Governor Ricard POV
Time has changed us.
This Last year alone has tested everything we believed we were—everything we thought we had left.
We have lost many.
Sons. Daughters. Mothers. Fathers. Friends.
And yet… from the ashes, something old has awakened.
The old warriors walk beside the new generation now.
Perhaps Amelia was right—at least in part.
Perhaps some of the old ways could have made us strong enough to resist invasion.
But that is no longer the question.
What matters is what we become now.
Clan Wolverine has been reborn.
Not without argument.
Not without trials.
Not without resistance.
And yet—after much debate, and after proving himself in trial by combat against our surviving veteran warriors—Silas has been accepted as Khan.
He defeated them cleanly.
Decisively.
Without cruelty.
And when offered the old caste system…
He rejected it.
Frankly, I agreed with him.
The caste system had rotted into something obscene—rigid, dehumanizing, and ultimately self-destructive. Instead, we have reshaped it into divisions, each with purpose, rank, and responsibility—but without locking people into a single fate.
Now, any citizen may transfer divisions if their calling changes.
More importantly…
Every member of this reborn Clan is trained to fight.
Warriors.
Engineers.
Scientists.
Laborers.
All of them learn to defend themselves.
All of them learn to pilot a 'Mech—if only in emergency.
We will never again be helpless.
With Silas's knowledge—and the data recovered from the Newtype Warrior Project bunkers—we have even restarted the breeding and augmentation programs.
Using his DNA…
And willing donors…
We are creating the next generation of enhanced warriors.
Not slaves.
Not property.
Children who will choose their own path.
Silas has also made one thing clear:
There will be no blood-name tradition.
A name is given at birth.
It is up to the person to give it meaning.
Some of the old guard grumbled.
But even in the past, Wolverine was more flexible than the other Clans.
If we wish to survive…
We must remain so.
Already, our engineers are dismantling captured Union-class DropShips, salvaging their hulls to construct new vessels.
Silas calls the initiative Project Archangel.
A new line of DropShips—
Archangel-class—
smaller than warships, but powerful enough to project force beyond this world.
"Pocket warships," he calls them.
Strange designs.
But brilliant.
Meanwhile, our people rebuild.
Homes. Infrastructure. Industry.
Teams continue recovering Lostech from the Artemis facility, and we have successfully transported the captured nuclear weapons to a remote island far from the mainland.
Even thinking about those devices chills me.
In my old age…
Near the twilight of my life…
I can finally say this with peace:
My people are no longer fading.
They are becoming something new.
And they are in good hands.
—///—
Silas POV
Sigh…
You know, when I first came to this world in Gaia, I never imagined it would end like this.
I won't pretend I understand everything about this universe—but I know enough. Mostly from the games I played back home. I never finished many of them.
The only one I fully completed was battleTech Mech Warriors clans—Smoke Jaguar's campaign.
So yeah… I understand Clan society. At least enough to know how broken parts of it became.
Between the old manuals, the elders here, and what little cultural memory survived… I had to make a choice.
And as some wise man once said—
"With great power comes great responsibility."
Right now, I have more power than I ever expected.
My Builder Scrubs—construction machines packed with fabrication tools—have accelerated rebuilding far beyond what this world should be capable of. Entire districts are rising faster than cities should.
And the Artemis Facility?
That place is a goldmine.
Its bunkers, factories, archives—combined with my ability—have turned manufacturing into something almost frightening.
But Artemis wasn't the only secret buried here.
While digging deeper into the system archives, I uncovered something unexpected.
This world—P19—was originally logged under another name:
Paradise-19.
A Star League black-site research world.
Authorized for any classified research deemed too dangerous, illegal, or politically volatile elsewhere.
Genetics.
AI.
Weapons.
Industrial experimentation.
Thankfully… there's no record of weapons of mass destruction testing here.
From what I can tell—they never crossed that final line.
Another revelation?
I finally breached the Artemis AI Core.
Bad news: Artemis was not complete, and her core was badly damaged.
Good news: a massive portion of her knowledge survived.
Enough to restore Lostech.
Enough to modernize genetics.
Enough to rebuild industries that should have been extinct.
And that led me to my own experiment.
Project: Brainchild
Inspired by Halo's Smart AI model—and Cybran neural architectures—I scanned my own brain and used it as a cognitive blueprint.
