Chapter 5: Other Sons
Castle Davion
Mount Davion, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
April 15, 3061
“Do you really think that these new Light Command Teams that General John Davion has proposed can really protect the Draconis March?” asked James Sandoval sitting in a full Marshall uniform of the reborn Armed Forces of the Federated Suns.
Quintus Allard turned to the bald man with the puffs of hairs on either side of his chin. The provisional Privy Council was meeting for the first time, and the March Lords had arrived for either the arrival of the First Prince or the inauguration of a new one. Thus where usual their representatives sat, George Hasek and James Sandoval were sitting.
Jackson Davion sitting at the table with most of the men of the Privy Council nodded. “Your grace, the LCT model as General Davion has proposed will not be implemented across the spectrum of AFFS front line battlemech units. At the moment, we are merely testing the concept with the Chisholm’s Raiders. If it is successful, we should have five more units to be used as raiders or quick defenders.”
“We had to do something with the Raiders,” President of the Federated Suns High Council Horatio DuVall announced. His stout body along with his weight hid his quick wit and insight.
Another voice next to DuVall spoke up coming from a young face for this crowd though. He was in a rather modest Suns style business suit with rather modest shoulder pads. His red hair and military bearing betrayed his blood though.
“If General Davion can turn those units into something that can actually fight someone other than themselves, I say Jon Davion has done a great service to our budgets.”
Quintus smiled even as young Conrad Davion chuckled. Conrad had taken over as provisional Minister of Ways and Means since Duke Tamas DuVall was still a month away from New Avalon. Thanks to Katherine threatening Tamas DuVall’s life, he had disappeared deep into the interior of the Federated Suns “to go hunting” as he put it. It had taken a month to track the man down. Thank good fortune that Katherine had imprisoned Conrad on New Avalon though, Quintus was impressed that the son of the Minister of the Crucis March was such a good administrator.
“After going over the books, I believe that the conversion of the two Chisholm Raider RCTs into five of these new LCTs will probably save us a billion pounds in costs associated with personnel, coordinating jumpships, and unit upkeep over ten years. Then again, it’ll probably cut down on fistfights as well,” offered Conrad Davion.
Duke George Hasek didn’t seem to share that view. “Let me put it this way. I doubt that they will prevent this so-called Capellan Xin Sheng Movement from growing. Well, you talk of numbers: I face this growing threat over the boarder. And it is growing far worse than any projections done last year suggested. There is only so much that I can do to help the St. Ives.”
Quintus Allard walked to his seat to sit down. Pulling it out, he looked over at the melancholy new Duke of New Syrtis. Then as he sat down, he calmly pointed out a simple fact.
“You forgot the Taurain Concordat. Thanks to the Trinity Alliance, they along with the Magistracy of Canopus have units fighting in the war against St. Ives along with Star League peacekeepers. We will have to be careful in engaging in open hostilities towards the Capellans at the moment. If you give Jackson some . . .”
“We should mobilize as many units as possible to attack the Capellan Confederation. This cannot wait, ladies and gentlemen,”
“I didn’t say that I arguing against you, Duke Hasek. Give me a moment to explain,” said Quintus Allard. George Hasek’s mutton chopped lined face sneered at Quintus.
“Why did you bring up the point, old man?”
Quintus merely smiled. “Prince Ian Davion created the First Federated Suns Armed Cavalry that has basically been stationed in the Capellan March since its inception. The FSAC has already been used by your grace to do some covert operations along with several mercenary units with the help of General Motors and Johnson Industries.”
George was about to speak up when Quintus continued. “Let me finish, boy. You might outrank me, but I’m older and wiser.” Quintus sat back in his chair as he tried to explain the devilish tricks that the LCTs could pull off.
“Now imagine that these LCTs were used to cause logistics problems in Sun-Tzu war plans. It’d be easy to deny that these units were AFFS units since they do not match any of our known profiles such as RCTs or the Armed Calvary. Later on, we can acknowledge the new paradigm of the unit to the rest of the Inner Sphere.”
“But these are not the hammers that will strike down, Sun-Tzu Liao. We need more RCTs,” scoffed George Hasek.
“No, they are not the hammers, but they will be the nails that will help end his threat to the Federated Suns when the time comes,” offered Quintus Allard.
The hammer is something that I’ve already put in place, chuckled Quintus to himself.
“Then why even create the LCTs if the RCT would hammer our enemies to the ground just as Melissa Davion proved on Robinson against the Dracs?” asked James Sandoval.
It was Prince’s Champion Ardan Sortek who pointed out the problem. “We need more jumpships, James. The problem is that even with the ships that we have, plus the one received back from the Lyrans, and the ones that we have ordered be built so far we don’t have enough to assign enough units to each RCT permanently in the AFFS along with the other requirements such as the independent naval squadrons. And as we witnessed in the Clan Wars and the War of ‘57, RCTs need several jumpships to be mobile enough to be our hammers.”
