Collection
Chapter 14
-VB-
Armas Arlaoskas
Curiosity, Magistracy of Canopus(?)
3002 May
"You sure it'll be alright for us to take this thing back to the Inner Sphere?" Armas asked his brother.
All around the two of them were the rest of the crew, and they stared at Solo Killing's freshly painted hull. Aside from the fact that it was painted in hues of red, it was now a veritable pocket warship. It was as big as most dropships got, except unlike most dropships, this one was armored and armed enough to be a threat to warships, if they ever made a comeback.
Because the armaments on this thing alone…
Solo Killing v.3
Mass: 10,500 tons
Length: 220 meters
Width: 75 meters
Height: 50 meters
Engine:
-1x Alt-AM GN Drive (core)
-2x GTEM 210 Fusion Reactor (auxiliary)
Armor: 180 tons of Lattice-Locked Armor Plate
-Titanium Diboride-Tungsten Carbide weave
Armaments:
-1x Siege Cannon
-1x "Scout" Light N-Gauss
-4x "Breach" LRM-5
-4x "Needler" Rapidfire AC/5-10
-20x point defense machine guns
Crew: 150 max
Escape Pods: 20
Heat Sinks: 150 singles
Cargo: 400 tons
(He wasn't even going to get into whatever those armors were made out of. Or the engine powering the entire ship. He was pretty sure the AM bit stood for antimatter.)
It was a monster. Especially the "light" Naval Gauss Rifle. Those things were supposed to be extinct! But nope! Edward decided he wanted a big honking gun to tell other people to fuck off, so he made himself a big honking gun.
The "Scout" Light N-Gauss was a monster that fired - sorry, magnetically slung - 5 ton tungsten slugs at you-can't-dodge-this speed, it didn't matter what the enemy was. The enemy was dead the moment the N-Gauss locked on. They just hadn't noticed it yet.
Did he think that it was overkill? Yes. Even a ton slug traveling at conventional bullet speed would have been devastating.
His brother didn't think so.
In his words "If it's worth doing, then it's worth overdoing."
If that wasn't all, then it was the fact that Edward intended to advertise manufacturing services.
For that, he had installed what he called a "Modular Manufactory" into the heart of the ship, which was also why the ship grew in length and thicker. It was supposedly composed of only two parts: the Catalytic Refinery and Nanoforge. Edward had tried to explain what both of those were, but most of it flew over everyone's head. They all understood, however, that it was very advanced. Like Star League advanced, if not more.
(All of them also pointedly didn't ask how Edward could do that, not after the ninja-clone thing he kept doing.)
He also automated the entire Modular Manufactory… which was also something most duchies didn't have. Armas remembered how the largest manufacturer on Kendall, Brooks Inc., used horses and cows to drag the conveyor belt.
This was just putting a big fat target on their backs, but oddly enough, everyone trusted Edward to keep them safe.
Or if safety couldn't be guaranteed, then avenge them.
Because over time, they realized that there was no such thing as safety in space. Hell, if they wanted safety, then they wouldn't have joined Edward.
Anyway.
They were about to leave the Curiosity System and head back into League space.
"I think we'll be just fine," Edward replied as he turned around to look at him and the rest of the crew. "I've installed some … interesting additions beyond what you all know from the spec sheet."
"What could have been so much worse than a moving factory that you omitted it from the spec sheet?" Amy asked incredulously. Armas glanced at his wife and noticed her slightly swollen belly. Both of them were sure that she was at least two months pregnant.
Edward grinned.
Armas didn't like that grin.
No one in the crew liked that grin.
What made it worse was that Edward didn't answer him.
(And everyone in the crew also pointedly did not talk about the upgrades he's made to the drones and the mechs. Except Miguel. He wanted to talk about it. Gush about it. But no one else really knew enough about mechs to truly understand the significance like Miguel and Edwards.)
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Thurrock, Free Worlds League
3002 June
Thurrock.
Very boring place.
It used to be part of the Magistracy of Canopus, and they retained a lot of what it meant to be Canopian in the League's fragmentary socio-political state.
This also meant that unlike the regular kind of Leaguers who hated cybernetics to the point of social ostracization for those who got one, people of Thurrock were more accepting of cybernetics and high tech.
This did not mean, however, I found any customers for such jobs here.
Why?
Even if Thurrock was a border world at League-Magistracy border and thus in a semi-permanent state of peace, it was also a very quiet subsistence farming world with very little heavy industry.
What I did find customers for were component production and repairs for farm equipment.
Having already set down on the planet with permission, I met my first customer for my mobile factory and looked at the components they wanted me to make.
I mean… I didn't expect all of my sales to be battlemech, dropship, or even jumpship related, but it was kind of a wake-up call (again) for my first sale to be tractor components. In bulk.
… But it felt good, too. Tractor components, ranging from new copper wires to full-on ICE replacements, helped feed people instead of killing them. Making those kinds of things made me feel better about myself, even if I knew that I would also readily sell war materials.
But now, I had a farm cooperative representative here asking me to do a job for them.
"We were supposed to get a dropship to come in to take rice to Claybrooke," the wiry old man told me with a sigh. "They're already overdue by a whole month, though."
A month was a lot of time, even for jumpship travel. Even at the latest, a jumpship could charge up their KF Drive pretty much within two weeks.
The only reason why a dropship would not have arrived without prior communication was 1) they got taken over by some other company, 2) misjump, or 3) they got stranded on a world without HPG. There's probably a lot more reasons, but those three causes probably made up the majority of the dropship delay, if not outright destruction.
If that was the case…
"How much are you willing to pay me?" I asked him. Claybrooke was only one jump over. It was a quick one day trip for me and my crew.
"1,000 Eagles to transport 500 tons."
