Lodestone TLR-99

The Baron's successor

Roughly five thousand miles north of Sunnr's Twin Cities, Mimisbrunnr and Idunn, and well into the territory of Kerlaugar...

It is the twentieth year of ongoing hostilities between the Viscountcy of Kerlaugar and the Sunnr Principality. What was borne initially of petty disputes and squabbling between two hopefuls to rule the Star System, had come to lethal blows between them over rightful ownership of planet 44. Not for want of natural resources - there were plenty of those elsewhere in the galaxy - but over questions of loyalty, moral fortitude, and many other nebulous concepts, meaningless to anybody without a noble title to their name. For it is upon planet 44, bereft of most plant life and only livable with significant effort, that the nobility seek to prove their worth to each other.

They would find ways to make even this place habitable, and to Hel with anybody else who can beat them to it.

And that was precisely the motive behind the forthcoming assault on the Twin Cities. It had been in the works for months now. Border skirmishes were commonplace enough between Sunnr and Kerlaugar - the South and the North - that the customary retreats were being observed to extra-fine detail by both sides. To most authorities, just knowing where the forward operating bases were located was enough; the strategists and tacticians would be able to form logistical plans to crush them, one by one.

To Baron Kjell Lennartsson, the newest member of the Kerlaugar Royal Family - at least, the newest one with an active title - there was one detail that interested him above all else.

He had a score to settle with their White Thorne.

Kjell had certainly heard the legends from both ends of the tale. Such historical knowledge was essential for a nobleman joining the fight. Some time, not terribly long ago, the White Thorne - an epithet derived from the rune "thorn" or "thurs" and associated with the Giants of old - had met Kjell's father-in-law, Edvin Sievertsson, then the Baron of Kerlaugar's southernmost stretch of land. That land, by its very nature, was constantly in a state of contest. It was the border, the most fortified part of Kerlaugar. And as the Baron who oversaw the land, keeping it under Kerlaugari dominion was a matter of utmost honor. To lose it to those bastards from the South would be an offense so unforgivable as to have all noble titles stripped.

Which was precisely what happened to Edvin Sievertsson, and why Kjell Lennartsson - the son of a Duke who had married Edvin's eldest daughter only five years ago - now held the Barony. The White Thorne, the terrifying monster from Sunnr, whose pilot must have been enhanced in some way to behave twice as fast as a normal human. Kjell had not heard the exact nature of how it had gone down, but if his father could not maintain control of one lousy strip of borderland on account of that beast, then that task now fell to him.

And while Kjell was not quite ready to assume his title so soon, at only 25 years old, he had spent the last seven years reading all that there was to read about the tools of the trade. The soldiers and their weapons, the vehicles, the noble art of fencing (should it come to that). Kjell fully expected to march into combat as a captain of the 99th Border Vanguard, and from there, he had a Giant to hunt.

On his first day of deployment, though, he was abruptly recalled - a matter of the utmost importance to troop morale, the Viscount had told him. There was one thing that the rest of the family had not told Kjell. That he had a Giant of his own. There would be yet more training involved, but ultimately, it would feel roughly the same as fighting on foot.

As soon as Viscount Wallin showed Kjell into the suspiciously large doors, several hundred feet below the Palace, Kjell recalled more of the old legends. The tale of the Red Baron, the only equal to the White Thorne.

He faltered at the mere sight of it in the underground hangar. ZpTL 45, "Richthofen." A towering beast of metal muscles, anodized armaments. Its crested helmet brought to mind the centurions of old. Each of its arms wore what first appeared to be a thick bracer, but surrounded each hand with a trio of attached weapons. At each hip, an oversized handle that the mech's hands could grab, and a telltale prism at the end of each that told Kjell that these were directed-energy weapons, probably heat-foils.

It was almost too much for one young officer to take in at once. This beast was only a rumor, even among the family. He hadn't known that his father... that the former Baron Sievertsson had actually driven this thing. He felt unworthy of it, nearly as much as he did of his inherited title. There was no way he could fill shoes that big. The legend of the Red Baron would come crashing down as he stumbled into combat in such an unfamiliar interface.

Viscount Wallin's hand on his back was a needed slap of reality. "Don't panic, boy. You'll be ready to ride soon enough. It'll just take a few extra weeks of special training. It will all be to our advantage. The strength of the Red Baron...is in his mystique. Nobody fully knows what the Red Baron is, because he is only rarely seen, and those who see him, only rarely survive."

Kjell quietly wondered if that would eventually include himself.