George Hasek pounded his fist. “There is always dragooning!”
The practice of dragooning jumpships had helped win the Fourth Succession War. Quintus Allard knew the argument that any civilian commerce loss would be outweighed by winnings during a war, but that’s only if it was a quick war. Most wars in the past couple of centuries had gone quickly.
It was Horatio DuVall that laughed. “I hope that you decided to attend the High Council meetings after such meetings, your grace. The screaming and gnashing of teeth during a dragooning of jumpships are enough to drive men to contemplate suicide. Trust me if we have an alternative to dragooning, it’s best to take it.”
George Hasek looked at Horatio who was across the table. “You don’t know what it is like watching a man that everyone has underestimating turning his people into a rabid mob that is a threat to our realm while we dither. Recently, I discovered through an anonymous tip that Sun-Tzu was planning to kill my family and myself. With the news that my father died, I can’t let my son die.”
Quintus nodded. “No, you can’t let George Jr. die, and I was the anonymous tip.”
There was a gasp across the table. “What do you mean?” asked MIIO’s new director Cole Williams.
Quintus sat stone faced as he explained. “I decoded some messages from the Word of Blake thanks to data from the Enigma Crystal and a bit of painful field work.”
George Hasek had pure shock in his face. “The Word of Blake was trying to kill me not Sun-Tzu.”
Quintus Allard nodded. “The Word of Blake had been in the planning for several years. It was supposed to have been either a tool to have you drive you or your sister the Capellan March away from New Avalon to start an additional civil war in the Federated Suns. Thankfully, I decoded the message finally, and before I arrived on New Avalon to restore the Champion and Prince to rule, I went ahead and alerted you to the situation, George.”
The room was silent “Thankfully, you didn’t take that trip with your family. Unfortunately, I was unable to warn your father about the plot against him in time. He should have never been on a Comstar vessel. They are too compromised.”
James Sandoval looked at Quintus Allard. “Is this why the AFFS is assigning more units to the Draconis March in this oddball manner for some secret that you got off that data crystal that you got in that silly exercise back in your little war with Comstar in 3036?”
Quintus Allard nodded as he nodded to Cole Williams and “I’d like to ask the guards to close the room and place the noise dampeners on. This cannot be recorded what I’m going to reveal.”
New Avalon Martial Academy
New Avalon Institute of Science, New Avalon
Quintus Allard-Liao sat in a simulator in the New Avalon Martial Academy. Even though it was one of the most advance he’d ever seen, he wished that the man that he had to protect wanted to do something else. Even Capellan Opera would have been less annoying especially.
“You know when I became a full-fledged member of the Department of Military Intelligence. Using a simulator with a princiling was not what I imagined to be one of my duties,” sighed Quintus.
Trying to control his anger as his opponent scored another shot on him, it was getting tough. The spy had hated simulators since he was a boy. His older brother was Kai Allard-Liao who had inherited their father’s mechwarrior skills. Perhaps Kai also got their mother’s abilities, but everyone remarked on how much he was his father’s son. Quintus always felt like the tag along when he was younger because he only better than his older sister Kuan-Yin. When he aged, he felt like an outsider in the court at Tian-tan as he realized through a genetic quirk that he looked different from the rest of the family.
Now, Quintus Allard barely even thought of St. Ives as home. Coming to accept that he did not look like the rest of his family except for the Liao green eyes, he accepted that he was the oddity. That was until he met his paternal grandfather in person, and he realized why he had been named Quintus as oppose to Maximilian. Though there was probably never a chance of that.
It wasn’t that he resented his mother or siblings; he just didn’t feel like the rest of them. Then again, he looked like an Allard rather than a Liao or Xiang, and he like being one too. If he could, he’d drop the Liao portion of his name. However, he never did it.
Even if he was estranged from his mother, Duchess Candace Allard-Liao, he couldn’t cause her any more pain than she was already in since the Blackwind Lancers created the catalyst for Sun-Tzu’s war against the Compact. He tried to write her or send a message to her, but he knew that he was not her Kai. He was the odd child.
“You should probably stop contemplating. It never did your brother any good either,” said his opponent.
Quintus’ simulated ‘mech, ironically a randomly chosen Centurion variant, suddenly lost its arms as his opponent’s Rifleman variant with rotary auto cannons unleashed slug after repeating slug. Quintus sighed as he evaluated his choices. He had lost the left arm. However, he still had his main gun.
“Yeah, Kai thinks too much,” said Quintus as he aimed the virtual Mydron Excel LB-X Autocannon. Then he unleashed two slugs at a weakened piece of armor on the Rifleman’s right arm which caused a backfire in the arm disabling it.
“I’m a completely different beast,” chuckled Quintus. Maybe the match is turning.