So about seven hundred C-bills for what was half a week's worth of work? I kind of liked that.
"Sure."
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Claybrooke, Free Worlds League
3002 June
"Alright, all of you ready to drop out of warp?" I asked through the comms, and I got the affirmatives.
One of the upgrades I've installed was the improvement to the core reactor. Gundam Engineering provided me with the schematics for the regular GN Drive, but since I couldn't get enough of baryonic particles to make that work, I had to fiddle with the antimatter reactor to make a hybrid reactor of a sort. It wasn't as good as the regular GN Drive of its size, but it was far better than anything else in use across the Inner Sphere and the periphery. And probably the Clan Homeworlds, too.
Because of this improved energy source, a journey that used to take three days now only took one day.
But for appearance's sake, we were appearing over the nadir of the star to not draw too much attention to ourselves.
The star in the distance rapidly closed up on us and soon, we were coming to a stop at the nadir…
And my sensors immediately screamed at me that there was another ship within ten thousand kilometers of our position.
And my sensors showed us getting pinged.
They definitely saw us entering the system without a jumpship.
Oh shit.
-VB-
A/N: is it sudden to introduce so many tech? Kind of. It has been, however, three months since they arrived at Curiosity System. For an Inspired Inventor, that's a shit load of time to actually delve into their chosen skills and knowledge. Also, I think this is the first fic where my main character is not the one getting someone pregnant first. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 738
Collection
Chapter 15
-VB-
Armas Arlaoskas
Claybrooke, Free Worlds League
3002 June
Armas paled when he saw the ping, the return ping, and the third ping.
None of those were from him or Edward.
And then he saw Solo Killing pinging.
The ship clunked and propelled forward.
He quickly picked up the intercom radio. "Edward, shouldn't we be jumping out right away?" he asked his brother.
"{Nah.}"
He sputtered at his brother's reply. "But shouldn't we be trying to avoid drawing attention?" he asked hurriedly.
"{Yes.}"
"Edward!"
He heard laughter from the other side. "{You know, you're right. I thought about it. But then I realized something.}"
"Realized what?"
"{If we just move along… then they'll just assume their sensors were wrong.}"
Armas grabbed his face and leaned back into the chair. "Ed, there is no way that people will just ignore us like that! Your ship doesn't look anything like a jumpship!"
"{Yes. If you are close up. Did you notice how much longer my ship became?"}
Armas thought about it. Looked out of his own Humpty Dumpty's cockpit window.
"Ah."
"{You get it, and I think I forgot until I remembered half-panicked,}" Edward chuckled. "{Solo Killing is now longer than the smallest jumpship within the Inner Sphere.}"
Amy, who was sitting next to her, raised her eyebrows in surprise when she heard it.
Yes.
Solo Killing was now officially big enough to be mistaken for a jumpship from a distance, especially with how Humpty Dumpty hung onto it.
"{We'll just have to limit any inner system warp travel.}"
Everyone on the ship groaned at that. They got used to traveling back and forth easily using Solo Killing's warp drive. Now, they were going to have to travel back and forth the star and their destination the slow way around.
Thankfully, this meant that everyone would have a lot of downtime.
But it was a convenience they wouldn't have anymore until they revealed more of their means.
Armas let out a sigh of relief.
This … was probably the best action to take in their situation. Acting normal, as it were.
-VB-
Amy Arlaoskas
Claybrooke, Free Worlds League
3002 July
It's been two days since they arrived in the system, and so far, nothing happened.
While she wasn't sure if this meant they were out of the woods completely, she was sure that at the very least a lack of aerospace fighters circling them meant that things were good.
Hopefully.
The need to hide their advanced technology just inconvenienced them. The travel time between Claybrooke and Claybrooke VI was nearly three weeks long. Sure, Edward set a tough speed at nearly 3 G's, but the "inertia dampener" built into both ships prevented them from feeling it in full.
(Again, like with anything else that Edward did, no one asked anything, because his fantastical technology was … just out of the Inner Sphere.)
It was going to take them another five days before they arrived.
She sighed as her hand subconsciously ran over her pregnant belly.
She hoped that Claybrooke would have a pretty decent hospital for her to check-.
Wait, what was she thinking?
She waddled over to the nearest intercom radio, picked it up, and called Edward.
"{Yallo?}"
"Ed? It's Amy."
"{Oh. What's up?}"
"... Do you have a way of making medical equipment?"
There was a moment of silence on the other side.
"{I didn't before. I do now.}" She tried not to think of the implications of his seemingly casual statement. "{It's about the baby, right?}"
"Yes…"
"{Cool. Come over to my ship in about a day. I'll have them ready.}"
And then he hung up on her.
With a resigned sigh she was all too familiar with, she put the radio back and waddled back to her and Armas's bed.
---
Edward Arlaoskas
I don't know why or how but Amy asked her question right as I got a point.
And while I could have spent it on any other tech fields, I realized that I have been neglecting many other fields of technology and knowledge.
So I dumped that new point into a new field: Medical Technology.
Combined with what I knew personally before the Inspired Inventor and what I knew to make with it, I now had a whole avenue of tools I could make.
Sure, I couldn't make anything like medigel for general purpose healing, but a fetal ultrasound machine?
I could make them without any problem.
I just … needed to test it out a few times to make it safe for human use.
---
It worked out fine!
And I got to see my nephew's little toes!
-VB-
Count John de Claybrooke
Claybrooke VI, Free Worlds League
3002 July
He looked at the latest letter from Duchess Humphreys and knew that its content was more or less same as those before it.
An offer of a low interest loan to help him wipe his debt.
"Why does that bitch constantly keep pushing this issue?!" John snapped as he ripped the letter and hurled it at the archaic fireplace inside his office.
With a heavy sigh, he let his head drop into his hands.
