Hello boys
Sorry for the delay, RL attacks hard this time, including home reforms, an explosion, a block in the original fic and others things.
Also I want to give my thanks to my betas, Poliamida and now Tabac Iberez from Spacebattles.
Thanks to Tabac Iberez now I have the first chapter corrected so if you want check it again.
I own none of the franchises that appear in this story. They belong to their respective owner and creators.
Turning on a corner, now away from Vestri Court, Louise placed a hand on the wall and felt herself collapsing.
"Master?" Said the boy, trying to hold her in case she passed out.
"Wh-wh-what the hell is wrong with you?" She said turning and slapping his face. "I-I commanded you not to fight Guiche! Now the whole world will- will think that I have a violent familiar who doesn't obey me."
"That is true." He said, undisturbed by the slap. "I am a member of the Clans, a Wolf in Exile. I was created to fight, for nothing other than war."
"A-a-and that's the other weird thing! You don't stop talking about the clans, that you are a trueborn, and other things that I don't understand!"
"Do you wish for an explanation?" Kyle asked. Louise tried to calm herself taking a deep breath.
"Who- no, what are you? Where did such a familiar like you come from?"
The boy pondered for a second. "I would prefer going to a more comfortable place first. It will take a lot of time, too many centuries and concepts to explain you, master."
"Cen- centuries!?"
"Aff. However, I would need my datapad to suitably show you everything, master." Kyle rubbed his chin. "I think I still have this Tamar's ROM recordings." He had used some recordings of actual battles to try and learn more tactics, or at least try to put himself in the mind of a real commander.
"Let's go to the main courtyard. I need some refreshment and ease my mind. Then bring that 'data thing'." Louise said, voice still shaking.
Louise sat on one of the tables, ordering Kyle to bring her some tea. He obeyed after demanding firmer tone from her, twice. After getting her the tea, he asked permission to sit down too and began the explanation.
Louise listened as her familiar told her about a place where humans lived and died without magic, in a vast universe of planets and worlds colonized by humans. Their nobles had no magic, but did possess military power, money, and land. In those worlds, the war was a constant since a huge multi-planetary organization had been destroyed by a greedy man, erasing in the process everything that had made that civilization great and advanced. She saw on the screen of the boy's datapad the incredible achievements of this huge civilization, burning and collapsed under the feet of golems similar, and sometimes scarier, than his familiar's golem.
He also told her how a general, disgusted by what was happening, picked up the remains of this civilization and took them to the uncharted borders of space. There he tried to found a new one, free from the terror that had been unleashed among the other kingdoms, although, he failed. The old feuds carved the new civilization and the war finally comes, even before the demise of the general. Finally, she heard about the rising of the Clans in its place, a warrior society where soldiers weren't recruited, but created artificially to be the best in such endless war. How the general's son, a Kyle's ancestor, engineered a whole society around the war.
"Y-y-y-you have to be lying to me! You say that you were born from a metal tube? That's- that's preposterous!"
"Neg master, I was really born from an iron womb, as we called it, like the rest of my sibko partners."
"You don't have a mother?"
"Neg, at least not in the same way as a freeborns do. I know that the warrior who gave her genet-" He hesitated. "eggs for my creation was from the Kerensky bloodline, like the Father and the Founder of the Clans."
"Bu-but - are you human?" Kyle smiles at that.
"Aff, many cubs fail in their tests and trials and end up becoming members of lower castes. In many cases, they join a freeborn or another failed trueborn and have a family. If we were not human beings, this would not be possible."
"How?"
"How what?"
Louise tried to ask again, this time better. "How can you be born from a metal tube?"
"The same way that we can have datapads, battlemechs or jumpships. With advanced technology." He replied with a smile.
"Technology can't do that."
"Aff, it can. My battlemech and I are the proofs." He looked at the datapad too. "All of this is the proof."
Louise covered her face with her hands for a second, trying to digest all that revelation. Finally, she dropped the subject.
"Ok. What about those elementals you spoke about? Are they humans too?"
"Aff, they are the armored infantry of the clans. They are also human, with a size and muscle mass beyond that of a regular freeborn. But they can also... procreate with them." He said visibly uncomfortable. Sex wasn't uncommon for him, but the act of natural procreation was foreign to Kyle.
"And that words, freeborn and trueborn. I saw you using them as insults and exclamations."
"Freeborn designate those who were not born as Trueborn, outside of the warrior caste and without using an iron womb."
"Freebirth?"
"Is an epithet used by Trueborns, especially against others, as a term of disgust or frustration."
"Stravag?"
"It is basically the same, but only as an insult." Louise signed.
