The ComStar representative bristled with rage, his wide jaw set tight and his vein pulsing across his bald scalp. There was a time when honeyed words and placid smiles were all that face could give, but that time had passed. His bony fingers gripped the armrest of the seat he'd been provided, as if to tear it apart in one last slight.
"Compete?" the Precentor replied with venom thick in his voice. "Is that what you call levying absurd taxes, harassing our staff, threatening to board our supply ships, and poisoning the thoughts of your own people?"
That last feat had almost been too easy. To many in the Inner Sphere, the Star League represented a better age. An age of peace, prosperity, and advancement. To my people?
It was a story of death, destruction, and subjugation. Our fleets had been crushed, our cities bathed in nuclear fire, and our ancestors put to the slaughter.
What grand crime did we do to deserve such a fate? What heinous act was committed to justify the brutal subjugation of our nation?
We, the Taurians, dared to exist—no, we did more than that. We dared to thrive. We dared to be independent of the madness of the Inner Sphere. And for that, we paid dearly.
Traditionally, the Federated Suns inherited our resentment. They had benefited the most from our misfortune, annexing systems that saw Taurian blood spill. But they were the dog and not the master. The master had long since perished or, depending on your interpretation, gone senile and taken to living in the wilderness. What he left behind was his bastard son. A son who would blush whenever his father's surname was mentioned, but fell short of claiming it for himself.
I had merely pointed out the obvious—that ComStar was the true legacy of the Star League.
In any other state, with any other people, the reaction would have been mild. Some would laugh, others would watch with guarded stares, and more still would shrug and be done with it. But my people?
Righteous fury could be the only response.
"Sounds like a sore loser to me," I provided glibly. "Just say you lost to the Taurian Express and be done with it."
Turning public sentiment against the owner of a monopoly on interstellar communication and news was fine, but it would do nothing without an alternative. Enter the Taurian Express. It was not a new concept, just an inefficient one. Instead of messages being beamed through Hyperpulse Generators, HPGs for short, they would be beamed to DropShips, which would then hook up to a JumpShip and be ferried to the location of the recipient.
It was both horribly slow and expensive, but I had alleviated both issues. For one, we had the Merchant Class ship numbers to man our primary routes with a command circuit. There would be no need to wait a week for their KF Drives to recharge; all they had to do was transfer the data to the waiting ship. That cut the time down tremendously. I could have a message delivered to Perdition within the hour. Civilians would be forced to wait for designated departure times, but it had been made a viable form of communication. It helped that many of our worlds never qualified for an HPG to begin with.
As for the cost? In a wholly uncapitalistic manner, I subsidized the ever-living shit out of it.
"The only loser is your people," he snapped back, lip twitching in agitation. "In the last decade, you have managed to turn the jewel of the periphery into a cautionary tale of hubris!"
Jewel? That title fits the Magistracy more than the Concordant.
"We had high hopes for you," the man continued in a lower, almost solemn voice. "Many wrote off your parade around the Inner Sphere. They saw it as just another rich lord's taste of adventure."
Ah, yes. My parade. I'd requisitioned five JumpShips for it, even more DropShips, and cajoled the heirs and heiresses of my generation into joining me in a two-year tour of the Inner Sphere. Fighting pirates, searching for treasures, and meeting with the rulers of faraway systems.
Convincing Father to let a twenty-year-old take roughly ten percent of the fleet for a joyride was a hard sell. I'd only managed it by extolling it as a display of Taurian pride and as a way to ensure tight connections with the Concordant's future.
"The Order saw its potential," the man said, his voice turning to silk. "We held councils to discuss how best to aid you. It was a message of peace and unity that all could support."
I was sure they did have meetings.
"Even when you returned early and empty-handed, we did not disparage you. We mourned the loss of your father and sister."