He knew why Duchess Humphreys was pushing the issue; the deadline for the next payment was closing in. He's pulled every trick he had up his sleeves to push the deadline back again and again, and now… he was at the end of his ropes.
His house and world were close to bankruptcy. In fact, bankruptcy was only three months away, but because the situation in his world was so dire, he didn't have any more means to keep it at bay.
There was a knock on the door.
"Milord."
He looked up from his desk. "Come in."
His secretary came in. "We have communication from an approaching jumpship."
"And? Is it the debtors again?" he asked irritably.
"No, sir. The captain of the jumpship is claiming to be a mercenary company captain… and a mobile manufacturer here to deliver some goods from Thurrock."
John blinked. "Mobile… manufacturer?"
"Yes, sir. They claim to be capable of making quite a number of things in exchange for C-Bills or refined resources."
"Like what?"
"Well, sir, their catalog includes Phoenix Hawk-1D, tanks of unknown origin, and any component we can provide a decent to pristine example of."
"A mobile factory?"
"It seems so, sir."
"... and how much are they exactly charging for that Phoenix Hawk?"
"Only two million C-Bills."
"BUY THEM ALL!"
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Claybrooke VI, Free Worlds League
3002 August
The first order we got came in even before I sent Armas down to the planet to deliver the contracted goods.
It came directly from the civilian ruler of the planet, one Count John de Claybrooke, with an order for "all Phoenix Hawks" we were willing to sell. I chose Phoenix Hawk as the mech to sell because I had an example schematic I saved from tinkering with the Phoenix Hawk I earned before modifying and handing it to Miguel.
I mean, I didn't plan to use it like this, but I was now.
"Well, no. I'm only selling two units per planet I stop by," I told Majordomo Michelson as I steered my ship toward the asteroid belt between the third and fourth planet. It made for a good place to stop by. "And the reason why it's so cheap for him is because if you read the electronic copy of our catalog, then you would have seen at the front most page that who makes the order matters. Since the count ordered it, he is also giving me mining rights to the entire system for the duration of my stay. That's why it's half-price."
"...?"
"No, we won't be operating on any planet. We'll mostly be operating around gas giants and asteroid fields. Even debris fields, if there are any. Already refined scrap is still refined material that can be more readily processed into a product."
"..."
"No, I don't negotiate on the mining rights."
"..."
"So you don't want to buy the Phoenix Hawk? Then just say so instead of complaining about whether or not I'm licensed to do so. It's not like the original manufacturer is alive."
"..."
"Alright. Two Phoenix Hawks, then? Got it. I'll have them delivered to you by … the beginning of September."
I hung up and picked up the intercom radio. "We've got our first job, people! Two Phoenix Hawks! We're gonna deliver it all packaged up IKEA style!"
"{... What is IKEA?}" Like
Collection
Chapter 16
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Claybrooke System, Free Worlds League
3002 August
I blinked as I got another point.
I wondered what trouble was going to come my way that I got that point. Or maybe there wouldn't be trouble. The way the points rains down on me felt random and arbitrary.
I took only a few moments before dumping that point into Medical Technology, bringing up to 2 points total. This meant that I was now able to start making much more complex medical devices.
Now, if 1 point into Medical Technology gave me the knowledge and schematics to build ultrasound device, then what could I make with 2 points into it?
My mind was quick to tell me. It gave me a blueprint to build a device - a factory, really - that combines multiple ingredients through two dozen processes that would end up as a topical cream for clotting, antisepsis, and wound sealing.
The Medigel.
… The stuff that could, if advanced enough, act like a health pack in video games.
Holy shit.
But goddamnit, I needed at least the same amount of space as the entire Solo Killing's manufacturing hub just to set up the factory! UGH!
… That just meant that I needed to build up my ship. Make it bigger. I had the means. I had the manpower. I had the science.
I let out a low laugh that started getting louder and louder.
---
Armas Arlaoskas
Armas stared at Edward as his brother started laughing out loud randomly during crew dinner time.
Like…
Bruh. You're scaring us.
He glanced around, and didn't see anyone reacting in any particular way. The most reaction he saw was Amy raising an eyebrow before going back to her "baby-strengthening nutritious meal" and the rest of the crew just ignored him.
… Okay, so maybe his brother only scared him.
But could he be faulted for that? His brother could be crazy at times and his most recent solution to any and all problems seemed to be "build bigger and badder warship."
Because if Solo Killing was now jumpship size, then it fit the warship category.
"What are you thinking about this time?" he asked his brother, resignedly.
Edward looked at him, stopping his laugh just for a moment, and then he grinned. "Well, I'll have to expand the ship again."
Armas didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow. Wasn't ship expansions - both size and numbers - always something on his brother's mind?
"For what?" he asked instead.
"See, I thought of something new. Something … productive and helpful. Something that everyone will want."
"Mechs?"
"Better. Medicine. Even better, emergency medicine."
"... Like what?"
"See, I thought about how to apply what I knew about medicine. Half of the problem of medicine was figuring out how to save someone. This is even more true when it comes to the battlefield or emergency situations. So … medigel. It'll be a topical cream, or maybe even a foam, that'll disinfect, clot, and seal wounds all in one-go." Then he paused. "But the factory to make it on any industrial scale will require doubling the size of Solo Killing right now, so I will have to delay that."
"Why not just make a new ship?"
Armas and Edward both turned to look at Sato, one of three mechanics aboard Humpty Dumpty. The caucasian Hindu from Campoleone looked like they were the ones not seeing something obvious. "Look," he continued after the inquiring looks from the two of them. "It's obvious that you can't do everything on one ship, right?"
This time, Armas turned to look at Ed.
And Ed looked like he was about to disagree. He shook his head at Ed, who seemed to get the hint, and turned back to look at the oh-so-mistaken mechanic.
