Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
February 17th 2997
Being X had screwed me once again. He had a horribly depraved, sick sense of humor. I was reincarnated for the second time with my memories of my previous lives intact. Not in an orphanage this time. Instead, I was high nobility, the daughter of the undisputed ruler of the Capellan Confederation. It would sound wonderful to most people, if it weren't for the fact they were space communists. That wasn't literally true, but the nation I now lived in was a nightmarish version of authoritarian collectivism.
Ultimately, the economic and political system you lived in governed how much true freedom someone had. The more you were allowed to exert your free will in acts of fundamental importance, the better. Both as a general principle, and because liberty allowed for the flourishing of human society and technology. Capitalist societies were known for their freedoms, and in the dark, nightmarish future of the 30th century, none seemed to actually live up to it. The Capellan Confederation didn't even play lip service to it. It was a fully centralized, planned economy. It made me sick.
The history of this universe was similar to my previous two, only this time, when I was born, it was far into the future. My earliest years I had little memory of. I suspect it was all jumbled, from cramming two lifetimes of memories into a tiny, undeveloped brain. By three, everything I knew had returned to me.
Here, humanity had advanced due to faster-than-light technology, or FTL, that made use of jump drives to allow JumpShips to catapult from star system to star system. The specifics of the technology and the Kearny-Fuchida Drive did not make it possible to simply zip around the Inner Sphere, as the locals called it, but it did make it possible for hundreds of star systems to be controlled by a singular ruling family. In the case of the Capellan Confederation, my family.
As far as I could tell, the history of this universe was almost exactly like that of my first life up until the late twentieth century, when the scourge of communism had been harder to stamp out. A coup in Russia created a second Cold War and completely altered how the early twenty-first century unfolded. I was born in 2988, basically a whole millennium later.
Nearly all of humanity had eventually gathered under the government known as the Star League, which ruled for hundreds of years. The Star League had formed in 2571, but by 2780 it had been broken apart, with various factions fighting to reunite it. Or more accurately rule it. Five Great Houses led the charge in what would be called the Succession Wars. Of course, the cultures, languages, and customs from Earth, now known as Terra, continued to exist, though with some significant blending and change. Still, after a thousand years of history, they were quite recognizable.
The most recognizable one was the Japanese heritage from my first life. It had found its home in the Draconis Combine, ruled by House Kurita. However, it was not like the modern Japanese culture I had come from. It was more feudal.
The Federated Suns, ruled by House Davion, was similar. Instead of a democracy, they too had become a throwback to a more medieval period ruled by a prince and subservient nobles. Its culture was a mixture of English, French, and Spanish. The Lyran Commonwealth, under House Steiner, had a strong Germanic flavor, but like the Draconis Combine, that was due to the rulers at the top. It also included others, such as Irish and Scottish cultural groups.
The Free Worlds League was literally a hodgepodge of a dozen different groups led by House Marik in a twisted form of representative plutocracy. The Capellan Confederation, under my family, House Liao, had retained a Chinese-dominant culture, with a smattering of Russian influence.
It really was fascinating. I wondered if the cultures remained as attached to their twentieth-century counterparts as they were due to the relative lack of intermingling, isolation caused by being literally on separate planets without an easy way to travel.
Just because JumpShips existed did not mean the vast majority of the population ever traveled on one. Unless you were in the military, were very wealthy, or worked in an industry that involved the transportation of goods off-world, you likely never left your home planet.
Since the fall of the Star League and subsequent wars the facilities to create JumpShips had become extraordinarily rare, and there were never as many as nations and companies would have preferred. That was the true bottleneck for the economies of the Inner Sphere. A JumpShip could traverse thirty light-years in an instant, but afterward it would take on average seven days to recharge, depending on the type of star it had jumped to. The Capellan Confederation only had a single yard capable of producing JumpShips, and that was one of the reasons we were on the back foot compared to our more powerful neighbors.
Meanwhile, there were no space elevators. Instead, DropShips were required to bring people and goods from the surface to a JumpShip, or from a JumpShip to the surface. I did have to hand it to the people of this era. Somehow, through efficient fusion technology, they could still maintain somewhat integrated economies despite the physics involved in lifting enormous DropShips to and from a planet's surface.
Perhaps the strangest thing about this new life was that warfare was conducted with BattleMechs, which were basically bipedal humanoid tanks ranging from twenty to one hundred tons. They were only practical due to the fusion reactor within them, which produced enormous amounts of electricity and advanced artificial myomers that functioned as musculature. The technology was fascinating, and since the reactor's fusion process was nearly aneutronic, the heart of a BattleMech did not become radioactive.
Weapon systems were mounted on these BattleMechs, or Mechs for short. Lasers, missile systems, particle projector cannons, and more were all used to devastating effect. A battalion of BattleMechs was typically more than enough to crush any average-sized Planetary Defense Force.
