Arthur Corean - Age 28]
[Corean Enterprises Headquarters]
[New Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[January 9th, 3025]
The holdings of Corean Enterprises in the Free Worlds League were something that I had agonized over for weeks, at least until I'd had a brainwave.
Ramen II manufactured the Standard Steel Chassis of Corean Enterprises' Centurion Battlemechs, and it had facilities to intake components and manufacture completed Centurion 'mechs for consumption by the FWL's Militia. It could only build forty of the 50-ton Medium 'mechs per year, which in this era was still nothing to sneeze at, but ultimately its loss wasn't nearly as substantial as the loss that Stewart represented.
Stewart was where Corean Enterprises built numerous variations of the Locust, a 20-ton Scout 'mech, the Trebuchet, a 50-ton Fire Support 'mech, and a lot of supporting hardware. They built numerous models of the Standard Fusion Engine, Starshield Standard Armor Plating, Rawlings Jump Jets, Corean Enterprises Communications & Tracking packages, and Martel, Magna, Zeus, Rand, and Holly lasers, missile packs, and PPCs.
We built as much shit on Stewart as we did on New Avalon, which was why the branches we had building stuff for the Purple Birds brought in almost as much dough as the FedSuns branch of my company.
However, as I stated to the board, being an International Corporation had some pretty serious cons- the most glaring of which was that money could not be transferred from one branch to another.
This means that 'Mechs and Equipment manufactured and sold in the Free Worlds League stayed in the Free Worlds League, mainly because anything that was purchased was paid for with Free Worlds League Dollars... and the Federated Suns was about as willing to accept FWL Dollars as they were Capellan Yuan. Only ComStar's C-Bill was universally accepted, and even if the Federated Suns was willing to accept FWL money we couldn't use that money for anything other than reinvesting it in our Ramen II and Stewart facilities.
Which for me, a staunch Federated Suns patriot, meant that any money left over there was essentially useless because if I couldn't use it to improve my company within the Federated Suns then what good was it to me?
Now, I'd always been a Draconis Combine player- 'Glory to the Dragon and House Kurita!'- but that had been while I was a normal guy playing a tabletop game on the weekends when I wasn't swamped with work. Being able to roleplay as a Weeaboo Chunni Commander of a bunch of Big, Stompy Robots was my stress relief valve; I could have fun with a group of like-minded individuals who looked at the escapism the game provided and thought that it was a hoot of a good time.
That was when we could make our 'Movement and Combat' phases not last an hour because we foolishly decided to have a four-way bout 'for funsies'.
Yet, after having died unexpectedly and been reborn in this shithole of a galaxy... I'd never been more grateful to have been born in the Federated Suns.
Despite being insufferably snooty bastards with delusions of honor, the Federated Suns was probably one of the best places I could have ended up at... especially as the son of one of the Inner Sphere's most prominent Battlemech Manufacturers. Early on in my second life, I'd wondered what my days would have been like if I'd been born to the son of Defiance Industries' CEO, and after doing a little bit of research into what my counterpart's life I'd quickly counted my blessings.
Amadeus Brewer was the son of Defiance Industries' CEO, and that kid's life sucked- so many dinner parties and photo ops!
I never would have survived it.
Especially since I was a total shut-in.
Wait, it's for good reasons though!
You see, when I was reborn I quickly found out that I hadn't been sent into this mess without a genuine, certified 'Isekai Cheat Skill' of my own! Though I have no idea if it was something given to me by some God or ROB or if this was just my family's natural and tinkered genetics (thank you, Star League) bearing fruit for me in the most generous of ways.
I was what the New Avalon Institute of Science later described as a 'Beyond Genius, Once-in-a-Millennia Intellectual'.
It wasn't just that I had the knowledge, memories, and experience of a fully-grown man in a 'child-sized package', but I also had an eidetic memory and a mental prowess that even astounded me. I could calculate numbers and absorb scientific knowledge at a rate that was borderline ludicrous, and most importantly of all I could actually comprehend all of the shit that I was learning.
By the time I was 9 years old, I had already graduated from Tertiary School- the FedSun's equivalent to High School- in 3006, and in a year I had completed all of my Gen Ed. courses at New Avalon University.