He seemed to get that, but continued on anyway.
"So why not build a … factory dropship? Like a dedicated one and not like Solo Killing? Building more ships would also give you more flexibility, right?"
"If we want to think about this on a strategic sense, then yes," Edward hummed. "Three ships certainly loook scarier than two, and moving the factory already inside Solo Killing to another ship will allow me to use that same space for more firepower."
More firepower?
Brother, you have enough firepower on that thing to bombard a world back to the Stone Ages.
"So having a dedicated factory ship will be good, right?"
Edward closed his eyes and leaned back. His bulky arms crossed over his chest, and tilted the chair ever so slightly back.
This was his Sitting Thinking Pose #2.
After a long time, Ed opened his eyes and looked at Sato.
"... Why? Thinking about becoming a captain yourself?" Ed asked.
"I might be," he replied. "It looks like a good gig from what Armas and Amy do and get."
---
Amy Arlaoskas
She wasn't sure if she liked what she was hearing.
Sato was … not someone they could trust easily. It wasn't that he wasn't untrustworthy; he kept the crew's secret so far.
But it was another thing to give someone unconnected to them a command of a ship, even if said ship probably won't have the jumping or warping capabilities.
At the same time, she knew that not giving each member of the crew something could mean that they might see reason to betray them later down the road for the insult.
After all, they gave Edward their trust and kept the secret but nothing else in return? The ones most likely to feel about this was Sato, and him bringing this up pointed to him wanting more. The mechanic had more ambition than he made himself seem like.
She glanced at Armas, who saw her glancing.
She shook her head discreetly. Thankfully, she was on the same side of the mess hall table as Sato, so he couldn't see her shaking her head.
Edward saw her shaking her head, too.
Edward leaned back. "I'll have to think about it," he said out loud.
"Sure," Sato, and not anyone else, said.
It became clear to Amy that Sato might have been waiting for a moment like this. That he might have been waiting for a chance for a bigger reward instead of a single mech or some components.
But she also couldn't allow herself to become paranoid and suspect him for everything he'd yet to do.
She needed to talk to Armas and Edward in private about this.
---
Later that day while the mining drones hauled in ore to be processed in Solo Killing, she met with Edward and Armas aboard the said ship to talk about exactly that.
And the moment they were in a secure room, she didn't waste any time.
"I think whatever it is that lets you do all of this, you need to start investing in intelligence security," Amy said to Edward as seriously as she can.
Edward was a good teacher. When he wasn't making a decent textbook on how to operate, maintain, and fix dropships, he personally taught each of the crew something that they wanted to know more that he knew about.
While her love had focused on becoming a better captain, she dropped working as a mechanic and took up more serious research and education.
Like intelligence.
Because, somehow, Edward had special forces training. And Armas was confused about how he had that training. Like it was scary how deadly Edward was with his hands, never mind with his technological skills and know-how.
But he was neglecting areas he shouldn't have been. Perhaps the trust the crew shared - so far- had made him lower his guard.
So she needed a new way to go about encouraging him and her love to do something to improve their current rather lax security problem.
"... Why are you recommending that today?" Edward asked from the captain's seat of Solo Killing with him facing them.
"Because whether you make a new ship or not, you'll eventually get more crew, and unlike before, you're going to famous enough - and a big enough of a target - to warrant spies. You need a way to catch them if they were to act within the ships," she reasoned, even if that wasn't her true reason.
No, she wanted Edward to start spying everyone who wasn't an Arlaoskas or had no strong loyalty to them.
Like Miguel. Miguel was loyal to Edward. Was he fanatical? No, but if the situation truly called for it and his own chances of survival was slim, then the atheist latino might go out in a blaze of glory to save Edward. If the mechwarrior got a bit more interest outside of being the best mechwarrior or something stupid like that, then he might make for a good captain.
But he wasn't.
The other two crew members, Riley and Danielle, did have reasons to be more loyal to them than Sato did. Aside from the fact that both of them were Armas's friends (her love was sociable like that), neither held ambition.
In fact, Danielle, the mechanic who came with them from Kendall, just wanted more fun things to play with.
Edward hummed. "Makes sense. We will need stricter security protocols, too. What do you think, Arm?"
"What my wife says," he replied with a shrug. "You're the one teaching her special forces stuff."
"Bah," Edward grunted. "Basic counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, and counter-insurgency are part of special forces training."
That made Armas pause. "Wait, that's what you're teaching her?"
"Yes? She asked."
"Huh," Armas muttered before turning to her. "What do you do with them?"
"... It's just more interesting than cold, heartless machines." Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 690 others
Collection
Chapter 17
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Claybrooke VI, Free Worlds League
3002 September
After two months, I finished printing out two Phoenix Hawk PHX-1D parts. Once that was done, I landed on Claybrooke to deliver the mechs.
The Humpty Dumpty and Solo Killing landed separately, and I had my masked and helmeted shadow clones (ninjutsu for the win!) haul out the boxed up Phoenix Hawks with a frankenmech "industrialmech" I slapdashed together.
From the uniform and the multiple awards and tassels the guy wore, I assumed the ducal representative they sent me was at least up there in the middle ranks; they didn't send some low rank logistics sergeant to take care of the transaction.
"Why in a box?" he asked me.
"Hmm?" I uttered as I turned around. I've been marshallering, wearing the appropriate reflective, neon yellow and orange safety jacket and waving the dimly lit red batons. "Oh, that's because that's just how we deliver the mechs. It's not like every planet will have a mechwarrior or someone who can operate a mech every time we land there, so we decided to just box them up. Makes it easier to move them around in most places."
I didn't mention that there was no "we" here, just me who decided that on a whim because I wanted to ship them like an IKEA product.