That he could believe. Life was fickle. One moment you could be touring a renovated factory with your daughter, and the next you would be nothing but ashes. It was an accident. As much as I'd like to blame the boogeyman for their deaths, every investigation I held returned the same result. A bit of greed and faulty wiring was all it took to change history.
Of course, that's not what I told people. It rankled me to my core, but their deaths needed to have meaning.
"And after, when the fruits of your journey were revealed, we celebrated your success. It may not have been Lostech, but stealing away Lyran plans and FedSun minds was a coup, nonetheless."
I did nothing of the sort. However, admitting I'd found not one, not two, not three, but five memory cores would have every nation in the sphere kicking my door in. Explaining that my factories were being updated and shipyards expanded due to state espionage was the natural solution. The Steiners wouldn't care. We were a nonentity to them. The Davions would be a bit more upset, but the hate my people had for them was largely unreciprocated.
The Taurian Concordat was simply too small to matter.
At most, they'd yell at their intelligence agencies and try to wrench their competitors' secrets from my hands. A prospect complicated by the… intricacies of my reign.
"It was a profitable endeavor," I said with a sly grin. "And I made many friends during it."
The Precentor's face went flat, exhaling loudly through his nostrils.
"One of those friends of yours," he said evenly, attempting to curb his building anger. "Is all but in open rebellion. Nearly half of what remains of the Concordat now marches under his banner."
Because I told him to.
"Alex is bucking," I replied with a careless wave. "He'll see reason."
The man's fist fell on the armrest, the wood holding against his feeble strength. His pale skin grew redder, and he looked a second away from vaulting over the desk and strangling me.
"He is seeing reason," the man stressed. Reason had won out, but his temper had not cooled. "Those factories you built lie in ruins, your fleet has been reduced by a third, trade has ground to a halt, and your forces dwindle by the day. New Vandenberg could be facing a raid as we speak, and yet you persist with your self‑destructive policies."
It took all my power not to laugh in his face. The man across from me had contributed heavily to those tragedies. Alas, I couldn't be too upset with him. For a fair share of those raids were commissioned by me.
ComStar was a tricky beast. I couldn't expel them outright. They'd see through that deception in a heartbeat, and all my planning would be for nought. I set the stage, but abandoning the Concordat had to be their decision.
Honestly, their plan to steer me back into their loving embrace was a good one. Unfortunately, it was predictable. I knew they'd unleash a swarm of pirates on me, along with subtler attempts at sabotage. It was the obvious plot to reinforce how important their communication services were.
What they failed to account for was Taurian stubbornness and the effectiveness of the raids. My people were led away in chains, ships were stolen with laden cargo holds, cities were destroyed—and yet we persisted. Not even ComStar's HPG facilities were spared by the opportunistic pirates that infested my realm.
As I said, it took all of my will not to laugh in the Precentor's face.
I suspected much of his anger was due to the reckoning he'd face on Terra. He was meant to curb Concordant, not be the instrument of its collapse. ComStar's success had gone too far. They'd lost control of the situation, and now their logical choice was to leave us to our fate. Otherwise, they'd only incur greater losses.
"My people are tough," I grunted, speaking from the heart. "We survived well enough without the Inner Sphere, and we'll do it again."
My people, my people… it was a strange concept. Before coming here, the Taurians were mere words on a page. Now, they were my reason for existence.
"Protector of the Realm," the man scoffed, standing abruptly and smoothing out his robes. "What a farce. If there is any justice, your people will see you hang."
I didn't blink at the condemnation. It was nothing I hadn't heard from the mirror.
"As a Precenter of the Order," he continued, shifting to an imperious tone and puffing out his chest. "It is my duty to inform you that all personnel and equipment of the Order have been removed. May the wisdom of Blake one day return to Taurus."
And may you never meet my sight again.
"See yourself out," I said, swiveling my chair to face the Venetian windows behind me. "And don't let the door hit you."
I heard the sneer and almost expected to hear the pin of a grenade. But he was too smart for that. In death, I would become a martyr, while in life, a warning to others.
