- The Lucky Regiment -[]
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- Chapter 2 -
The World of Ankh in the Eastern Capellan Marches[]
September 3rd, 3022 - Castle Blackadder
The first he knew of the impending tornado was the hurried arrival of his butler, a man who had served the family for forty years. Baron Blackadder, ruler of the continent of Alnwick, sat at his desk trying to catch with the correspondence from his various retainers. Ruling a continent the size of Australia led to a fair degree of delegation, and it was getting harder now that bits of it were increasingly economically prosperous. Suddenly it was no longer dealing with scattered farming cooperatives and the handful of local manufacturing companies, there were now enough people in the towns to require that his family had to genuinely earn their keep and look after the place.
"It's your wife your, Baron, she's on a warpath, something about young Edmund I think." He winced, there hadn't been a good way to tell her that he had given their wayward fourth son a Mech of his own and sent him on his way to join a mercenary outfit.
"Why don't you quietly withdraw out the back, Smithers, safer that way." He saw a grateful look and his butler shuffled past him. No sooner had he left than a fearsome figure appeared in the doorway. "I'd suggest you follow him." He looked at his three secretaries and his aide and they quickly got up from their desks and followed the butler, only too aware of the danger.
"Why didn't you stop him?" A shout would have been more reassuring, instead it was that icily calm voice that meant he was in real trouble.
"Markham's Marauders are a reputable regiment." He said weakly, knowing he was on thin ice.
"No dear, the Lexington Combat Group are reputable, Skinner's Light Horse are reputable, the Hong Kong Cavaliers are reputable, these are a bunch of nobodies in the Periphery, probably raiders." The usual prejudice he thought, and more pertinently none of the reputable units would take someone who had just been expelled from the Albion Military Academy a few weeks before graduation.
"His godmother assures me they are most reputable by local standards, and they are on the Federated Suns approved list."
"Lady Cunningham is currently off the Christmas Card list. Markham's Marauders have a couple of lances and a ramshackle dropship, they barely qualify for garrison work."
"My dear, it was literally the best posting he could get, besides Raju is big player in those parts and with his godmother's backing that regiment will find decent work." He actually respected his son's plan, assuming he survived, the odds of him running the company in time were pretty good. Nothing got you promoted like having a good client book, and his godmother ran the Federated Suns contracting in those parts whilst his old trainer had a lot of sway over the Aurigan Reach's ruling family.
Unexpectedly his wife sat down on the couch and buried her head in her hands. "I know, I know, but it's so dangerous out there." He walked over and sat next to her, aware of the great dangers their son faced. "Pirates, Cannibals and Taurians, I don't like it. At least here it's only the Capellans." He thought about the number of atomics that been dropped by the Capellan Confederation on his ancestors during the First Succession War and pondered how they were any better off 'here', indeed the first succession war had been so awful that the Capellans hadn't bothered targeting his part of the world during the second.
"On the other hand my dear, Edmund and Juliet are both going to be stationed far from here, if the Capellans hit us again at least the family line lives on." That was the cold hard reality of life on the March, if the nukes ever got used again it would be like the old days when whole family lines were extinguished from orbit by nuclear fire. His wife snuggled her head under his shoulder and wept, shedding copious tears over the consequences of the unfortunate liaison between the Academy Commandant's daughter and their son. One day he would do his best to sabotage the man's career and reputation, but for now he was limited to hiring investigators to find dirt on that damned man.