"I will be having my mechtechs checking the products."
"Go right ahead," I said as I instructed my clones to set the freight boxes down. There were eight boxes in total, four boxes for each mech.
The guy gestured for his people to go and start checking.
And while that happened, he decided to strike up a conversation with me.
"So you're the owner of the … ships."
"Yes," I hummed.
"Who did you go to to get that Leopard modified like that for ASF?" he asked me.
I decided to not correct him on his assumption. "I did it myself."
He blinked and turned to look at me fully. "You?"
"Yup," I replied. It wasn't like people weren't going to find out if they decided to look into me. And besides, Claybrooke was not a particularly important place with important people. "It took me several months with appropriate help."
"Hmm. That's a shame. Putting a dropship out of commission for that long just for aerospace fighters isn't good enough of a reason in my opinion. I certainly can't afford to do that."
Nobody asked for your opinion.
"It's also expensive. You essentially need at least one and a half Leopards to do it. And even then, if you don't have the right components and hull parts, then you'll need to get parts elsewhere."
"Sounds expensive."
"It was."
Strictly speaking, I could have earned tens of millions of C-Bills from fixing and selling the dropship that went into renovating Humpty Dumpty, so the opportunity cost of making the Beehive-class dropship was ten million C-Bills at the minimum as well as my time spent making it.
Yeah, expensive was right.
"But you are selling the Phoenix Hawks for so cheap?"
"Like I told the guy I negotiated with," I drawled. "When you signed the contract, you didn't just pay me with C-Bills. You also paid me with a lifetime mining rights in the entire system, perpetual and inheritable but with limited yearly tonnage mineables."
He looked surprised. "Ah. I admit… I didn't read the contract in full."
I blinked. "Why would you read the contract? Aren't you the count's majordomo or something?"
He raised an eyebrow. "No. I am the count. John de Claybrooke. Welcome to my world," he said as he extended a hand toward me.
"Oh. Well. A pleasure to meet you, count," I shook his hand. Then I sniffed. "You didn't read the contract?"
He sighed.
-VB-
John de Claybrooke, Count of Claybrooke VI
Claybrooke VI, Free Worlds League
3002 September
Even without a report from the mechtechs and the mechwarriors, John knew that the two Phoenix Hawks currently being tested were worth far more than what he paid for.
And that was with him considering the value of a thirty year long mining right to the entire system except for Claybrooke VI itself.
Because those Phoenix Hawks were new. Like new new. New in a way that most people just didn't see mechs.
And he got his hands on two factory new medium mechs for the price of one light mech.
Hell, he could sell just one to pay off half of his debt! And he just might.
'A mobile factory, huh,' he pondered.
He wanted to know how something like that existed. He was ready to declare it a Star League era LosTech, but one look at the jumpship that had landed on his spaceport showed him plenty enough that, no, it was not a LosTech.
It was a new technology.
It was something that could change a lot of things. A factory that could be on the move was a factory that wasn't under attack by either the Lyrans or the Capellans. There was a strategic value to that that the Captain-General might sacrifice multiple worlds like Claybrooke to get his hands on.
Which was obviously why he wouldn't do it.
Aside from the fact that Claybrooke was closer to the Duchy of Andurien - geographically, politically, financially, economically, and personally (because goddamn that night was a good young night) - and the fact that he was currently benefiting from allowing the man and his strange mobile factory to sell his goods on his world, he would get nothing from reporting this or trying to take the factory for himself.
Oh, the thought did come up for a second. Who wouldn't after he realized just how valuable a mobile factory was? Hell, it might even be as important as his world, if not more.
But there was a problem with that.
One, he didn't know how to operate the factory. For all he knew, it was black boxed to hell and back, and the only thing he would gain from killing the owner and taking it for himself would be a loss of reputation and even censure from above.
Two, he saw big guns on that ship, and not knowing how fatalistic, loyal, or cowardly the owner and his crew could be, gambling against big guns like that was just a fancier way of courting death via suicide. Thanks. But no thanks.
Three, keeping a good relationship with this "Edward Arlaoskas" would mean that when someone inevitably tries to be greedy and Edward beats the shit out of them with those big honking guns, then he'll remember that there was an honorable noble who he had a lasting agreement with already.
The problem was how the Duchy of Andurien would see this.
Duchess Catherine Humphreys would do her utmost to try to get her hands on the mobile factory, and she wasn't above the cloak and dagger subtlety. And she was stubborn as fuck, too, so if she ever decided that she wants the factory, then she'll do everything in her power to get it.
This was the "No" Woman of the League's Parliament, after all. If anything ever even looked like it might disadvantage her duchy, then she automatically said no.
What people forgot was that her one track mind applied inversely as well. If anyone looked like it might given even an iota of advantage for her duchy, then she also automatically said yes.
He could respect that obstinate bullheadedness… if he wasn't in her path as well.
One of the ways she expanded her influence and that of her duchy was by reeling back in worlds that broke away from the duchy after the Second Succession War. See, after the Second Succession War, the Duchy of Andurien lost a lot of power that it used to have as worlds broke away from their larger polities, which was allowed thanks to how … decentralized the League was.
Yes, decentralized was a good word. Better than irredeemably clusterfuck.
Claybrooke had been one of those worlds, and the duchess would be irate when she finds out that he grew its power.
Oh, he was dancing inside.
He knew who had been behind the increasing debtors and interests hounding after him. He knew whose shell corporation owned his debtors.
He fucking knew.
He wasn't going to get folded in so silently, not when God just dropped this blessing right into his lap.
So. Arlaoskas was leaving already, he had two pristine medium mechs, and gave out a perpetual mining right.
How was he going to leverage this to improve his position?
