Iron With Industry, A Sci-fi tale

" Wha… What the fuck ?" were the first words out of Nathan's mouth. He didn't recognize his surroundings. The rather plush bed, the holographic display next to it. The faint humming coming from the hallway or the rather ominous empty bottle of pills on the end table. 

 [Congratulations, host. The reincarnation program has been successful. Memories from this body's previous owner are being imported now. Please wait a moment.] 

The mechanical feminine voice sounded in Nathan's head. Before Nathan could even think of a response, memories flooded his brain. He was downloaded into the body of Henrich Von Sethe. The second in line to inherit something called the Duchy of Drachenfeld. Also, if these memories could be believed, apparently second sons were expected to undergo a sort of suicide ritual to not threaten the firstborn son. "Well, that's stupid. There are so many ways that could have been handled differently, one of which might still work." Henrich/Nathan got up and started to hide the bottle, tucking it in his pants pocket, which was apparently quite large. He first noticed the rest of his outfit, a rather slick borderline military getup, sharp lines with the colors of pearl red and amber gold highlights., he walked over to the edge of the room. As he walked, the same mechanical voice echoed in his mind again. 

 [Mission Issued, Confront your father and brother, and make them agree to make you a minor noble, Reward: Five Tech Level One Weapon Blueprints, One Tech Level Two Mech Blueprint, and One Tech Level One Destroyer Blueprint. Mission Difficulty: (Starter Mission). Rewards will be issued upon completion and uploaded to the user's implanted neural hud.] 

"Well that's convenient." Thought Nathan/Henrich. As he opened the doors, the humming outside the door stopped, and several people turned to look at him, as if seeing a ghost. 

" My, my lord you are…" a young woman, no older than twenty, said looking at him tears welling in her blue eyes that were now reddened. The memory of who this was hit him harder than a PUBG frying pan. 

"Anna, it will take more than some sleeping pills to take me out, stop crying, you're gonna get it on your uniform." Henrich's voice was comforting as it was steady, and Anna began to wipe away her tears. 

" But how did you survive young master, I saw you take the entire bottle at once." An older male voice called, a man wearing a butler's outfit with graying hair and beard. 

" Helitger, like I just told Anna here, it will take more than a bottle of sleeping pills to kill me, now it seems I've earned my rights, contact my brother and father from the commsuite, I'll be along shortly." With that Henrich walked around the mansion while the memories that rushed into his mind were that of where he was, his personal death mansion. The attendants of his mansion, that being chiefly Anna and Heltiger, and memories of his childhood. Despite knowing that his family ultimately ordered his death, apparently second sons are expected to undergo a sort of ritual before they come of age. This, according to Henrichs inherited memories, did not strain the relationship with his brother and father oddly enough. They spent a lot of time together, which as Henrich recalled was mostly quality time and bonding. He took his time walking to his mansions commsuite. This commsuite made use of relatively unknown tech to achieve actual real time faster than light communication, a rarity and a testament to the status of Henrichs family that such a suite was used in a mansion that was meant to be a tomb, as there were probably less then five in the entire duchy, which numbered roughly 3,000 inhabited solar systems if Henrich's memory was to be believed. How hard could it possibly be to find a spare solar system for him to have. 

" The link has been established," flashed across the neural messaging system, it was from Heltiger. 

" Be right there, who picked up ?" Henrich Messaged back 

" Your father, he suspects that count Darrenvald is already here to claim this planet, he has had his eye on it awhile." 

" Has Count Darrenvald bothered to show up yet? We must know if he is in-system." Henrichs memories again raced, Count Darrenvald was a name he was not familiar with, which probably meant his adoptive father shielded him from any interaction. 

" No not yet, though we estimate in a day or so, anyway young master you should really come to the commsuite." 

" You're right, on my way." Henrich quickly replied as he started walking to the commsuite. The manor was adorned with morning, with the news seemingly not spread by Anna and Helitger, because every time he came across a servant, they were surprised to see him, by the time he got to the commsuite, four or five of the servants had seen him, which meant all of them would now know that he had survived. He noticed them start discretely yet seemingly happily taking down the mourning decorations. 

As he approached, he knocked on the door to the commsuite, he could hear someone yell at the top of his lungs, seeming digitized but not enough to make it unrecognizable. 

" Darrienvald you bastard. First, you have the Gaul to request my son's funeral mansion, but then. But then you have the Gaul to show up to his mansion before he has probably even died and demand its land ?" the voice called. 

" Father, is that any way to talk to your son?" Henrichs footsteps echoed as he entered, adding dramatics to his seemingly shocked face.

" Henrich,Henr- Henrich! You're Alive! How, did you not do the." The man was cut off. 