Pound for pound, they were better than any armored vehicle, and infantry were basically useless against them. Artillery could sometimes do the trick, but BattleMechs had absurd levels of mobility for how heavy they were, and all those tons of armor allowed them to shrug off even swarms of missile strikes.
The armor itself was a work of technological art. The first layer is extremely strong steel, the result of crystal alignment and radiation treatment, which also makes it very brittle. The second layer is ceramic, cubic boron nitride, which, combined with a web of artificial diamond fibers, acts as a backstop to the steel layer. These two layers rest atop a titanium alloy honeycomb structure, which provides support, and a layer of self-sealing polymer sealant that allows for space and even underwater operations.
Armored vehicles, or tanks, had their place. They were logistically easier to manufacture and could mount the same types of weapons that BattleMechs could. However, they were not nearly as hardy as 'Mechs, nor were they as versatile. A 'Mech could traverse swamps, paved roads, thick forests, and even walk through swift-moving rivers. Some designs even had jump jets, which allowed 'Mechs of eighty tons to leap over buildings.
One of the things that irked me about being here was that, in hindsight, I had done it to myself. Dying had been unpleasant enough. The fear of some hellish torment at the hands of that charlatan, or the thought of oblivion, had been a momentary panic before I died. Speaking of my death, it was a rather cruel irony.
I had no reason at all to fight so hard to protect the person I had been ordered to assassinate. The death of General Rudersdorf had been the entire purpose of my presence on his security detail. It soured my stomach as I remembered how desperate I had been to make the defense look believable.
The company I led had used our protective shells to literally body-block the explosive charge and the shots fired at the plane. I had underestimated how many Albion elites had been part of the assault, and the wave of fire had torn apart my defenses. Had I been using my normal stratagems, I would have dodged. I should have dodged. But I didn't. Instead, I let fear of my duplicitous mission being discovered cause me to take a poor risk.
Occasionally, I wonder if my heroics saved the very person I had been sent to kill. There was no way of knowing, as this was clearly a completely different world. That was all in the past, and I could not go back and change the mistakes I made in my second life. The more immediate concern was what I would do with this one.
I was the eldest child of Maximilian Liao, known as 'The Diablo' after his battles with the Free Worlds League, and was the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. Often formally referred to as the 'Celestial Wisdom,' he was the absolute ruler, a total dictator.
It had once been more of a troika, a balance between the Chancellor, the Prefectorate, and the House of Scions. Over time, my Liao ancestors had removed much of the power from the other two bodies. Originally, the Prefectorate selected the Chancellor, who served for ten years. The Decree of Prime Extension ended that in 2480, and now a Chancellor ruled for life, unless they were forcibly overthrown, as my father had done to his own father.
People had once enjoyed certain rights if they were citizens, which was not automatic. In fact, a great many of the people living in the Capellan Confederation were not citizens at all. If you were, you had certain protections, but the Decree of Expulsion in 2711 granted the Chancellor the right to strip a person of citizenship, rights, and titles. The Prefectorate could no longer even name a non-Liao as Chancellor, and in truth it only ratified whoever the current Chancellor selected as their heir.
Which was not me, at least not any longer. I was eight and had been the heir up until recently, when my little brother, Tormano Liao, was born. My father preferred male-preference primogeniture for inheritance, and so I was now behind Tormano. I had mixed feelings about it. In fact, he would be speaking to me more about it soon. My father was a busy man and did not spend a great amount of time with children, not with me, my little sister Romano, or his new heir.
The Prefectorate still held power, but it was largely a rubber stamp. They met twelve times a year in closed sessions and did represent the great and the powerful. Six were representatives of the six Capellan commonalities. Commonalities were the primary military and administrative zones of the Capellan Confederation. They were the Capella Commonality, Sian Commonality, Sarna Commonality, Tikonov Commonality, St. Ives Commonality, and the Chesterton Commonality. The last truly did not exist anymore, as the Federated Suns had long since held that region of space, but they still maintained a representative who claimed the title.
The House of Scions was more diluted and was made up of two hundred assembled nobles. Originally a check against the power of the Chancellor and the Prefectorate, it now had zero formal authority to challenge the Chancellor's decrees. That said, power always flowed from the tip of the sword, the end of a rifle, or now the heavy tread of a BattleMech, not from legal niceties. My father had couped his own father and had done so by first acquiring support from various institutions including the Warrior Houses, a group of semi-religious military orders independent from the regular Capellan military.
My mother was Jasmine Liao, and she was the parent I interacted with most. It was clear to all why she had drawn my father's eye. She was not only beautiful, but also fit and active, with a vibrant energy that many were drawn to. She encouraged my advanced studies, even the 'non-approved' perspectives on economic management and history.