-VB-
Miguel Nohara, mechwarrior of Arlaoskas Brothers
Claybrooke VI orbit, Free Worlds League
3002 September
His Phoenix Hawk was his Phoenix Hawk.
He even had the paperworks to prove it since the captain signed it to him.
But this didn't mean that he only piloted his mech, and Edward wanted him to test out the "Wasp" against the local ASF.
There was a reason for this and that reason was more modifications that Edward made to it. He also changed the class of the mech into "Bee-class Void Interceptor Battlemech."
Beehive and Bee. There was a theme there that Edward was silently pushing.
Anyway, the local garrison's commander and the count both agreed to the joint exercise, and so he was in orbit of the planet along with Humpty Dumpty and the Little Arlaoskas.
His mission was simple: defend Humpty Dumpty by himself.
He lazily spun the Bee around, and it and the dropship kind of did look like their namesakes. Between the enlarged legs with their built-in thrusters and a pair of large primary thrusters attached to its back, the Bee did look kind of like an insect. The soft yellow glow of the drone bays of the Humpty Dumpty also gave off the bee aesthetic.
Now, if he could only convince Edward, Armas, and Amy to change the front orange paint to something else.
"Dumpty to Bee1. I have the enemy on radar. Feeding you the data."
Within seconds, the left console beeped as he saw a slowly rotating 3D view of his current situation. There were a few debris that Humpty Dumpty's powerful sensors caught; some wheezed by while others stuck around like eye floaters.
And he also saw the quickly approaching ASF lance. He didn't know what their specs were, but that didn't matter.
He waited until they came within thirty kilometers and sprung into action.
The Bee buzzed within his cockpit as it rocketed forward to meet his temporary enemies.
Half of the lance broke off at twenty kilometer mark to deal with him while the other half tried to bank around. He immediately … opened fire.
The side panels along his legs slid open and "smart" rockets spewed out like an LRM. These were warhead-less rockets for training.
At fifteen kilometers, the ASF opened fire on him. He didn't even bother to duck and weave. He just pushed the Bee even faster, and just outsped his own trajectory.
As silent as the combat was, he felt exhilarated at the speeds he was moving around in. As his speedometer went up and felt the G's pushing up on him, he gritted his teeth as he shot past the two attacking ASF, who had to deal with the rockets he left behind, and turned on a time.
Then he raised his arms up and fired.
Not really.
Currently, it was in safety training mode, so all it did was tell his mech to fire directed radar towards the ASF.
Their ASF had to make a much wider turn to get at him, but he was already using his thrusters to making a tighter "turn" while still facing them. And then he shot past them as he built acceleration faster than they bled it off to face him.
Now, he was after the two who went after the dropship.
And -!
---
"What did we learn?" Edward asked him some three hours later.
"Not to pull too many G's."
"Good."
He still won.
-VB-
Allen Rusenstein
Hilton Head, ComStar
3002 September
"... A mobile factory?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes, Primus," Precentor Mu, Ellison Terans, replied promptly. "The owner and operator of this mobile factory, Edward Arlaoskas, is also the head of his mercenary company and innovator behind new designs that he has been keeping to himself. If you can turn to page 4 of the report, then you can see that he converted an Achilles-class assault dropship into a slightly smaller but much deadlier anti-dropship assault dropship. It was with this dropship, the same dropship that now must have a KF Drive installed and enlarged to allow for jumps independent of dedicated jumpships, that he took out multiple Union-class dropships at the start of his journey from Kendall."
Allen flipped to the aforementioned page and read what the ROM Precentor (not Precentor ROM but a precentor within ROM) found.
A seemingly normal man raised in the rural periphery of the Free Worlds League got booted out of his college after accidentally manslaughtering his classmates that attacked him.
Boarded a dropship but got attacked by pirates.
Killed all of the said pirates in their dropship and took it over, which was allowed in the League's laws as he was the sole combatant.
Took that dropship back to Kendall, his homeworld, renovated it to an "anti-dropship assault dropship" as Precentor MU XII put it, and started a mercenary company… with only that dropship.
Destroyed a Marian Hegemony raid.
Annihilated the pirates and their mechs on Gatchina.
Disappeared for half a year within the Magistracy of Canopus and then came back to the League with further modified dropship-turned-jumpship as well as another dropship, this one which he earned on Gatchina as part of his salvage.
Oh, and that jumpship was also a mobile factory.
This young man's life was something out of a Mary Sue fiction.
"... And what else have you found?"
"Please refer to page 8. It has a list of technological improvements that he has shown off."
Allen did.
After ten minutes, he closed the report, set his glasses down, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"This is troubling."
"It is, Primus, which is why I am here to ask you to consider hiring mercenaries or pirates to remove the man from the Inner Sphere."
He put his hand down and stared at Precentor Mu. "... You believe it warrants such a response."
"I believe it does."
"But his ship can take out dropships."
"We will simply have to hire mercenary companies that have Achilles dropships of their own. Or alerting the Capellan Confederation to a potential strategically valuable asset in League space that they cannot allow to go uncontested and that at least half a dozen Achilles dropships will be needed to take this space threat out."
He thought about it.
Was it necessary? While he was not a believer in the Holy Shroud and its necessity, he was someone who knew that the Scavenger Lords needed to be managed. Allowing the League to gain a technological upper hand wouldn't matter if they were weak like the Capellan Confederation, but right now, they weren't weak. They were strong, having taken many worlds from the latter. While the mobile factory itself probably wasn't a problem, a man capable of combining a factory and jumpship together into what was essentially a mini-yardship was a problem for the balance of power.
If that young man ever decided to fully support the League…
"Do you think you can do it?"
"I can make the arrangement, Primus."
After a long contemplation period, he finally nodded.