"This is going to be hard, my familiar isn't of this world, but a human created for war on another world- worlds, that fight with those metal golems-"
"Battlemechs"
"Whatever! How many do you have?" Louise yelled in frustration
"Between the Clans, successor states, minor nations, ComStar, and pirates, it is difficult to say. What I can tell you is that, when we reached the Inner Sphere, one of the best-armed kingdoms had more than sixteen thousand." Louise stood up, letting the chair fall to the floor.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!" She screamed, drafting all the people around in attention.
"Something wrong, master?"
"A-are you saying that- that you have sixteen thousand things like those?" She pointed in the general direction of the Kyle's Pack Hunter. Some of the people around who heard her statement shook in terror. An army, a grand army, made out of such fierce war golemns? It would be neigh-unkillable!
"Neg, the Clans have fewer machines but of better quality. In addition, of those sixteen thousand many were lost during the war against the Clans. However, that is only one nation among many, and all kept to build a large number of them. Possibly among those built in the Inner Sphere, and the Clans, the total doubles that number easily. Although that mine a light mech, just thirty tons, the most powerful ones weigh up to a hundred tons, and there have always been rumors that the Star League wanted to create even bigger machines."
"Bigger... one hundred..." This was more than three times the mass of Kyle's golem.
"Aff, they are called assault battlemechs. Some have an armor so thick, that just the plates weight as much as my whole machine." Louise sat down in the chair again, that one of the servants had sneaky put it back into place, dropping heavily like a rock.
"Drat! And I thought that the armies of Gallia and Germania were powerful."
"It is normal for you to be amazed. Your world must have fallen into chaos centuries ago and receded to this level of technology. You must be fifteen hundred years behind us in technology." Louise rubbed her foreheads, she was having a strong headache. What his familiar said could be almost blasphemous, but the images of Kyle's pocket machine and his golem, or Mech or whatever, supported what the boy was saying. Better to drop the subject for now, I couldn't cope it for the moment.
"If one of those Jumpships arrived here, what would happen?" Kyle remained thoughtful for a moment before answering.
"It is hard to say, master. Everything depends on what faction arrives, and what kind of resources this world has." He rubbed his chin. "If they were pirates they would raid the greater population centers to plunder them every few years. They would attack with few old and poorly maintained mechs, supported by combat vehicles and regular infantry. They would take everything that is not bolted on the floor: gold, jewels, mineral, food, water-" He frowned. "Normally they would also capture slaves, especially among the people with better technical preparation to force them to maintain their machines. But due to the technological nature of this world, they would take mainly strong slaves as basic labor force and- women." Louise stared in disbelief.
"Slaves? You have slaves? In Halkeginia we abandoned that barbaric practice long ago."
"Piracy runs rampant in the Periphery, these lands are abandoned by civilization."
"But- your- I mean your cord-" She hesitated now, realizing that maybe she had her familiar as a slave.
"A bondsman is not a slave!" He shouted, angry with her insinuation. "This is not the same! It is an honor that another warrior judges you worthy and decides to take you as a personal isorla. In some cases, a bondsman who demonstrates his worth can gain freedom, whether in his former clan or being admitted as a member of his master's clan. A slave is a slave until he dies, or if he is lucky and live enough, until the destruction of the pirate den."
"Sorry. I don't-"
"It does not matter. I imagine that your intention was not to disrespect my traditions. At least I hope so."
"We have ours, and my father taught me to respect traditions."
"A wise progenitor." She smiled a bit.
"And... if one of yours ships came here?"
"It depends on the Clan that comes. In the worst case, if a Crusader clan appears, they could judge this world as a failed colony. If they found something valuable, like resources, lostech (if there is any here), or this planet would be a good place for a HPG generator, an outpost, a recharge station, or other things, they will invade the planet. If this happens, if they want something from this world, their commander will bid to gain the right to conquer the planet."
"Bid?"
"The Clans do not attack with all of our available forces. After studying how many enemy forces we will facing on the surface, the commanders will bet on how many force they are willing to use in the attack. The commander who bids the lesser amount of forces wins the bid and gains the privilege to attack. A good commander knows how to attack without wasting troops. However, if a Warden Clan comes, it is possible, at least if the Clan was mine, that they do not attack."
"Why?"
"Some Warden Clans think that we lost the right to reclaim the former worlds of the Star League the moment we abandoned it. Some wardens may conquer the planet, but the population's treatment will be more benevolent. In our case, my clan may even try not to conquer your planet."
Louise returned to her room still in deep thought. Kyle had asked for her permission to move the Pack Hunter and put it in a better position to stay in the academy's yard. As she walked she heard the rumbling of its footsteps and turned. Kyle moved that machine as if it were a real living thing, he seemed to have a lot of skill with it. Just as he left the mech parked beside one of the walls, Louise lost interest and returned to her room.