As glory crossed the spy’s mind, the distraction cost him the match. The right arm of the Rifleman was disabled, but it still had another of the new RACs on the left arm. And that was what Quintus was not thinking about as suddenly he realized too late that his enemy was using his jumpjets.
Cursing as the heavier Rifleman pushed the Centurion into the wall of the replica of Factory arena on Solaris 7 that had spikes on it, Quintus saw the damage indicator light up like a Christmas Tree after the Rifleman landed a hit with its right arm pushing the mech into the wall. And then the artificial hum of the RAC started.
His opponent’s voice filled the pod. “Well you know, I’m not my brother either. I go for the kill when it is in front of me.”
And that was that as the remaining RAC ripped the Centurion to shreds. Quintus sighed, “What else is new.”
Wiping sweat from his brow, Quintus shook his head after removing the neurohelmet. Then he heard the voice of his opponent again. “That was a good match, Quintus. You might not think yourself as good as your brother and sister, but you are still an Allard. You made me work for that last win.”
Quintus smiled. “Yeah, but Kai would have decimated you.”
The other person sighed over the comm. “Yeah, I know. He did so already to me. That’s why I was on a mountain for the past several years. So another round?”
“No, we need to get you cleaned up for your brother’s arrival,” quipped Quintus. Then again, he also needed a shower too.
“I’m not looking forward to that. He might slug me for disappearing if he returns to claim the throne, or I might inherit a throne. I don’t know which is worse,” laughed that man that Quintus had been guarding.
Quintus smiled after pressing a button to release the canopy of the simulator. “That’s something that I don’t have to worry about thanks to Kai having an heir and a spare already.”
Though Quintus Allard-Liao hated to admit that there was something that he just didn’t like about David Lear, his nephew. Melissa, his niece, was a loveable kid, but David just irked him.
Something in David’s eyes reminded Quintus of his older sister Kuan-Yin who seemed to be searching for the good in people. Kuan-Yin’s search was to find good, but David’s eyes searched for something else that was sinister and wrong considering their bloodline. He seemed to want to control others.
Quintus was helped out of the cockpit by an attendant, but he said one last thing over the comm.
“Regardless, Grandfather would kill me if you are not on that stage tonight, so let’s end the embarrassing marathon of my defeats.”
Outside Castle Davion
Quintus Allard watched as the limos started to pull in to carry the members of the Privy Council to greet their Prince and/or to welcome a hero. That was when George Hasek walked up to him.
“I’m sorry for my attitude, Count Allard. It’s just that Victor and the rest of the Suns seemed to have done nothing against the Capellan Confederation’s rise. I figured that you were part of the group that was trying to save the Lyran Commonwealth for the sake of the FedCom alliance when there was a knife at our throat.”
Looking downcast, George continued. “Nearly losing my son has me on edge, and I almost didn’t come to New Avalon. However, I needed to greet my father’s body if nothing else. Duty demanded that plus my mother would have hounded me till I did.”
Quintus Allard agreed. “She would have. Kym always stayed to her guns. Again, I wish that I could have done more to help Morgan. I hoped that I’d be wrong, and he’d be here to ask what slight of hand that I have in play at the moment. The good always die young unfortunately . . . My condolences are offered again to your family, Duke George Hasek.”
Quintus had many sins that he’d have to answer for when the time came, and he realized it. However, Morgan Hasek-Davion deserved to die in his bed perhaps with a bit of his favorite brandy on his lips surrounded by many loveones. Quintus had met Kym recently, and she was distraught over the death of her beloved husband.
George Hasek nodded. “I appreciate the sentiment, old man. However, I just wish that you would tell me that Sun-Tzu was going to have an unfortunate accident.”
Quintus looked around for a second. He saw only guards that he knew that he could trust in earshot. “I wouldn’t worry much longer about First Lord Sun-Tzu Liao. By this time next year, he will be less than able to rule.”
George Hasek looked a bit shocked. “You’ve already launched a scheme haven’t you.”
Quintus smiled. “It’s payment for an in-law’s help in taking back the Suns. He gets to put his rump on the Celestial Throne.”
“And I bet several worlds to sweeten his ascension as well from the Capellan March,” said a bit distraught George Hasek.
Quintus nodded slowly. “You’ve only been given a glimpse of what I’ve seen on my journey thanks to the Enigma Crystal. We both know that the Suns must survive the coming storm. For now, I suggest the Capellan March work towards securing its boarders. And thanks to a lack of a Civil War, we will be ready to face this coming storm better.”
George sighed. “Indeed, we can agree on that, but I would like to see you on New Saso to discuss what you have planned regardless of whom ends up being First Prince. I have no desire to end up like my grandfather as a traitor to the Suns.”
Quintus nodded. “I will be visiting both you and Duke Robinson before I travel with our First Prince to Tharkad. It will be interesting to see if the next part of my plan bears fruit by that time.”
