Prologue
April 7, 2988
Federated Suns
Crucis March
New Avalon
Stephan Morten walked into the audience chamber of First Prince Andrew Davion with an expression on his face that was a mix of sullen and fury. He'd been summoned to New Avalon from his lifelong home of Neubenn only months after his father had died in an unexpected dropship accident. No foul play had been discovered, though the charred remnants of the atmospherically burned dropship didn't leave much to work with in the shallow crater it had created just shy of the main spaceport.
Duke Von Morten was the fifth in succession to hold rulership on Neubenn, and Stephan had assumed he was being summoned by Davion to officially become the 6th Duke in his family line…but as of 20 minutes ago, the First Prince's Vizier had informed him he was not here to be appointed as his father's replacement…but rather to be dispossessed and offered some form of compensation.
The shock of it had still not worn off, but Stephan knew to keep it internalized. 'Whatever emotions you were feeling,' his father had once said, 'keep them hidden inside unless you want others to see them.'
So it was with a not quite bland facial expression that Stephan Morten walked up to a standing position a few meters away from Andrew Davion, the man who was dispossessing him of his family lineage, and bowed courteously…though minus an inch or two. He couldn't completely pretend everything was normal without turning his own mind insane.
When he rose, he locked eyes with Andrew Davion a moment before speaking.
"Stephan Morten, Acting Duke of Neubenn, reporting as summoned," he said, trying to keep any emotion out of his voice.
Andrew shared a glance with his Vizier, a man named Goolio something, Stephan hadn't mentally noted it as he usually did, and the pair had some sort of unspoken communication that lasted a few seconds. Besides them, there were a pair of guards standing behind the elevated desk upon which Davion was seated at, and probably a few more hidden behind the elaborate curtains trailing down from the ceiling like crimson waterfalls on either side of the large room. But the air of the place was that of emptiness. This chamber was built for spectacle, not small discussions.
"I knew your father…fairly well," the First Prince said amicably, "and it pains me to have to do what I am about to do, but I cannot make you the next Duke of Neubenn."
Stephan remained silent.
Andrew sighed. "Politics. Always present and always a pain in the ass. You have my leave to speak freely. Vent, if you will. I owe you that much at least."
"Why?" Stephan said simply.
"What I am about to tell you does not leave this room," Davion said, his eyes losing their compassion for a moment.
"Understood."
"There is a swap of some small worlds about to take place along the Draconis Combine border. We get some we want, they get some they want, and the new alignment will make the region around Brusett all the more stable for both sides. We may war upon each other later in other areas, but there are too many systems easily clutched with a half-hearted effort to effectively protect the entire border. This exchange will play a small part in minimizing that problem."
"Neubenn is not on the Dracos border."
"No, and it's not involved in the exchange. I'd never give up a world that industrialized. But I'm having to dispossess other noble families in the exchange, and as such I have to reshuffle the deck across the Federated Suns to make it work. When your father died, it created an opportunity I can't afford to pass up. Technically I'm not dispossessing you, for you have not officially been installed, but in truth I am dispossessing your family, and for that I want to compensate you somehow. Your father took Neubenn from a mediocre world and turned it into a growing powerhouse. One I have to trade away to make this deal work without starting a rebellion in the process."
"Are we to lose all our landholds?"
"Having two major noble families inhabiting the same planet is a recipe for disaster and revenge. You are losing all assigned landholds, plus I am officially buying all your personal property from you at 120% estimated value, and I assure you that estimation is on the ample side. Your family will not lose its wealth, and I am ready to increase it in a manner of your choosing in exchange for this unwarranted affront. Your family has been steadfast in support of mine, and in promoting civilization in general. I do not like doing this to you," the First Prince repeated.
"Who are we being replaced with?" Stephan asked, resigned that he could not change this.
"House Derren," Davion said, seeing the flinch on the 34 year old's face. "Do you have history with them?"
"Philosophical only. They've been making a good attempt to run their duchies into the ground."
"So I've been told. They've claimed it was lack of necessary resources. Now that I'm giving them a prime world, they have to legitimately maintain it…or I will dispossess them, permanently. If they succeed, they will become an asset. If they fail, I can rid the Federated Suns of their influence. Wheels within wheels, I'm afraid."
"When is this to take place?"
"You will not be returning home. I'm sorry, but your trip here was your final one. Arrangements will be made for your family to travel, at my expense, where you like. There will be no shenanigans by House Derren. I'm paying personal attention to this."
Stephan chewed the inside of his cheek as he fought to find an appropriate response.
"Spit it out, son," Andrew pressed. "I'm hating myself enough for doing this. Might as well air it out for both our sakes."