From 3007 to 3016 I powerhouse'd my way through the Bachelor's programs for Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Structural, & Battlemechs), Metallurgy, and Programming (both "Modern" and "Star League" course-loads).
I crammed almost eighteen years' worth of schooling into nine years, and the reason it even took me that long was that I simply could not get through the classes any faster than what New Avalon University was offering. Even if I memorized the material and demonstrated proficiency, I simply couldn't skip classes, so I was forced to slow my education down to the rate of the 'regular' geniuses that cropped up in FedSuns' space. So when 3016 rolled around and First Prince Hanse Davion's New Avalon Institute of Science was completed, I enrolled in their Master's programs thinking that I'd finally be able to put my nose back to the grindstone and churn through the coursework... and I was only partially right.
I could certainly move faster because the brilliant minds teaching me gave me a lot of latitude, but I really couldn't 'graduate early' ahead of my peers, so to speak. In the infant stages of the NAIS, there was a rigid course curriculum that couldn't even be bent for overachievers such as myself... so I was forced to languish in classes that were no longer challenging until it was 'time' for me to graduate with everyone else in the program.
This was ameliorated somewhat once I got into the Doctoral classes, but those ate up much more of my time.
It was in those classes that I was first introduced to the First Prince himself as I took part in a program to reconstruct an important piece of LosTech- Star League-era Double-Heatsinks, or 'Freezers' as they were known by their code name around the 'Egg Carton'.
Over my four years working deep within the bowels of the NAIS, Hanse Davion was a rather common sight- the man came by monthly on a schedule to check in on the various programs that they worked on. Being I was the 'Boy Genius' who worked on a half-dozen different programs, Hanse found time to come talk to me and pick my brain.
Given that he always came to talk whenever I was in the middle of conducting important experiments or calculations... he was more of a bother than anything else. His constantinopportune interruptions led to me being rather snippy to him since I knew that I was too important to be killed off- and he too kind to actually have me killed off for some snark- so... I guess we sort of started a friendship?
I mean, we weren't social friends or anything. He didn't invite me to fancy dinners or galas, nor did he invite me to go out into the New Avalon Nature Preserve to go hunt wild game with him, but I guess he sort of made sure to stop by and chat simply because he knew I wouldn't kiss his ass.
Not like that ponce Ardan Sortek.
Seriously, the guy practically sucked Hanse's dick all day long, even in private.
Really, if I had to deal with that level of hero worship all day long I'd probably go out and find myself a friend that would say "Get the fuck out of my lab and stop bothering me, Hanse!" too.
So, I guess you could say that I knew Hanse Davion pretty well when there wasn't a whole court of sycophants around to fluff his nuts, and that combined with my eidetic memory, 'beyond genius' level intellect, and... my foreknowledge... it let me suss out that the Nisei-Hanse was a fake pretty damn quickly when I met with him earlier this month.
The Doppelganger might have looked like Hanse Davion, sounded like Hanse Davion, and even had some of Hanse Davion's knowledge and speech patterns... but I could tell immediatelythat he wasn't Hanse Davion.
For one thing, he made me wait.
I put in for the meeting, and instead of being directly escorted to the First Prince's office by a girthy MIIO escort at the nearest available opportunity... I had to sit on a waiting list for two weeks before I was given a meeting.
While I'd never had to have a private meeting with Hanse before, not with our monthly 'Bother Arthur So He Can't Be Anti-Social' sessions, he'd always assured me that if I ever felt the need to reach out to him directly he'd alwayshave a free slot in his schedule for me; something Nisei-Hanse didn't know about.
Then when I did finally get to meet with him, it was anything but a private affair- there were all of these hangers-on and courtiers that I didn't recognize were with us in the sitting room outside of his office.
He promised that we'd always be without too many people aside from his personal bodyguards or Ardan Sortek.
Speaking of Ardan Sortek, ever Hanse's faithful and ass-kissing hound, the man was suspiciously absent given his failed mission to secure Stein's Folly, so that was his absence accounted for, but really, the dead giveaway was that the Doppelganger did not have all of Hanse's personality tics or microexpressions accounted for.