Footsteps faded in the distance, heavy and stomping. It was amazing how much dignity could be eroded over time. I hadn't heard the 'simple communication technicians' line in a long time.
Breath filled my lungs, and I held it for a spell before releasing it. Gazing upon my domain, a smile crept onto my face. Mountains loomed in the distance, their icy tops standing vigil over Samantha, the capital of my realm. Blocky skyscrapers lined pristine avenues, letting the lifeblood of the city flow uninterrupted. Dotting the urban sea were vibrant pockets of green, parks that sat directly above the massive complex of bunkers hidden beneath our feet. If I squinted, I could just about see the specs that represented my driving force in life.
It would be so, so easy to forget the scars our city was built upon.
I tore my sight from them, focusing on the grey expanse of the Samantha Prime Spaceport. It was the planet's largest and traveled down the line of docked DropShips before finding the unassuming Mule.
ComStar loved the ship for the same reasons I did.
Falling into a state of calm acceptance, I was only jarred back to the present when I saw plumes of fire erupt from it. The mass of steel rose into the sky, streaking into the sky and the stars beyond it.
It had been thirty‑four years since I first cried in my cradle. It had been fourteen years since I left for the Inner Sphere. It had been twelve years since I returned. And it had been eleven years since I began my war in earnest.
I was tired, but there was work to be done.
"How many remain?" I asked the empty room.
From the corner of my eye, beyond the dark burgundy curtain of the window, I saw movement. They stepped forward, silent as a ghost despite weighing hundreds of pounds. Their matte-black armor encased their entire body, and if they were to stand still again, I might lose them.
"TMI is tracking one hundred and twenty-two suspected ROM agents across the Concordat, along with thirty-one sympathizers. Your orders, Protector?"
TMI… it was a brilliant name in my opinion. Less brilliant was their track record. If it weren't for my misdirection, they'd still be the laughing stock of intelligence agencies. They had been my pet project as a child. Which only said more about their previous perception.
Now?
Well, they were still trash at foreign espionage. Domestic, on the other hand, is where they excelled, and I did not doubt their numbers.
"Proceed with the set course," I dictated to the faceless agent in modified Nighthawk armor. I could address them by name, but it would be a breach of professional courtesy.
In the coming months, ROM's presence would steadily deteriorate. It would be nothing too flagrant, but they would inevitably be squeezed out. For all its supposed wisdom, ComStar failed to grasp the rugged perseverance of Taurians.
"Our people have sacrificed too much for us to falter now."
I did not have the luxury of defeat. I had cast it away when I betrayed my people.
The soldier banged their closed fist against their chest.
"The wound endures," they intoned, parroting a line I'd heard many times before. "The Concordat remembers."
And so did I.
I remembered the livelihoods I'd ruined, the families I'd torn apart, and ultimately, those who would never see the future I sought to create.
"Never forget," I responded in the only way I could, completing the line.
My tears had dried long ago. I would mourn them, but for their sake and mine, I would not allow myself to wallow in the loss.
"In three months," I rumbled, stroking my stubby chin, "provided there are no surprises, I want to visit Project 2596. Arrange a command circuit."
The soldier reacted in surprise, head moving almost imperceptibly to the side. I would note it in their file, but I would not reprimand them. It was, after all, the natural reaction. I had never requested to visit the Shadow Concordat.
That was by design. It had been deemed too great a risk.
Now?
I needed to see if this had all been worth it.
"Yes, sir," the soldier responded before falling silent.
In the bowels of my family manor, I knew someone was pulling out an unassuming briefcase. They would type their message, and it would ripple outward—from Taurus, to Sterope, to the Fiery Plains, to Belle Isle, until finally reaching Erod's Escape. A system settled too early for its time, by people the Inner Sphere believed dead.
ComStar, the Great Houses, the Clans—should they come to face the bull once more?
They shall find the horns.