Our education system was as bad as one might imagine. The proper exchange of ideas rarely allows collectivistic governments to remain in power. From an early age, children are taught that only the Chancellor can rightly determine the proper policies for the Confederation and, ultimately, one day, all of humanity. That to disobey the will of the state is to threaten the ultimate future of the human race.
One key element that differed from the commie governments of the 20th century in my first life was the Sarna Mandate. Gone was the more Marxian idea of enforced egalitarian equality for all. Instead, it was replaced by the notion that only the military, scientific, and political elite of a given society are capable of governing. The elite, by virtue of their capability, are justified in taking whatever actions are necessary, including the periodic restructuring of society, in order to ensure the survival of a given population.
I supposed it was more honest than the mismatch between communist revolutionaries and their actual governments of the 20th century. To quote Orwell, 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' In the Capellan Confederation, that revolutionary collectivist pretense was discarded, and they were far more honest that the vast, teeming masses of society were subservient to the elites. No classless society here. We even had a caste system.
As much as I despised the general state of this nation, the Sarna Mandate did give me an opportunity. Our nation was the weakest of the five Great Houses. The Mandate suggested that elite and highly capable individuals could reorganize society as needed in order to survive. At an early age, I figured that was the key to fixing this shithole of a nation. Demonstrate just how capable I was, and then begin making changes when I became Chancellor. The groundwork would need to be laid well before that, but the first critical step was to be exceptional.
Therefore I did not hide my rapid ability to learn. I do not give my natural intelligence too much credit. I was never the very best in school during my first life. However, I had already gone through schooling twice now, and I was never merely average. Beyond that completely unfair advantage, I also discovered something rather wonderful. My brain had become used to processing things at high speeds. The high-octane 'Magical-Meth' fueled combat had allowed me to process and react faster than nearly everyone.
I suspected that whatever convergence of 'soul' and neurological chemistry made up my brain carried over certain things. I wouldn't call it superhuman necessarily. I just believed that it represented the apex of natural human reaction time possible. Across the 150-plus worlds, with over two hundred billion humans, there were probably a few thousand people who could equal my natural reflexes. This allowed me not only to process information quickly, it also granted me incredible reaction times, which was critical when piloting a BattleMech.
In the modern era, the most prestigious soldier was the MechWarrior. They even codified it in the official lesson plans. 'The highest order of warrior and defender is, and forever shall be, the MechWarrior.' Literally, schoolchildren had to recite it. 'MechWarriors are and should remain a special breed unto themselves. They should be accorded the highest honor possible, and in turn should be expected to perform the most outstanding feats of daring in defense of the state and its citizens.' And of course, 'The highest and most important ideal in any MechWarrior's life is loyalty: to the citizenry he protects, to the state that provides, and to the chief executive of the state, who is the MechWarrior's commander-in-chief.'
Sadly, my magical abilities had not translated over, and I could find no history similar to my second life that even hinted at the idea of mages. Being X had put me into a collectivist hellhole and hadn't even been fair about it by giving me my magical abilities. It was bullshit, but par for the course for that charlatan. He hadn't made an appearance, but I knew that asshole was watching from afar.
This time, I would win. Not only would I survive and thrive, I would accept the gauntlet he had thrown in my face. Before I was done with this life, I would transform the Capellan Confederation into a proper market economy. I would end the servitor system, which was slavery, and allow human capital to flourish.
Even if that meant I had to prove myself on the front lines in a BattleMech before I could get the influence needed to enact social change. I despised the wretched situation he had put me in, but I had no choice if I was to alter this society. It wasn't as if I could just abandon this place. Being X would never let me live in peace anyway. He would manipulate events and force me into one war or another, so I might as well move forward with a plan of my choosing.
I was finally called in to speak with my father. It was not the formal chambers with the Celestial Throne, but the more familial ones. He smiled as he saw me approach. When we did interact, he had been quite proud of my accomplishments. I had already mastered all of his educational expectations and was a polyglot. Mandarin was the primary language here, but I also spoke English, Japanese, German, Russian, and Cantonese.
He looked every inch the Capellan ruler even at thirty-seven. His hair was black, thick at the crown with just a few early streaks of gray at the temples that gave him a subtle air of authority. His eyes were sharp brown, almost hawkish in their focus, and there was a glimmer of something untamed beneath the calm. His jaw was square, strong, and lightly shadowed with early stubble, and his posture was impeccably straight, a habit from years of military training and personal discipline. Even in this more informal chamber, his presence radiated command, as if the Confederation itself was seated beside him.
"Candace, it warms my heart to see you again. I have put this discussion off for too long."
"The demands of the state are never-ending. I do not resent you for caring for the people as a Chancellor should, father."