"Do it." Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 677
Collection
Chapter 18
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Cursa, Free Worlds League
3002 October
Our latest journey brought us to Cursa II, an arid world orbiting a yellow star. This star system and its world was the first world that was a part of the Duchy of Andurien, which I knew was headed by a very … independence minded woman. She and her progeny would see her duchy splitting on and off from the Free Worlds League over the centuries to come.
But that wasn't why I was here.
No, I was here to relax with my crew.
Cursa was a very weak and underpopulated world even when compared to the League's periphery. There was a very small tourism industry here around their tropical beaches. Something about cheap labor, cheap food, and cheap women. Or that's what the spaceport bar goers talked about when the rest of my crew asked for potential destinations.
And I thought… why not?
Not like I had anything better to do.
With the money we got and time, so why not, right?
For the first time in a long time, I found myself in nothing but a pair of swimmer shorts and laying down on a picnic blanket on a sunny tropical beach.
But instead of the light brown sand that I was used to both of my lives, the sand here was orange. Something about the mineral composition of the planet? Whatever it was, it made Cursa a very interesting sight from orbit and on the surface. However, this only meant that Cursa was a horrible place to do any kind of basic industry.
Yes, not even agriculture. The place didn't have any native plants or animals, which meant that the planet's soil was not ready for any kind of extensive farming. Hell, even grazing was hard here because plants didn't quite grow right.
Star League supposedly began some kind of terraforming process here, but it never went beyond the initial stage of prepping the atmosphere because, well, the Star League fell with the death of First Lord Richard Cameron.
So people could breathe here better than when they first colonized the place.
But that was about it. The most amount of food they could grow here was just enough for maybe a hundred thousand people.
And considering that an acre of land in the American Midwest, Californian Central Valley, France, Ukraine, Korea, Malaysia, or even inhospitable Norwegian highlands could produce at a minimum a ton of rice and when a ton of any grain could probably feed three to five people for a year?
That's like saying that this whole planet's agricultural output equalled to no more than twenty-five thousand acres on Earth, but most likely less than a quarter of that because there were very healthy lands like Californian Central Valley where a single acre could produce seven tons of foodstuff.
A whole planet!
Worth less than five thousand normal farmland acres on Earth or any other agriculturally productive planet like Kendall, my homeworld!
It just blew my mind.
Cursa … you definitely cursed anyone dumb enough to settle down permanently on you.
But settle they did, and despite the fact that Cursa should only have a hundred thousand people, it had a "healthy" population of two point seven million.
How?
Hydroponics.
Yup.
A whole planet that lived off of hydroponics, algae farming, and trash recycling.
Did I mention trash recycling before?
Because apparently, that's the other main industry of this planet. They had a whole continent where people from other worlds could throw their trash away, and the poor would receive a pittance each day to go through the trash to pick out still useful bits. Like animal fat.
Because people here considered rotten animal fat to be useful. Because anything was useful when they lived on a planet that couldn't grow anything. Because even rotten animal fat could be rendered to make candle or soap or something more useful than rotten animal fat.
Do you know how rancid rotten fat is?
Ugh.
There were times that I thanked myself for choosing to work with machines.
… But then again, rotten food doesn't chomp off limbs because someone calibrated something incorrectly. Machines do. Sometimes, they do it even when they were calibrated correctly.
*sniff*
Where was I going with this?
Oh. Right. Cursa, tropical resort, money and time available, and rest.
Yeah, we were taking time off of constantly working. I had my clones watching the ships while the "core" crew was out on the beach or just lazing around in nearby resorts.
(None of them knew that I had even more clones out and about watching them while using Naruto ninjutsu bullshit to keep tabs on them).
Knowing what I did, the palm trees felt … a little artificial. The entire greenery around the resort felt artificial.
But most of them didn't care, and the only person who did was Sato who only cared because "they didn't fit well with the aesthetic of the resort's design choices."
As for me…
I picked up my cup and took a sip of my chilled coffee.
Yeah. Just lazying about like this after constantly working for over a year felt great.
-VB-
Miguel Nohara
Cursa, Free Worlds League
3002 November
"Of course, some bastard had to mess it up," Edward grumbled as he glared at the screen of a sensor called "D-Scanner."
Miguel had asked for how a scanner that can detect objects from fourteen astronomical units worked, but he gave up trying to understand it no more than five minutes into the lecture when Edward started talking about gravitonics, greek letter equations, and tachyon space tunneling and refraction.
As for why Edward was grumbling, it was because of the new threat on the horizon.
Three hours ago, raid sirens rang across the entire planet for what was probably the first time in everyone's lives there. How did he know this? Even the locals were confused by what they heard. Still, the moment raid sirens rang through the resort, the crew returned to their respective ships.
And while they waited for more information, the local news stations reported that this was the first ever raid in the last two generations that the planet ever got!
Edward also completely ignored the calls from the local planetary government.
He had no doubt that those were calls begging him to help defend the planet.
"It's suspicious how a mercenary company is hitting Cursa when there's nothing worth taking here," Miguel hummed contemplatively. But in his mind, he was already dancing across the plains inside his Phoenix Hawk to hit enemies who had no idea what they were fighting.
"Well, it's obvious why," Edward huffed as he leaned back into his chair and spun around. "They want Solo Killing and Humpty Dumpty."
"{So are we calling the vacation short?}" Amy asked from inside the Humpty Dumpty.
"We'll have to," he growled.
"Are we fighting them?" Miguel asked.
Edward glanced at him with annoyance clear as day. The annoyance wasn't directed at him.
"Depends. If they chase after us, then we'll fight them. We're taking off within the next hour. Does anyone have objections?"
There were none.
---
Armas
They took off from Cursa within the hour just like Edward said they would, and broke out of the atmosphere and the planet's gravity well only half an hour after that.