"You're rewarding those greedy, incompetent bastards and dispossessing a family that has soundly supported you and this realm over more than two centuries!"
"I am, reluctantly."
"How can you expect to maintain cohesion if you betray the tenets of trust and loyalty? Not that I'm threatening it, but this is how rebellions are born."
"You're not returning to Neubenn to preclude any such rebellion, but the truth of the matter is, as well off as your House is, House Derren is far larger and more powerful. I need to take them out or reform them, and this grand exchange with the Draconis Combine gives me an opportunity to do that, and reshuffle other pieces on the board you don't need to know about. If it works, we'll be more stable afterward in a multitude of ways. But I didn't just bring you here to explain this. I brought you here to discuss ample compensation. I have a number of smaller worlds in need of competent leadership. Any of the dozen of them are yours for the claiming…along with additional resources to help you start building as your forebearers did. Or if you want, I can gift you a couple hundred mechs to replace what you're leaving behind on Neubenn and you can pursue the life of a mercenary, seeing as how I'm told you're also a fair mechwarrior. Or you can buy land on New Avalon. I'll arrange it. Tell me what you want, and if it's within reason, I'll grant it. For your father's sake."
"Why is my father more important than my grandfather, or great grandfather? They've all helped build up our…former home," Stephan said, biting at the words as they came out.
"I don't know the others you speak of, but I know what your father did. He was one of the few voices in my ear telling me to build faster than I fought. That the long game would be won through infrastructure and agriculture. 'Mechs and mechwarriors have to be fed and otherwise supplied, and if not…'"
"…your enemy wins by default," Stephan finished the well-familiar quote.
Andrew nodded. "He was doing that on Neubenn so well it was making other noble families jealous…especially when I rubbed their noses in it and demanded they do better on the economic front. Few took the example, I'm afraid. Stubbornness is one thing nobles have an abundance of. Shame is sometimes a way to confront it. Needless to say, I wish I had 100 more like him, but now I have none. And bluntly, I have no guarantee you have even a tenth of his skill, which makes you the disposable card in this shuffling game. For your father's sake I wish that wasn't so, but it is what it is. Now, focus forward and tell me what life you would envision for yourself beyond Neubenn."
After all his family had built up over the years…
"I want out," Stephan said flatly.
The First Prince frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"I want out of this mess. Out of politics. Out of power games where your friends have to be sacrificed to appease your enemies. I don't want to start building again on a small world, only to have it taken away from my children or grandchildren by one of yours later on."
"And from your perspective, what would that mean? If it's a large sum of pounds or C-bills, that's easy to manage."
"My family are fighters, yes, but primarily builders. We see all that has been lost since the fall of the Star League, and how nobody seems to care about losing even more. We should be advancing civilization rather than playing tug of war over the scraps."
"Your father said as much to me on many such visits."
"If you truly want to honor his legacy, give me a chance to fully pursue it."
Davion squinted slightly. "Go on."
"May I ask an impertinent question?"
"Please do," he urged.
"Why is everyone so obsessed with the Inner Sphere when there are many barely habited or completely uninhabited worlds in the Periphery to draw natural resources from?"
"Some efforts have been made to civilize those areas, but as you well know, a small world doesn't become large and industrialized simply for the asking. The majority of Humanity is here, in the Inner Sphere. That's what we have to protect."
"So why aren't all the Great Houses pushing outwards to get more natural resources to increase your powerbase here?"
"Because if we so much as blink and give our neighbors an opportunity to invade, they will. It's a constant game of brinksmanship with Houses that cannot be trusted."
"My grandfather once said," Stephan recounted, pushing the acceptability of the situation a bit, "that House Davion was worth helping because they at least did a little more than pay lip service to protecting and advancing civilization, while the other Houses didn't even pretend to. That's why we've been loyal to you."
"Because your ultimate goal is to prevent another collapse," Davion said, having been privy to a similar conversation with his father. "And you think the Periphery holds the answer to this?"
"If my family is to build…to survive not just the wars and famines, but the politics, we need to get away from it. We need to put our fate in our own hands and disappear until we are strong enough to make a difference."
"What is it you want?"
"Independence while still maintaining ties to the Federated Suns and to your family. Enough resources and mechs to travel somewhere into the Periphery and carve out a piece of civilization from the barbery and unchallenged nature out there. To slowly build it up into a House of our own. Not in competition with yours, but as a silent backer off in no-man's land where the rest of the Inner Sphere won't even notice. I want to build up a world as my father and his father did. I want to get it to the point where we can produce Star League level technology again, including jumpships. One war where the current conventions are ignored and we'd lose so many jumpships half the Inner Sphere would be marooned in their own systems…and nobody seems to give a damn about it!" he ended with a yell he had not intended.