"No, Father, I am very much alive. Yes I did undertake the ritual, and yes I did survive, ask Heltiger here, he saw the whole thing." 

" Sir, your son had an entire bottle of sleeping pills not four hours ago, and here he is still alive. The ramifications of this. Well " 

" I guess I should ask Henrich, do you have plans, if you do, please do me the courtesy of telling me what they are." Henrich's Father, Hans Von Sethe said, with a slightly concerned tone of voice. It's not unprecedented for second sons who survive their ordeal to then press their claim over their brother, claiming an act of god to rally people to their cause. 

" Well if my brother wants me to renounce my claim, he will have to either kill me himself or pay me. I have no plans on betraying him or seeking the duke title myself, but I won't do nothing and sit here in this manner for two hundred years. 

" What do you want? I can handle the payment. That's not a problem on our end. I assume you want to become corporate ?" 

" I Will Never Be A Corp-rat. Never, I want a solar system with at least one Terran type world, with the capability of possible development of factories and startports, oh, and I wanna keep the commsuite. 

" Well the commsuite won't be an issue, your are of our blood after all. But your request for a terrain-type world is 

" It's either that or you and Riechgraf Schmidt kill me. So I would cough one up, you have a few dozen in the dukedom, one or two must be available. I am not forcing you to do it now, we could wait a year after I come back home if you like. 

" I don't think that's a good idea until we land you and you renounce your claim, I don't want any tensions between you and your brother over nothing. 

" Fair enough. Also, can I tell Darienvald to fuck off myself?" 

" Sure, I don't mind Henrich," 

" On a scale of one through ten, how much am I allowed to piss him off." 

" Henrich, he intends to disrespect you after you are already dead. Piss him off as much as you want, I'll handle anything that comes from it. 

" Understood, by the way, father, I will never forget how good you and the rest of my family were to me while I was growing up. You could have treated me much worse but didn't. Thank you for that." 

The system's voice sounded again in Henrich's mind. 

[Mission updated, Confront your father and brother, and make them agree to make you a minor noble, Reward: Five Tech Level One Weapon Blueprints, One Tech Level Two Mech Blueprint, and One Tech Level One Destroyer Blueprint. Mission Difficulty: (Starter Mission). Rewards will be issued upon completion and uploaded to the user's implanted neural hud. Progress, Father is convinced.]

" Father, another question before I hang up. What do you think my brother will say to my asks." 

" If it weren't for the terrain world, he would agree right away, it's not a matter of convincing him, it's a matter of finding a terrain world for you. Though, I can't say I particularly blame you for your request, it will take some doing." Henrich couldn't detect any hint of blame in his fathers voice 

" Okay, I'll let you get going, if you need anything I'll be here. Auf Wiedersehen " With that the video link was cut. 

" Young Mas- Lord, what are your immediate plans," Heltiger's formal tone was surprising to Henrich, he had always adopted a more friendly demeanor

" For now, I'm going to study. Now that I am actually going to be sticking around, I need to review a few things." 

" Very well, I'll send Anna along, not that this should be surprising to you, lord, but Anna is probably the happiest out of all of us that you have lived." 

" I understand Helti, by the way, make special preparations for Lord Dareinwald, I want to welcome him with a feast if we have the means." 

" Oh, I should be able to scrounge something together lord. You go see Anna, she's waiting for you in the study." Henrich nodded as he left, he walked to the main study of the mansion, a room he had spent little time in, as it was set up as an administration hub, as he walked, the at this point familiar voice sounded in his head, 

[Mission Complete, Confront your father and brother, and make them agree to make you a minor noble, Reward: Five Tech Level One Weapon Blueprints, One Tech Level Two Mech Blueprint, and One Tech Level One Destroyer Blueprint. Mission Difficulty: (Starter Mission). Rewards will be issued upon completion and uploaded to the user's implanted neural hud. Progress, Father is convinced, Brother is convinced, Transferring rewards to Neural Memory bank. New Mission Issued, use the facilities in this manor to confront Count Darienwald, Construct One Hundred Tech Level One weapons and a single Tech Level Two Mech.]

These numbers surprised Henrich, for it implied a scale of battle he was not aware he could pull off here. He pondered this as he walked. Him being an apprentice gunsmith in his past life as Nathan was certainly going to come in handy for the guns, but the mech, he had no idea. He decided to pull up his Neural hud to check the files. There was an assortment of small arms. Three of what would be called an Assault rifle, One of what would be called a marksman rifle, and one side arm. He seemed to notice something, though; these were all gauss weapons. Using magnets to propel their projectiles. But assuming access to the appropriate magnets and batteries. They were actually super simple to make. Effectively, one box tube feeds into one round tube that has magnets, a trigger, and sights on it. Effectively making these things similar to the grease gun. Though perhaps Mp-40s were a better comparison. They almost looked like it. Some of them. The side arm looked like a luger but the sniper rifle looked more like an M24. Henrich was thinking about how odd this all was when he got to the study to see Anna there waiting for him. 