George and Quintus went to a limo for the ride down Mount Davion to greet Victor Ian Steiner-Davion.
First Prince Ian Davion Spaceport
Using the public spaceport named after the martyred Prince Ian Davion instead of the military spaceport near Mount Davion was decided to give the public a view of the returning Victor Ian Steiner-Davion.
Standing at attention in columns were soldiers, ‘mechs, and vehicles from the 1st Davion Guards and 10th Deneb Light Cavalry. BattleMechs were polished and in parade colors. There were cheers as the gangway to the Overlord class dropship came down.
Victor Ian Steiner-Davion was the first off of the dropship, Barbarosa, as Corsair, Stuka, and even several Sable aerospace fighters flew overhead. There was applause from the crowds of soldiers and farther off the civilians behind security lines. The man in the uniform of the commanding general of the Star League Defense Forces smiled as he was ushered to a stage.
The stage had two unusual mechs beside it. From Kallon Industries and Duke George Hasek was the prototype for the first omnimech purely made in the Federated Suns, the Templar standing to the right of the stage. To the Left was an assault ‘mech prototype known as a Saggitaire courtesy of Duke Sandoval and Robinson Standard Battleworks.
Seated on stage were the various ministers, marshals, admirals, and other Federated Suns officials. The seal of the First Prince instead of the Archon-Prince was on the podium as Victor Ian Steiner-Davion arrived to it with cheers. Though only five foot two inches tall, Victor seemed larger than life at that moment.
As the titan strolled up the steps of the stage, he was surprised to see a familiar face next to Quintus Allard in a Major’s uniform.
“Thank you, and it is good to be back on New Avalon. Though it is unusual to think of it as the capital of the Federated Suns again as oppose to one of the capitals of the Federated Commonwealth,” said Victor.
“I guess that I will have to grow use to it along with the rest of the Inner Sphere.”
Victor breathed in for a second. There were banners mostly in English that welcomed him back as First Prince, but there were several in French, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, and even one in High Torrence. In the far distance, there were even protestors off to the side that Victor could make out who were burning a wicker dwarf in effigy. Though there are other more normal protestors as well.
The odd protestors burning the dwarf seemed to be lead by an overweight bald man in a Liao style workers uniform with a scruffy beard; Victor could assume since his group of protestors were the smallest that he was their leader since he seemed to be doing some sort of spell on the dwarf. The Pro-Katherine Protestors were larger, but all of the protesters were dwarfed in size compared to the crowds who were there to greet him. It was almost like Federation Day out there.
Victor couldn’t let himself be distracted. So he breathed in and ignored the protestors.
“There has been a lot of changes in the two years that I’ve been gone from New Avalon. Coming home to the Suns is minor compared to the feelings that I felt when I heard that I lost my realm to my sister, Katherine. I almost decided to take up gardening.”
Victor saw that some of his 10th Lyran Guards, the Revenants, were escorting a woman of oriental descent past the crowds. He smiled that she was in safe hands. It would be nice to show her New Scotland without James Sandoval breathing down his neck.
“However, word from New Avalon that my sister had decided to return to Tharkad arrived only an hour later. I could return home to . . . New Avalon.”
There was a loud cheer. Victor placed his arms up to quell the crowd.
“And most likely, I could be elected First Lord of our new Star League, and even now I believe that I am leading in the odds on Solaris VII. However . . . ,” Victor let silence fall.
The crowd was completely stunned. Quintus looked at the tanned major with reddish blond hair next to him. The man readied himself from that single look.
“I will have to upset those bets. Instead, I’ve decided to follow my heart, and I will continue to serve in the Star League Defense Force to protect the Inner Sphere as a whole. I thank you for the reception, and I wish the next First Prince luck.”
Prince’s Champion Sortek rose after Quintus gave him a nod. He moved quickly to the podium and gave Victor a hearty handshake and a hug. Then he gently signaled Victor to stand to the side of the podium.
Sweat dripped from his brow as he collected his thoughts. Ardan could see the protestors now. The Anti-Prince protestors had put out their dwarf effigy as they laughed about the situation. No one really heard their chortling. However, their laughs turned to sneers again as Champion Ardan Sortek spoke.
“Thank you, General Steiner-Davion. The Federated Suns appreciates your services and future ones to the Inner Sphere as a whole, but at this time, I believe that it is best if I introduce the next First Prince of the Federated Suns.”
Victor smiled as the tanned man who was as tall as their father got up and walked to the podium. Some in the crowd murmured as they wondered who the man was. Others figured it out, and they began to cheer. The man obviously was of Davion blood with a mix of Steiner. He had strawberry blond hair which was redder than Victor’s blond hair, but they shared their mother’s eyes.
“May I introduce the next First Prince, Peter Ardan Steiner-Davion.”
The crowd went crazy.