As she entered her room, she was still thinking about what her familiar had told her. A civilization millennia ahead of them, nobles without powers, thousands of planets full of humans, wars that ended the life of millions and hundreds of millions. Thousands and thousands of war machines faced in combat. Perhaps it was better that Halkeginia was technologically backward. If the superior technology and knowledge led to that, better to ignore it.
And that was not the worst! The worst was that she almost believed him, after seeing the machine that had been brought along with her familiar, and the images of that square object that he had called datapad. There was no magic in their world capable of creating that. If that was true, it clashed with the Church's belief, something that placed her in an uncomfortable position.
She didn't know what to believe, she wanted to believe that the Church was right, but what her familiar had shown was exactly the opposite. Could her world possibly be a lost colony of the humongous civilization from which Kyle came? If the Church, or worse, the Inquisition, discovered where her familiar came from, both would be in trouble. She had to talk to him, prevent Kyle from telling that story to more people, for their sake.
Would it have been so difficult to summon a dragon or a griffin? She wondered full of frustration.
She looked over the objects and devices that her familiar had left on the table. One of then looked like a flintlock-less blocky pistol. He must have left it there when he went to take the vest, since she remembered to have seen it at his waist at all times. It was heavy, ugly and with a menacing presence. She touched its grip, wishing to push it to the edge of the table to make it disappear, figuratively. At that moment Kyle came in, his jumpsuit sleeves still knotted at his waist and his cooling vest on. Louise quickly withdrew her hand.
"It is a KT-90 machine pistol, fires 3 mm explosive-expansive bullets." He said taking it and putting it in the holster that was on the table too, then removed his cooling vest. "You should not manipulate it without me being present, master. It is dangerous if you do not have training."
"Is it loaded?"
"Aff, but the safeties are on. However, master, I recommend that you do not manipulate it. Even a single shot in one leg can be very serious. Every bullet is composed of 3 mm slivers of soft metal and high-velocity explosives that balloon on impact into miniature, tissue-destroying, suns. With your size, a girl of fourteen years like you, could lose an arm or a leg with a single shot." Kyle heard a sound like a soft but angry growl. He turned to the source and find out the girl glaring at him gritting her teeth.
"Fo- four- fourteen years?" She went to her bedside table, opened a drawer and pulled out a horse crop. "You- you filthy dog!"
She began to hit Kyle with the crop, on his face, on his arms and on his torso with all her fury. Kyle backed off at the start, but then he put himself in a rest position receiving the blows, barely undeterred by them. After some blows, Louise stopped panting. Although Kyle has some marks on his body and even he bleeds by a hit on his shoulder, he hadn't complained or avoided the blows.
He looked at her. "Some-something wrong, master?"
"Doesn't it hurt you?"
"Aff."
"Then, why don't you act like it does?"
"At the age of twelve, I had an instructor who argued that to improve our resistance he had to beat us with a whip." Louise remembered the marks in his back. "Unfortunately, it was only an excuse to level his rage for ceasing to be an active warrior. There was an investigation only after the dead of the eighth cadet." Louise notices the hard expression of her familiar.
"Founder!"
"He said if we did not scream he would 'lease the lesson', so I learned to ignore physical punishment." Louise looked at the boy horrified. "Although I would like to know why I deserve this punishment."
"I'm sixteen years old!"
" Freebirth! Are you almost my age?" Kyle looked at the tiny girl.
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen- I think."
"Y- yo- you seem older."
"As I said before, master, I was created and raised to be a warrior of the Clans. If you had been raised in a sibko your physical appearance would be very different. For your build, minus the size of your skull, you would be ideal as aerospace pilot. However, you would need to strengthen yourself physically so that your heart system could withstand the high-G maneuvers of a fighter."
"I'd rather not be."
"Aff, master."
A couple of knocks on the door interrupted them. Moments later Kirche stormed into the room while Tabitha, the blue-haired girl stood at the door reading a book.
"HI!" She said entering blithely. "We came to see the champion!"
"Zerbst! What are you doing here?" Louise's teeth clenched.
"Me?" She put her hand over her cleavage. "I just told you." She said hugging one of Kyle's arms. "It's not fair that you keep him only for yourself. Oh-!" She noticed the boy's wounds and then the horse crop in Louise's hands. "You're a monster, Zero!" Kyle grabbed her by the wrist, forcing Kirche to release him.
"Retract right now!" Kyle's voice was firm.
"What?" Kirche said trying unsuccessfully to get out of his grip.
"What you called my master, retract your words." Louise smiled.
"Yeah, Zerbst. Do you have something to tell me?" Louise at least had to admit that her familar's zero-tolerance to mock was something she could appreciate.
"Okay! Okay! I retract them!" Kyle released his grip. As he did, Kirche faced the boy, putting her face very close to him, and planting her breasts on top of his chest, still uncovered as Kyle had removed his cooling vest. "That's not the way to treat a lady!"
"So he has done well, Kirche" Louise said with a pleased tone. The redhead turned to face her.