Given the dude was likely drugged up to the gills, along with the true Hanse Davion, while they drilled every scrap of knowledge from Hanse's brain into his it wasn't really his fault. He didn't know that Hanse's ears tended to wiggle when his jaw was clenched, or the slight crinkling of his nose when he smiled... nor did he manage to understand the references I sprinkled here and there in our conversation from obscure, 20th Century Terran films that I endlessly annoyed Hanse with until he watched the films so he could match me quip for quip.
Nisei-Hanse was an excellent Doppelganger for sure, but he couldn't fool my All-Seeing Mystic Eyes of Foreknowledge Perception. Lol.
After getting permission from him to sell the Free Worlds League branch of Corean Enterprises, something that the real Hanse Davion would have cautioned against incessantly until I'd proven to him that I was right to cut the deadweight... Nisei-Hanse seemed positively thrilled that I was willing to tank the stock price of the Federated Sun's most prominent Battlemech Manufacturer.
Or at least he was when one of his courtiers whispered into his ears... likely about just what my actions would do to potentially weaken the Federated Suns. Then? Then he was all smiles and happily approved the sales- even getting me a Fast-Track for approval through the massive bureaucratic machines that was the Federated Suns' Military Procurement Readiness Board.
Truly, Nisei-Hanse was a great guy.
So I showed my appreciation for him by writing down all of my observations into an encoded letter to have hand-delivered by one of MIIO's Spooks to Ardan Sortek who was likely soon to be arriving on Tharkad to begin his recovery.
Provided my letter makes it to Ardan Sortek in time, my personal observations and suspicions about the "lackluster individual that Ardan and Duke Quintus Allard approved as Hanse's defensive body double" might serve as further proof that Ardan could use to get Katrina to acquiesce to his rescue mission.
As much as Ardan and I disliked each other, I wasn't someone who could pilot a Battlemech to rescue the First Prince. It's not that I lacked in personal courage, in fact, I braved ComStar assassins every day just by drawing breath on the same planet as the New Avalon HPG, it's just that... well, I was Neural Helm incompatible thanks to my rather girthy and impressive brain.
I can't pilot a Battlemech, not with the current Neural Helm technology, and considering all of the other shit I'm trying to reinvent... making a Neural Helm that could handle my melon wasn't that high up on the list.
Sure, in a battle between two equal opponents riding equivalent machines the pilot wearing the Star League-era Neural Helm would win most of the time, but it wasn't so much a difference maker when compared to Double Heatsinks, Endosteel, Extra Light Engines, Ferro Fibrous Armor, and better weapons. Thus it was put in the 'nice to have' category because it wasn't like the Inner Sphere was lacking in Neural Helm-compatible Pilots... there were always far more Pilots than there were Battlemechs for them to ride, after all.
Regardless, I was in the opening stages of my plan to revitalize the industrial base of my company based within the Federated Suns, and the first step in that plan was to get rid of the Corean branch within the Free Worlds League.
I couldn't touch the money there, thus it was useless to me.
Any R&D breakthroughs we made there would be 'tidally locked' to only the FWL branch of Corean, thus it was useless to me.
And to top it all off, we got murdered on our taxes twice- once from the FWL and once from the FedSuns, all because we wanted to be an International corporation.
Fucking useless.
The $11.8 Billion C-Bills in profits we made in the FWL weren't worth it.
We could make that annual loss up in less than a decade by shifting all of our production to the Federated Suns, expanding our industrial capacity, and more importantly- not getting taxed twice. God. I really hated my father right now for not pulling the trigger on his initial plans to sell off the FWL branch when he took over, but I'm sort of glad he didn't because at least right now I'm in a position where I can ameliorate the majority of those losses.
The Centurion K7 Chassis foundry and Centurion assembly plant on Ramen II will net us over $125 Million C-Bills per year from Earthwerks just from the license agreement alone, and they were willing to pay $5 Billion for the plant and all of its equipment. That was fine because it would have cost us almost double that to ship the equipment off-world.
However, this was not the case for Stewart.
They didn't want the Locust or Trebuchet lines because they didn't want to pay for the licenses to build them- no, they wanted all of the prime real estate just off the spaceport we had, and the already built factories and defenses that were rated for Battlemech production. Really, it worked out for both of us. $20 Billion for the facilities, and we were given leave to take our shit and get out unmolested by the FWL- if it was related to the Corean Enterprises deal then jumpships could move in and out freely through ComStar controlled Hegemony space into the Federated Suns.