His beaming smile let me know my flattery was effective.
"Come, sit. I would like to discuss the succession and what I intend for you. I want to be clear that nothing, nothing at all you have done has warranted my actions. You are flawless, but your mother has let me know you were disappointed, so I wish to reassure you. The Capellan people do not merely want a ruler, my daughter. They want someone they can believe has the strength to endure for them, someone who will make the hard choices so they do not have to." His hand curled into a firm fist at his side, the muscles shifting subtly, controlled, dignified.
"This is not a judgment of your worth. It is a recognition of what this fragile Confederation demands to survive. In time, you will understand that love for the state sometimes requires denying what the heart prefers. And remember, my delightful daughter, a true leader must not only act for today, but for centuries to come. Our people look to us to hold the line when no one else dares."
I nodded, and then listened to his explanation of what the Capellan people expected of a leader. How the expectation was that the State have a father figure to lead them. It was bullshit, as we had female Chancellors previously, but it seemed my father was a bit of a chauvinist, and trying to plead my case at this juncture with nothing but educational accomplishments behind me would be futile and only make my eventual ascension more difficult.
I will bide my time. If I prove myself exceptional in every possible way, if I outshine every single one of my brother's accomplishments to an absurd degree, then we would see who his heir would be.
"But fret not, my bright one, you will not go without. I intend to name you the Duchess of the St. Ives Commonality upon your maturity. You will serve in the Prefectorate and perhaps even more. You are my daughter; the blood of the Celestial Wisdom flows through your veins."
I gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you, father." Plans were already in motion, but I was rather impatient. "May I ask for two things, so that I can better serve the state and uphold your rule?"
He gave a stately nod of his head.
"One, I would like to begin MechWarrior training. Given my age, it is early, but there is no physical reason why I cannot begin simulator training. Two, given my educational accomplishments, I would like to begin ruling the St. Ives Commonality sooner than the legal age of my maturity. You are the Chancellor, and as you say, your blood flows in my veins, giving me greater clarity of thought than mere normal citizens of the Confederation."
He let out a genuine laugh of amusement. "You are an eager one! Yes, you may begin MechWarrior training. You have made me quite proud that you seek to do so. As to ruling the St. Ives Commonality, that will have to wait. Too many would see it as a foolish indulgence, and nothing I do can risk diminishing the people's confidence in their Chancellor."
I gave him another false smile, thanking him eagerly for letting me begin my MechWarrior training. Then I tilted my head as if a thought had just occurred to me, which, of course, wasn't true, as I had already considered multiple paths this conversation could take. With so little 'face-time' with the CEO of our country, I had to make sure I maximized each interaction.
"Your wisdom in the delay I must yield to, but perhaps I can learn at the feet of the current ruler of the St. Ives Commonality? Additionally, the St. Ives Armored Cavalry is one of the premier military organizations in the Capellan Confederation, and it would begin to form bonds with the people I would rule."
That also took him by surprise. His eyes grew distant for a few moments and he was clearly lost in thought. I shifted a bit, drawing his eye, and he blinked several times.
"Your eagerness is praiseworthy. I am not opposed, though my wife will be displeased." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I will inform Duke Overton that you are to learn the art of rulership from him. He will realize that within the next decade he will be replaced by you, but he knows better than to defy the Celestial Wisdom!"
I let out a little mirthful sound. "None would dare! I enjoy having you as my father. I imagine I will have evidence of your ultimate authority when he makes me his honored guest. It wouldn't surprise me if he makes extra effort to accommodate me just to curry your favor."
Another smile from my father. "Indeed, your precocious insights are always a wonder. They remind me you are my daughter. Now, off with you, go tell your mother I have allowed you to journey to St. Ives and begin learning how to rule a Commonality and start MechWarrior training."
What a fearless leader…
My mother was not happy to see me go, and it truly was not easy just to stop by and visit. It took five jumps to get from Sian to St. Ives, each approximately a week long. The jump itself was essentially instantaneous; it was the recharge time that created the delay. From there, it would take six days for the DropShips to make the journey from the standard jump point to the planet or back. Without a command circuit, a string of waiting JumpShips with a full charge, there was no way to hasten the journey. Command Circuits were rather rare across all of the Inner Sphere nations, but probably even less frequent within the Capellan Confederation due to our lack of JumpShips by comparison. Still, I had been able to take one during our visit to the world of Liao, where our family line had come from, likely because the Chancellor himself had accompanied us on that journey, a rare case of his leaving Sian.
It was time for my work to begin. It was a risk removing myself from the capital, but the earlier I started, the better. A ship as large as a multi-stellar nation could not turn on a dime. It had to be carefully nudged toward a better course. That took time, and given Being X's penchant for involving children in wars, I had none of it to lose.