"Anyway, you should leave, Louise." She said gesturing with one hand as she grabbed Kyle's arm again. "I want to be alone with my sweetheart." Louise bounced at that.
"WHAT? What are you talking about? You germanian cow!"
"I'm in love." She said caressing Kyle's naked torso with her hand. Realizing the old scars he had. "Louise, you're a horrible person! How could you give him these scars?" Louise felt a little embarrassed by the redhead's foolishness.
"Those scars are old, there's no way I could make them." Even Kyle seemed a bit uncomfortable with the germanian's silly statement.
"My master is right. These wounds were inflicted during my training." Then he pointed to the strange wound on his side. "This was made by an Elemental's battle claw just before I managed to shoot him in the visor with a needle-gun. The skin tone is clearer due to the artificial skin that the doctors transplant me after the operation to rebuild my broken ribs."
Kirche gloated. "And do tell, my sweetheart. Are all yours peers as strong as you?"
"Er-" He hesitated because of the appellation she had given him. "Neg, our aerospace pilots have a smaller frame to fit better in an aerospace fighter's cockpit, and the Elemental's phenotype has a bigger body with more muscle mass, strength, and endurance. My phenotype, the MechWarrior, is still stronger than the aerospace pilot but not as the elemental."
"Phenotype?"
"In the Clans, the warriors are created following this three genetic routes."
"UH!" Kirche's eyebrows rose slightly. "Created?"
"Aff, I was created in an Iron womb, combining two genetic samples of two bloodnamed warriors of our clan." Kirche still didn't understand.
"Zerbst, in his kingdom the warriors aren't born like us, they're created by alchemy inside metal tubes." Louise tried to simplify. Kirche looked indignantly at Louise as she fidgeted with her right hand.
"Stop talking nonsense, Louise. You can't create a human being with-" He looked at Kyle. Tabitha was looking at him curiously as well." Al- che- my."
"Neg, you can not create a human being with alchemy. I was created using a technological method, using machines, in a metal tube with embryonic vital support called the Iron womb, which replaced the woman's uterus."
"But you're human?" She asked in a small voice.
"Aff, as I tell my master, I am totally human. The only difference is that my genetic material has been modified by eugenics to be a better fighter."
"And you were born from a metal tube? Motherless?"
"Aff" A slight smile crossed the face of the germanian upon hearing that. "Losing for nine months a Bloonamed warrior for a pregnancy is not practical. In addition, if the warrior is very promising, it allows her to have several descendants simultaneously."
"How exotic!" She said holding on tightly the arm of the boy, who had to collect all his strength to continue to seem unaffected to the evident sexual innuendo of the Germanian. "I, Kirche Augusta Frederica Von Anhal Zerbst, also known as Kirche the Ardent, have had many lovers, but never one 'created'. And tell me, honey. In the midst of so much training to be a warrior, didn't you take the time to learn how to make a woman melt in your arms? Or is that with those tubes you don't need to know it? Because that would be a pity." She said putting her mouth near to Kyle's ear.
"If you refers to sexual's intercourse, I have been practicing it since I was thirteen."
"WHAT?" Louise and Kirche squeaked at once, while Tabitha adjusted her glasses and flipped a page out of her book.
"As I tell you, master, sibko's colleagues very often share experience, livings, training and all kinds of relationships."
"He beat me." Muttered the germanian.
"B- bu- but when you told me that- I thought you meant friendship, n- no- not that!" Louise said red to the ears, now the veiled threat of the other night had become much more concrete, her familiar had to be a kind of sexual predator.
"I am sorry I was not so explicit. I will correct that."
"D- Don't- I prefer- I prefer don't know these details."
"Understood master." He simply nooded.
"Typical of Louise." Said the germanian releasing the boy and shrugging. "She's still a prude."
"Zerbst!" She shrieked. Then he looked at Kyle. "Are you not going to make her withdraw that, too?"
"Master, during the training we were instructed to not oppose our superiors in front of other warriors, but also not to give them the reason in case they did not have it."
"Y- y- yo- you thankless dog!" She said with her face completely red and raising her wand above her head.
Outside, in the courtyard, someone saw an explosion in the Water tower.
MasterXMaster: Hehehe! You know nothing. Just wait a bit
Fenrisulven13: It's curious that you enjoyed the Guiche's beating since you know don't know him form the original story. He is an asshole at the start of the light novel.
No, they are figuring that the battlemech is some kind of magic-less equivalent of their magical constructs,. And this would give someone creeps, because in Halkeginia who has the magic has the power and who doesn't have it, obey. In fact if Guiche had killed Kyle Louise couldn't have complained. Because a commoner raising a weapon against a nobleman is a capital offense and the nobleman has every right to kill or punish him.
See you on the 31st century's battlefield, mechjocks ...