And speaking of ComStar, it was through them that we were laundering all of this money back into the Federated Suns and into the coffers of Corean Proper. FWL Dollars into C-Bills, and C-Bills into FedSuns Pounds.
However, that still left me with over $10 Billion dollars sitting around in the Free Worlds League branch that I couldn't do anything with...
Or that was the case until I started using that money to purchase pretty much everything I could get my hands on that fit within the confines of the agreement I had with the FWL and ComStar.
Every last scrap of natural resources that I could source and cram onto Droppers and Jumpships headed for the FWL/Hegemony border I was buying. It didn't matter if it was extremely inefficient because the money was going to be lost either way. I couldn't buy licenses from purely FWL manufacturers- not that they would sell them to me even if they could- but what I could do was purchase Battlemech Licenses from other corporations if they had licenses elsewhere.
I was currently in talks with Gibson Federated Battlemechs to purchase the rights to the Marauder, a 75-ton Command Battlemech, from General Motors.
Using the FWL money that I was trying to burn through ASAP.
The offer was for $7.15 Billion FWL Dollars for perpetual rights to manufacture and modify existing Marauders... which was a touch steep for a license when GM had no requirements to furnish the machinery or provide upkeep. The deal was to essentially provide the blueprints and complete manufacturing methods, and it was up to the buyer to source the machinery and build them.
An expensive purchase to be sure, but if it went through then I would be a happy camper- the FWL Dollars in Corean's accounts were useless to me conventionally, so by getting rid of them in whatever fashion I could... it was for the best.
That and GM was primarily a FedSuns manufacturer to begin with, so they normally wouldn't even think about letting me purchase one of the biggest claims to fame, and likely wouldn't... but since Gibson Federated Battlemechs' perpetual license- and its ability to sell said license to others- was valid and legal since the Star League-era, there would be nothing that General Motors of New Avalon could do other than complain about it.
Considering Gibson Federated Battlemechs was financially still reeling from the beating the Andurian region took following Anton Marik's failed coup in the FWL a decade ago... I had the feeling that they would sell soon enough. The infusion of cash into their coffers was sorely needed...
Man, I really can't wait to start building my own Marauders. Those are peak Battletech for me.
Even if I'd have to "ride bitch" in a jumpseat when I got around to building them myself.
It also didn't hurt that I'd have something else to gloat to Elanore Wright's face when I saw her at the inevitable Christmas party that Hanse would drag me to attend once he was rescued; the CEO of GM was a snooty old bitch that told a 14-year-old 'Me' that the day Corean Enterprises got their hands on a Marauder license was the day hell would freeze over. Really, trying to smack down a young teen's dream so crudely? She should be ashamed.
If anything she should have been flattered that the son of her chief rival thought her company's Mech was 'The Coolest Battle Implement Ever Devised'.
God.
I hope Gibson Federated Battlemechs folds under the pressure and takes the deal.
I'd even throw in another billion Dollars if it would seal the deal- it was practically 'Monopoly money' to me at this point.
"Mister Corean," The intercom at my desk chirped, and Old Daisy' reedy voice filled my ears, "A courier from New Avalon Delivery Services has arrived."
I perked up, a huge smile on my face as I closed my computer terminal and locked it out, "Excellent, please, send them in Miss Daisy!"
A middle-aged man wearing the standard red and white uniform for NADS, a middle-man courier company based near New Avalon's HPG station, was admitted inside my office while escorted by a pair of my security team. He had in his hands a sealed steel container no larger than a manila envelope and presented it to me, "Your package, Mister Corean."
I smiled as I slid a $100 Pound paper note across the table with a smile, the man quickly snatched up the cash as he handed me the case, and after sliding the sealed holodisk into my hand I gave the metal container back to him, "Thank you very much, Mister Courier."
"No, thank you, Mister Corean. Blessing of Blake be upon you," He grinned as he hastily slipped the note into his billfold.