She was turned away from him, but even still he could obviously see she was topless. "Lord Henrich, i've, I've been here just like I said I wou-" 

" Anna, I appreciate you keeping your word, more than you probably know, but right now, we have to prepare the mansion for an attack. I think it's gonna be hard for me to prepare for cunt Derinvald's arrival if I am majorly distracted on two fronts." 

" Derinvalds going to attack us ?" Anna's voice was of concern 

" Yeah, he probably doesn't know this place has a commsuite. So he doesn't know I can call for help, or rather inconveniently for him, that I survived, right? 

Anna turned around still topless and said " So you think he plans to kill you and say you died during your ritual," she then began to put her bra back on. However, that didn't stop Henrich from turning away. He had been used to this, but the part of him that was now Nathan did manage to make him flush. 

" Yes, luckily, I haven't wasted my years. I have some designs that can help us assuming we have any form of workshop here, and put a shirt on, seriously your making it hard to think." 

" Not in the mansion itself, but the estate has several artisan workshops. As for soldiers, we have Fifty of your family's house guards who are self-sufficient in terms of their own supplies and everything. But Darienvald knows they are here most likely, so he is going to plan to deal with them. 

Luka cut her off " So what they are not expecting is our levy, Without a lord here how could one be raised. But with one here, if we had the equipment, one could be raised, correct ?" 

" Yes Lord," Anna started after pulling on her shirt. " There are several artisanal workshops here, they were commissioned to produce goods for your funeral procession. But as they are technically your assets, you can walk into them and tell them what to make." 

" Oh yes I vaguely remember them, one of them was to make two mechs to carry my casket, yes ? Henrich said. 

" Yes, but again, these artisanal workshops are yours, so you have a right to command them." The tone in Anna's voice revealed something that Henrich was too busy to press at the moment, but made a mental note to bring up later.

"Right first things first. Get me the mech workshop on the horn first. I need to talk with them." 

Anna tilted her head, "On the horn ?" 

" yes, I wanna talk to them." 

"Oh, you want me to call them. Sorry, that expression was strange." Anna untilted her head 

The slight raise of Anna's eyebrows meant that she suspected something. But Henrich decided to leave it for now. The idea that He could so easily construct what he needed was suspicious. It almost felt like a tutorial in a video game to him. Right on queue, the system's voice was again in his mind. 

"Host, this body was chosen for you for various factors. However, the difficulty of the starting tasks was heavily considered. They Will not be overly difficult or up for debate until you are established as a higher-ranking Count,." 

So this is on railroads until I get a Solar System under my command huh? Fine, let's see how these workshops do. 

" Lord, I have the Mech workshop in a call, sending you the link now." 

" Thank you, Anna."

A couple of moments later, a link appeared in Henrich's hud, displaying " Incoming call, accept, decline. Henrich thought the word was acceptable. And he suddenly saw a young man, though slightly older than himself, appear. 

" My Lord, how can I serve you?" the young man said 

" You can cut the formalities when you and Anna and I are in private for a start. Secondly, I have a mech design for you; I would like a viability report." Henrichs voice was tinged with annoyance. 

" My lord, we are only equipped to build your mortuary me….. Did you survive the ceremony ?" The look on the young man's face was hard to read, somewhere between confusion and ambition. 

" Yes, which makes you my subject if I remember the contract right. Do not worry. I plan on producing a large quantity of quality arms in the future, including Mechs. You shall not languish under a do-nothing lord." 

The look on the face of the young tec spoke louder than any words possibly could. 

" My, my lord, I will personally arrive to collect the mech blueprints." The young tec then stood, bowed, and cut the call. 

" My lord, Ar-" 

"Anna, you, out of everyone I know, has a right Henrich, I'll not have you going around and wasting time on formality when we are already intimate." 

Anna's face flushed a little with embarrassment. " Henrich, don't You think you might be overreacting a little. Organizing and arming a levy will take a long time, more than we have." 

"You're right, but he'll need an excuse." Henrich replied. 

Anna's face suggested she came to a realization at that moment. "You planning on provoking him, aren't you? 

A sly smile crept across Husk's face, "Yes, I need to make him fight me. I do not plan on being stuck as a marquis for my entire life. Taking his territories will be a good start." 

A silent tension seemed to overtake the room as Anna realized what was being suggested. 

" Henrich, you know enough not to violate guest rights, so what are you planning to tell him." 

" I guess you'll have to wait and see."