He sighed as the First Prince said nothing, then continued on in a more proper tone.
"Give me independence from your control, your taxes, your politics, and let me loyally build for you…off the books…an extension of the Federated Suns that will be owned by my family in such a way that it could never be disposed short of losing to an invading force. I want out of politics."
"It sounds like you want in, just at the top of the heap where no one can betray you as I am doing," Davion admitted.
"Yes. And I also want the tech to build that which virtually no one else can build. Even if I have to sit on the blueprints for 50 years until I can get a shipyard large enough to build them up and running, I want to produce jumpships and everything else down the Federated Suns tech tree…as well as work on a few improvements along the way."
"And you want to start by taking away some tiny worlds from bandits and pirate kings?"
"Or setting up on uninhabited ones, yes. I do not see it as being peaceful out there, but I would be punching down rather than dealing with families more powerful than my own."
Davion glanced at his Vizier again. "How much?"
"A supply line would have to be established. That would be the greatest cost. No less than three jumpships running continually. More if he goes so deep he travels off the map."
"Commissioned or bought?"
"Commissioned and rotated out," the Vizier said, thinking quickly, "if he wishes to remain mostly anonymous."
"Your troops on Neubenn cannot go with you," Davion cautioned. "You'll have to use mercenaries or assemble your own force. I can't lend you my troops, or mechs, but I can arrange to purchase secondhand units on the market in decent condition. Your family knows how to do the rest with refurbishment, I assume?"
"Are you actually considering this?" Stephan asked.
"Your father and I talked about a great many things I could never do. Building more jumpships was one of them. I can't afford, nor can the Federated Suns afford to build a brand new planet from scratch up to a level that could produce jumpships. I barely have the ability to build enough new ones as it is, and those are contracts with independent corporations…but if I can plant your family as a seed out there in the wilderness where you can grow and research and develop mostly unmolested by Inner Sphere politics and wars…then it's an investment I think I would like to make. Not just because of your father, but because of what your father was capable of. If he taught you half of what he knew, that's enough to give this experiment a chance of success."
"What do you wish out of it?" Stephan asked respectfully, but not wanting anything left unsaid that could come back to bite him later.
"Build," Davion said simply. "It's what your family is good at. And maybe someday in the distant future, your family will save mine if the endless wars here don't work out in our favor. I'll give you the promise of an active supply line, fed by my House, for the next 50 years. After that you're on your own, but by then you should have commercial ties to the Federated Suns already well established. Create your own pocket of civilization out there with my thanks and my apologies. Will this opportunity make up for what I'm taking away?"
"If it is honorably discharged, then yes."
"A notable caveat. I appreciate your attention to detail, and for giving me an opportunity to go to bed tonight with a slightly less convoluted conscience. But I expect that, sometime after I'm gone, your family will be producing jumpships, mechs, and everything else out there quietly that my family can then buy. I consider this also to be a protection of my future lineage. Build what is not there, and create something worthy of this realm."
Davion straightened slightly behind his desk. "Though there will be no public record of it, I hereby elevate your family to a measure of peerdom. Hence forth you will be known as House Morten, our independent Periphery neighbor and close ally with a shared economy and privileges of passage equal to our own citizens, etc, etc…we'll figure out the rest of the paperwork later. My point is, I'm recognizing your independence from my command at this point. You are no longer one of my subjects, but a peer. A very, very tiny peer," he added. "How large your powerbase grows is going to be dependent on how much of your father's skill you've inherited."
"I accept the challenge and the peerdom. I would ask that all necessary blueprints be given now, rather than wait until later when one of your heirs might have a change of heart on the matter."
"All will be done now, and I will put it in ironclad that the 50-year window be financially respected. But as you are clearly aware, I cannot control people from beyond the grave. But as long as I live, this deal will be honored in the fullest. If it is to survive beyond us, then you must build the power to keep it in the face of future generations who might think otherwise."
Stephan nodded. "While I don't like losing our world, I think the trade for our freedom and the ability to build unhindered are something my father would have approved of. We will preserve and expand the light of civilization into the Periphery."
"Lest it should be extinguished here again," Davion added. "Where do you want to start this incursion into the barbaric beyond?"
"I don't know," Stephan admitted. "I've never truly thought it through before now."
Davion raised a hand and snapped his fingers, with an unseen attendant running out from the shadows behind him to stand at his side.
"Bring us a map of the Periphery along with any and all intelligence we have on what's out there…"