"And may Blake's radiance illuminate the rest of your day, brother," I lied easily with a brilliant smile on my face, causing the man to blink in shock that I hadn't just brushed him off or ridiculed him.
Given the British and French lineage of most of the Federated Suns, Christianity was the most populous religion, with Islam bringing up the rear, and the Blakists were... well, they were quite clearly in the minority. I had attended a few public services at the New Avalon HPG's Church of Blake a few times during my teenage years before I started attending NAIS, and I had read the so-called 'Holy Book of Blake', the public release version, cover to cover if only so I could quote scripture and talk the talk when dealing with the crazies.
I had hoped that my being seen as a Blakist might keep me off of ComStar's Kill List, but with the murder of my parents... and the fact that I was supposed to be on the Leopard with them... it appeared as though that had only stayed their hand for so long.
Still, I would at least continue to pay lip service in so long as it was necessary, though it would likely be a very long time before I could drop the charade.
The moment I was alone in my office once more, I slipped out a stand-alone tablet, one completely isolated from the networks, and slipped the holodisk in place before finding the quartet of video files and pressing 'Play'.
I was greeted by the sight of a beautiful young woman with fair skin, red hair, blue eyes, and a cute smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her hair was trimmed short, not even touching her shoulders, but with the loose curls and slight frizz my older sister, Yeathers, made it work for her. It looked like she was seated on the balcony attached to our parent's bedroom, and I felt the familiar sting of loss tickle at my heart; when we'd been younger Yeathers had once ruminated on how nice it would be to have our parent's large bedroom on Augusta all to herself, but I doubted she would have liked for it to have happened so soon.
Her beautiful, crystal blue eyes had lost their lustrous shine, and beneath them, dark circles were clearly visible.
"Hello, Arthur," She gave the camera a weak smile, her voice soft, "I hope that this message finds you well. Things have been progressing rather nicely at the County, and for once I am thankful that Mother had been adamant about me taking my duties as the future Countess seriously... I doubt I would be nearly as prepared if not for her taking away my summer breaks during schooling. While Father had been the Count, we both know that it was Mother who kept the County in tip-top shape, and thanks to her efforts I find myself doing nothing more than familiarizing the systems she set in place since my last visit."
The chair didn't make a single sound as I leaned back and kicked my feet up on the tabletop, the noteputer resting on my thighs as I let the background noise fade away so I could focus purely on my sister's face and voice.
She spoke of our family holdings on Augusta, and the impeccable shape that our mother kept them in.
She spoke of the inspection she'd made on my behalf of the Corean Enterprises plants that resided within our family lands.
She spoke of the Tertiary School Graduation ceremony that she attended as the keynote speaker, and how it felt to stand where our Mother used to stand... to deliver a message of hope and opportunity to the future of Augusta, and to give a warning about how difficult the coursework would be should they decide to head to a University instead of delving straight into the workforce.
Among those graduates was our youngest brother, Yuri, the lad turning 18 years old just days before he walked across the stage and received his diploma.
"-he's decided to change tracks, something Father would likely be rather cross with considering the donations he made to NAIS to get him a slot at the Mechwarrior Academy there,"There was a slight lilt to her lips but nothing remotely approaching a smile, "Yuri wants to instead attend New Avalon University's School of Business. He wants to get his degree and then work for Corean... says you're 'going to need all of the help you can get' since Father is now gone. I didn't see a reason to deny him, not when the Blood Toll for our family has already been paid in full."
The image of a bald head, watery blue eyes, and a red-haired beard so big and bushy that one would be hard-pressed to see his teeth when he smiled flashed through my mind.
Yeathers was right, the Corean family had already sent one son to die in service of the Federated Suns, and sending another would hardly earn us further accolades.
Not when Andrew had done so much good for the family name with his 'glorious stand' still fresh in the minds of the people even more than a decade after his passing. He stood shoulder to shoulder with First Prince Ian Davion on Mallory's World, and his name was only a few slots removed from Ian's on the memorial seated in the center of one of New Avalon's many pristine forest parks. Considering how close Hanse Davion was with his brother, there was no doubt in my mind that the primary reason for him meeting me was to meet the older brother of one of the men who fearlessly fought by his own brother's side on that accursed place.