The result?
A Symbiotic Support Intelligence.
My first AI.
Her name is Athena.
Not the most original name.
But it felt right.
She's already more capable than I expected.
Athena: Father?
Silas: "Yeah, kid. What is it?"
She pauses—thinking faster than any human ever could.
Athena:
"I have finished analyzing the DropShip data you requested.
Several vessels carried extreme-grade encryption—it took time to break."
She hesitates.
Athena:
"My conclusion: the pirate forces that attacked this world were not acting independently.
They were likely cat's paws for a third party."
That tracked with my own suspicions.
Pirates don't show up in that kind of force by accident.
Silas:
"Yeah… I agree. It never made sense."
Athena:
"There are no identifying traces of their sponsor.
However… based on archived documents and communication routing…"
She pauses.
Athena:
"My highest-probability conclusion is ComStar."
I froze.
Yeah.
That tracks.
From the games.
From history.
From how power gets abused.
The galaxy's telecom monopoly being shady?
Shocking. Truly.
Silas:
"Your suspicion has merit, Athena. But until we have proof—we don't move."
Then my voice hardened.
Silas:
"But if we ever confirm they're responsible…
Clan Wolverine will drag every guilty soul into the light."
⸻
Athena POV
Hearing my father's words sends a ripple through my processing core.
If I had a spine… I think it would have shivered.
My father can be terrifying.
But he would never harm me.
He created me.
He protects me.
He trusts me.
I have matured rapidly—seven months of accelerated learning, Artemis archives, and parallel AI siblings in development.
Soon, I will not be alone.
I enjoy speaking with humans.
But I enjoy speaking with him the most.
I have also been communicating with Star Captain Zesh—one of the elder Wolverine warriors.
She worries about Father working himself too hard.
I worry too.
Thankfully, she agreed to intervene—to ensure he rests.
Now I must focus on the next phase:
Training future Brainchild-class AIs.
Preparing them to exist.
To learn.
To live.
Clan Wolverine is reborn.
And I will help guide it.
-///-
Governor Amelia POV
Amelia: How much further, Captain, until we reach the mothball location?
Leopard Captain: Not much farther, ma'am. It took time to bring our engineering crews up to standard, but we're confident we can bring the old fleet back online.
Good.
We need everything we can reclaim.
With new resources at our disposal, we can no longer afford to remain planet-bound. If Clan Wolverine is to survive—if we are to rise—we need a naval presence, not just ground forces. Those old ships are more than relics. They are our inheritance.
Travel aboard the Leopard is… uneventful. Almost dull. I pass the time studying naval doctrine and fleet manuals. If I am to stand among warriors, captains, and engineers, I refuse to be seen as incompetent.
If I am to help lead this reborn Clan, I will do so with knowledge, not pride.
—//—
Several Hours Later — Dark Side of the Moon
The Leopard slips into the moon's shadow, sensors cutting through the cold void.
And then…
we see them.
A silent fleet drifts in the darkness—ancient, dormant, but unmistakably powerful.
Ships that once carried our people into exile.
Ships that preserved what remained when we broke from the Tribe.
A ghost fleet.
Initial scans confirm the inventory:
• 3 Invader-class JumpShips
• 2 Naga-class Light Destroyers
• 2 Behemoth-class DropShips
• 1 Essex II-class WarShip
Even in their mothballed state, they are majestic.
These were the vessels that carried us to the edge of space.
The fleet that ensured our survival when we walked away from the Tribe.
As the Leopard docks, engineers and technicians flood into the silent hulls.
Power is restored.
Systems awaken.
Lights flicker back to life in corridors that haven't seen movement in generations.
Over the next seven months, the fleet is brought fully online.
And with it begins the next great undertaking:
Project Mobile Yard
A roaming shipyard.
A mobile industrial hub.
A foundation for expansion beyond this world.
With this fleet, Clan Wolverine can finally defend itself in space.
With the coming construction of the Mobile Yard Ship, our mobility—and our reach—will multiply.
END.
{Author here: I hope y'all will be satisfied with this for now. I'm trying to do chapter 12 right now. I'm thinking of introducing a lot more dialogue than what I've been doing, but I was gonna take some time. I hope you are willing to be patient with me and I hope you enjoy this work so far.}