn't pay attention to the other soldiers who were in the gym. I didn't even look at the other feeble nobles who decided to join me in hopes that that would somehow earn them my favor.
No, I paid attention to the pain. Paid attention to the weakness leaving my body. I gritted my teeth as I pushed down on the pedal again and again. At some point, the pain just leveled out but I started to have less strength to push.
"Okay, and we can stop here!"
I fell face-first onto the handle. "Fuck…" I groaned.
The sergeant had the audacity to laugh.
I gave him the middle finger.
Now, a member of the CCAF laughing at the Chancellor would have been "re-educated" by their peers. Then it was a good thing that my current temporary instructor was not a member of the CCAF but a Canopian mercenary.
Master Sergeant Anne Renessa was what one expected from a mercenary mechwarrior. Fit, trained, and barely wearing anything.
She was also what most expected from a Canopia: beautiful, voluptuous, and playful. With tits that had to measure in the upper J-cups, a nuclear ass, and bouncy, feathered curly hair tied into a ponytail, she was utterly sexy.
But right now, she was my coach who I loathed.
"Let me rest…" I moaned pitifully but quietly. I still had an image to uphold, and definitely couldn't make myself look like a moaning puddle of sweat and pain.
No, no, no. The Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation could not be that.
But a grumbling pile of moody suffering? Ladies loved that.
Of course, my mercenary instructor knew this, so she didn't laugh out loud at me.
No, she just grinned as she kept pumping her thicc watermelon bursting thighs.
Damn.
I really was cooped up for too long in the palace if this was how I reacted to one half-naked sexy woman next to me. Like I was ignoring how emasculated I felt compared to her because of how strong she was compared to me.
Then I flinched as the memories came back.
… Perhaps later. Maybe I'll enjoy thinking about women in the future.
"Come on, chancellor! Can't rest when all of your men are hard at work!" she said and gestured to the soldiers who just realized that they were being used as a measuring stick.
I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up, ignoring the way my sweat-ladened face had smeared the digital screen of the high-end stationary bike, and pushed back down on the pedals.
Because if there was something worth doing, then it was worth putting my all in.
---
"So how did you end up in my service?" I asked MS Renesa.
She looked up from where she was resting herself and met my eyes.
"... Well, if you don't mind knowing… Celestial Wisdom?" she said unfamiliarly.
I nodded. I was taking my five minute break before moving to my next exercise.
"Officially speaking, I joined the Mary's Light Cavalry when I became eighteen. Unofficially, I was always part of the company since birth."
"Ah. Family business."
"In a way," she hummed. "My mother became a noble through her service to the Magistracy of Canopus, and because of this, she was able to better supply her mercenary company and expected her children to follow in her step."
"And you did."
"And I did," she nodded. "I was the eldest daughter in Magistracy, and I also liked mechs."
It was a standard enough story as far as many noble mechwarrior stories went.
"Then how did the company come under the confederation's payroll?"
"Oh, that was simple. You paid better than the League."
I snorted. "Yeah, I guess that settles it."
She chuckled.
"Alright. Back at it, Chancellor. Can't let those muscles rest for to long."
I grunted. Instead of the bike, I got on a resistance pulley. Or something.
"Alright. Here's how we're gonna go. We're gonna do ten at the start, twelve after, fourteen, back to twelve, and finish with a ten. Ready?"
"Yeah."
"And start!"
-VB-
After nearly three months of traveling, we jumped into Terra.
I blinked the spots out of my eyes as the jump came to an end and looked around.
The first thought I've had after the jump was how lovely it would be to have clothes that fit me better, because after three months of eating well, exercising intensely and properly, and resting well?
I grew bigger. Like I put on at least two kilos of muscle and lost the bit of fat I've had. It also made me less like a bureaucrat and more like someone deserving of my seat. That felt good.
I wanted to undo the straps, stand up from my seat, and stretch, but I opted to remain seated until the Princess dropship was moving.
It would be nasty if I fell through an elevator shaft or something like that.
So I waited.
And not too long afterward, I heard the dropship captain alert the crew with the PA system.
"{We have now entered the Terran System. The Chancellor's Chariot will soon detach from the Confederate Stars and fly towards Terra. Estimated time of arrival is October 11.}"
Today was October 1, late in the evening (for Terran standard time). So it would be a little over nine days.
I wondered how I will react to … everything.
Earth! It's been … it's been another life since I last saw it, even if it wasn't my past life's Earth. Would it have the same monuments, the same people, and the same cultures? Would it be an alien landscape for my past life's memories?
What about the other Great Houses? Would I be genuinely be able to think of peace when I meet them? Will I be able to react properly? Would my reactions be genuine?
Would I be sad if i find Hanse, Katrina, Janos, and Melissa to be respectable if not likable people? That I had enemies who I didn't want to kill or fight in the first place?
Could I even broach the topic of peace when they were set on butchering my people? When I knew they already had twice my total mech regiments lined up at my border?
That, in truth, they would have begun invading mere days before the actual wedding itself?
I suspected that all of it would be … new.
And new experience was a very rare commodity for someone like me.
At least I will be able to claim that I tried.
-VB-
When the Chancellor's Chariot landed on Terra near Hilton Head Island in what used to be South Carolina of the United States of America in the Savannah Spaceport.
And, just like how I remembered the American South…
"Humid and hot," I grumbled.
It was October for Christ's sake! Did global warming get that bad in this timeline? That it was still hot during October in South Carolina's swamp-ridden coastline?!
I fanned myself as I walked down the dropship's ramp. Thank God I wasn't wearing anything particularly long like many Chinese-inspired Capellan attires were.
"Chancellor."
I looked down and saw several ComStar members waiting for me.
I leaned slightly toward my chief bodyguard. "Come with me," I told him as I finished walking down the stairs and met with the ComStar members. I recognized the front three to be Precentors from the different robes they had from the adepts behind them.
The three precentors bowed very slightly. A show of respect.
"Greetings, Chancellor Liao, and welcome to Terra."
"Yes," I hummed. "It is my first time here. It's … good to be here on humanity's birthplace."
That made the precentor at the front smile.
"I am Charles Wu, Precentor Asia. It gladdens my heart to hear that someone of your status has made your way to Terra."
I didn't say anything to that, merely looking around.
Right now, other dropships that had come with me had already disgorged their mechs and troops. It was far less than what my late father and sister would have brought with them to "show" the other Great Houses. In fact, bringing only a single mech company could be considered foolish when I knew that the bride and groom wanted my nation dead.
But considering that my bodyguards were better used to train and lead the troops out in the field, it was a decision I had made long ago.
"Tell me, precentor," I hummed. "I do not see any of the dropships belonging to the other Great Houses here. Why is that?"
"We did so to … minimize conflict, Your Grace. Please excuse us if our actions have insulted you in any way."
And it was an insult. By deliberately moving me away from the other four Great Houses and letting my dropships land on a smaller (but no less grand) spaceport, they were telling me indirectly that they did not believe me capable of defending myself.
And it was also a message about ComStar's own irritation at my refusal to work with them in whatever scheme they had for disrupting the FedCom alliance.
Whatever.
If this had happened on any other world, then even I might have to show my displeasure publicly.
But this was Terra.
"I supposed that Terran borns are prone to insulting others then," I shrugged. "Like Rome of old. Weak, religious, and powerless to even stop us barbarians from fighting each other in its own halls." I turned to my guards before the shocked precentor could respond. "Come! It seems that ComStar's organization and security measures are so bad that distance is the only thing they have at their disposal. Let's distance ourselves from them just in case then."
With that last insult thrown their way, I ignored their protests and moved on