It made me wish, even if only for a moment, that I'd been more present in my sibling's lives; maybe he would have actually listened to me when I begged him to take another posting. The Fourth Davion Guards was a prestigious post, especially with the First Prince leading it personally, and for a dyed-in-the-wool patriot of the Federated Suns, having the chance to fight side by side with Ian Davion was a dream come true for him.
One that he wouldn't give up on even if his younger brother pleaded, and he paid the ultimate price for it.
Not that I blamed him or Ian Davion for it- it was the Dracs that killed my little brother, not the First Prince's leadership; from the reports and Battle ROMs Ian was a true commander through and through, always the first into battle and always the last to quit the field. Andrew's death wasn't on his head because I knew deep down that Ian had done everything he could to ensure that he preserved his men, even going so far as to challenge Yorinaga Kuritan to a duel so that the survivors of his unit could flee to fight another day.
I couldn't even blame the Kell Hounds for being late to the party either, because Andrew perished on the third day of the fighting, well before Ian Davion perished himself. Andrew had been piloting a Valkirye, one of our company's own mechs, and when his LRM 10-pack had run dry of missiles- his back armor completely stripped away, he and three other Light Mech pilots decided to play to the few remaining strengths of the design by utilizing their jump jets and heavy armor for their weight to harry the pursuing Kuritan forces with his lone medium laser. They all perished in the running battle, but their delay ensured that the First Prince was able to reposition the Fourth and set an ambush that cost the 2nd Sword of Light dearly in the follow-on engagement.
The Blood Toll from House Corean had been paid handsomely by Andrew, so Yuri should be able to turn down the NAIS Mechwarrior slot with little to no social damage.
"-so do be a dear and expect him to arrive in the next few months for the start of the term. I know you still own the apartment you used while you were attending NAU, but if you would... take some time to have it spruced up a bit? Pppppbbbbllllltttt!" Yeather's lips flapped as she blew out a breath, the Countess rolling her eyes as she toyed with her hair, "I understand that you're a big fan of the Minimalist movement, but Yuri isn't an Ascetic Monk, so when he arrives be sure to take him shopping. How you managed to go through so much schooling without even a holo-tele or audiobox I'll never know. Maybe some better furniture, some rugs, some paintings, and fake plants... and for the love of God, Arthur, have those black-out curtains removed! I swear, it was like I was walking into the den of a vampire every time I came to visit..."
A snort left my nose as a wry smile tugged at my lips.
All fair points, truth be told. I had a bachelor pad in a nice upscale district just across the street from NAU, one directly connected to the University grounds via the Sky Tram or any number of above-street-level walkways; even as a young lad attending the University, I made sure that I was never anywhere near cars or masses of people on the streets. If ComStar wanted to kill me then they'd either have to pop my head like a melon while I was walking or blow up the damn tram; like hell I'd be 'run over by a drunk driver' at three in the afternoon! If they wanted me dead then they'd have to make it readily apparent that I was the target, that way they couldn't make me suffer any unfortunate accident.
"However, I would be remiss if I didn't at least warn you that Yuri has finally discovered the opposite sex," Yeathers chortled a little bit, a hand coming up to hide her lips as she smiled more genuinely, "I caught him sneaking through the gardens with one of his classmates earlier this month for a bit of snookery... and while Mother and Father have indeed given him the talk about 'youthful indiscretions', especially since we are both nobility and also part of the manufacturing establishment, I would greatly appreciate it if you would impress upon him the need to be careful."
Woman. Do you think that I am a font of wisdom on that front?
I'm a Goddamn virgin in this second life! I've never even seen a pair of tits before, much less touched them! I had too much shit to do, too many classes to take, so much learning to accomplish- tits, pussy, and ass were so far down my priority list that it wasn't even funny! Even now, being the hotshot CEO and scientist that I am, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with the opposite sex that didn't revolve around school or a project that I was working on.
Shit.
Now that I think about it, I really should start looking for a wife...
Meh, I'll dump that on Hanse's plate when he comes back.
Maybe she'll be some uber-cool MIIO spy that can not only rock my world and give me some kids, but she just might use that License to Kill to keep me safe from the ComStar loonies.
Surely Hanse would be thrilled with the prospect of permanently installing one of his beautiful, sexy spies right at the very top of Corean Enterprises?
He gets to ensure that Corean will forever be faithful to the Federated Suns, and I get a beautiful, sexy, lethal wife.
Truly, we would both benefit from this greatly.
"-Amelia and Julia have both finally settled down, they no longer wake up crying in the middle of the night,"Yeathers sighed as she ran a hand over her lips, "It's only been a few months since Mother and Father perished so it is to be expected that the youngest of our family would take their loss the hardest, it's just... it hurts me, Arthur, to see them so distraught. I've taken them to see the gravesite, even if there wasn't enough of them left to be buried, and seeing their headstones in the family graveyard seems to have done some sort of good. Helped them come to terms that Mother and Father are gone and never to return. Oh... Arthur... how I wish that you could be here with us right now. If not for them then for me..."
The weight that had looked to have been lifted off of her shoulders came roaring back with force as she hunched forward, her bright red hair almost completely obscuring the camera, "Yet... I know that you cannot come. Not now. Not when so much is in flux. When the time is right I know that you'll come to visit, but for now, I'll have to console myself with the fact that you're hurting just as much as I am."
"Yeathers..." I murmured to myself as my fingers slid over the noteputer display unbidden, "I wish that were true."
The cold hard truth was that for all Mother and Father meant to me, I had long since distanced myself from them. From the moment I started attending University under my own power, with only a single maid, butler, and bodyguard attending to my needs and security, I had moved on from my parents. I attended the holidays with them, but during the breaks, most of my time was spent in Engineering offices and pestering the shit out of the scientists that were too well-paid and too polite to tell me to fuck off.
Most of the room in my heart for everything that wasn't science and learning was taken up by Yeathers and Andrew simply because they were both around me while I was attending NAIS. Being able to swing by my dorm room to make sure I was taking care of myself while occasionally forcing me to acknowledge the sun that New Avalon orbited around was... a pleasure that only they had the opportunity to experience. Yuri, Amelia, and Julia were faces that I only got to see on occasion because I threw myself into my studies so fiercely, and while that was indeed a travesty in its own right... I had far too much to do and so little time to do it.
"I look forward to seeing your response before the quarter is finished, so do be a dear and make it sooner rather than later. Try to keep the amount of drivel about the company to a bare minimum, please? I'd like to get a letter from my brother and not a progress report from the CEO. I can get that any time I want via ComStar since you seem so keen on handling our letters personally via courier," Yeathers had straightened herself up, the woman dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the tip of her middle finger, "Maybe you can try and find a date? One of the lab ladies perhaps? I wouldn't mind hearing about that..."
Sorry, Big Sis, but I'm pretty certain that Hanse will have a beautiful, blonde-haired, big-titted, fat-bootied, long-legged, and dangerously lethal MIIO International Super Spy to be my wife. Or at least I hope.
The red-haired Onee-san sniffed as she gave me a wan smile, "I won't take up too much more of your time, you still have three other letters to go through before the day is through so... take care, Arthur. I love you."
I smiled back as the screen went black before the video ended and the noteputer's home screen returned, "Love you too, Sis. I'll send a reply soon."
The rubberized button on the side clicked beneath my thumb as I sighed and slid the noteputer back onto the desk. After donating a bit of blood to the desktop's genelock interface, swiping my keycard, and punching in the fifty-character long RNG letter/number code string for the day-thank you eidetic memory!- I opened up my company email on the internal server and looked at my schedule once more.
Though before I got back to work in the vain hopes that I could finish up my mandatory tasks so I could slip into the labs deep beneath the earth to put on my 'Chief Scientist' cap... I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a commemorative challenge coin that Hanse Davion himself gave to me when I earned my first Doctorate degree. On the front side was the standard for the Federated Suns, and on the back was a tasteful engraving of the grounds of the NAIS. My thumb slipped over the perfectly carved lines that made up the dome of the primary NAIS facility before I perched it on the back of said thumb and flicked the coin into the air-
"Heads I sleep in my on-site quarters," I mused as the gold coin spun end over end in the air, "Tails I return to the family estate..."
I caught the coin and looked at the result.
If I didn't know what I was doing, then neither did ComStar.