As they boosted away from Cursa and also away from the approaching mercenary company, Armas watched the sensors like a hawk as he waited for the mercenary company's Intruder-class dropship's readings to change.
He had no doubt that Ed already had his ship's sensors locked onto that ship as well, but he felt better keeping an eye on it himself. It wasn't like there was anything else to do with how his ship remained clamped to Solo Killing.
"... Edward used to be more paranoid about people coming after him," Amy spoke up from his left.
He glanced at her.
Of course, he knew it, too.
"Yeah, I know. It's why we only hired Sato instead of a whole crew for ships of our sizes."
A Leopard-class dropship was supposed to have at least nine personnel aboard to manage everything from piloting to gunnery. This didn't count the bay personnel, the people who were responsible for taking care of mechs and any other equipment related to the bays.
Instead of fifteen plus people running the Leopard, they only had five people aboard Humpty Dumpty because everything else was automated.
And Armas wondered if that focus on automation was because Edward didn't want anyone aboard. Like, hiring Sato had been a compromise.
The sensors pinged with new information.
He quickly focused back on the sensor readings displayed on his computer monitor and waited as Humpty Dumpty's less powerful computer exchanged data with Solo Killing to make sure there were no discrepancies between their readings.
After but a moment, the results for their half hour scans came back.
The mercenary company's Intruder-class dropship was changing course.
Toward them.
Armas closed his eyes and sighed in frustration.
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," he muttered.
"... You need to ready the ship for combat," Amy gently reminded him.
"I know," he said before picking up the radio and calling Ed.
Ed answered quickly.
"Ed?"
"{Yeah?}"
"We're fighting, right? Not just running away?"
"{Yeah. Gotta send a good message or we'll just have more and more of them chasing after us,}" he replied.
"Alright. I'm detaching the ship and deploying the drones for combat."
And deploy they did.
Both Solo Killing and Humpty Dumpty quickly brought themselves to a stop, turned around, and flew to meet the mercenaries after their lives.
Humpty Dumpty's already depressurized drone bays slid open with silent clunks and Wasp interceptor drones flew out by the dozens. They flew out, and like their namesake, swarmed the Beehive like angry wasps.
Armas watched the external camera feeds on his screen as two "void" mechs flew out of Solo Killing as well.
They were ready… to send a message. Like Quote
Collection
Chapter 19
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Space was big. Space was silent. Space was indifferent.
That was also true for humanity.
Humanity was big, silent, and indifferent.
It was why people didn't trust in humanity but the individuals within it. We made social connections, deepened our bonds, and fought each other. Because even the act of violence helped to grow a bond, though the question then was whether you wanted that bond or not or if the bond in question was one you can even modify.
I trusted my family.
I trusted my crew, even Sato, the ambitious guy. I've seen enough evidence (or lack thereof) to show me that I could trust them.
But …
But …
Events like the Intruder-class dropship burning toward us with ill intent made me paranoid.
If it was ComStar, then I didn't need to feel the paranoia. After all, just the act of arriving at an inhabited star system with enough people will mean that the local HPG station will make a note of my presence.
But.
But.
If it was anyone else, then it became a problem.
Because I understood that it wouldn't just be the big Successor Lords who might want me but all manners of people. A megacorporation might want my expertise. Pirates might want my ship.
Everyone would want something of me.
That was life.
But for people who wanted to take and not give anything in return, I'll make sure to make an example out of each and every one of them.
Starting with this one.
BUT!
Lots of butts in my thought process.
I wanted to give them a chance to turn around and leave with their lives intact.
I picked up my radio, held it to my lips, and waited for a single second before I turned it on. "This is Solo Killing to the approaching Intruder-class dropship. Please respond, over."
Silence.
I repeated. "This is Solo Killing to the approaching Intruder-class dropship. We are currently already ready to fight, and if you are not blind, then you should see just how much stuff is around me. Please respond, over."
Silence.
I waited for a bit longer. It wouldn't hurt to give them five minutes. Space was big, and travel was slow.
For them.
Silence.
I started tapping my feet and my fingers drummed on the arms of my captain's chair. I crossed my fingers after a minute, and three shadow clones popped out - my current maximum when you added up the clone currently piloting the other mech out there that wasn't Miguel's. They quickly took up position all around the bridge of the ship, putting themselves in control of various systems of Solo Killing, and we waited.
No response.
Two minutes passed.
I tried just one more time. But this time, my clone made sure to record it all. "This is Solo Killing to the approaching Intruder-class dropship. You have weapons powered up, not responding to hails, and threatening to raid Cursa where we left. I assure you, I have taken out more pirates in their dropships than you probably ever did. We are currently ready to fight if you do not reverse your thrust. This is your last chance, over."
My tapping got louder. Worse, my clones were as nervous as I was and their tapping joined in the chorus of ratatatatatatatatatata that echoed quietly in the bridge.
Three minutes passed.
Then four minutes passed.
And then …
The self-imposed five-minute mark was up.
They were going to fight.
I quickly began to relay orders not through verbal communication but through pre-established commands that linked up our ships. While drones connected to my ship would obey immediately, mechs and ships operated by people would receive the order, leaving it up to them to carry it out.
Which meant that the commands I just sent out were orders, not commands, since no drone was connected to Solo Killing.
But my crew obeyed my orders.
Miguel and my clone held back in their mechs while all of the Wasp interceptor drones linked to Humpty Dumpty sped forward at accelerations that would have instantly killed any human onboard.
Like the last time I fought in space, my drones would be the first and primary mode of combat.
---
Jerome Asauchi
Little Red, Intruder-class dropship
Crimson Ace Dragoons
"They're strange."
Jerome, a tall pale man, turned to look at his boss, the commander of the battalion-sized mercenary company, the Crimson Ace Dragoons. Their company had two dropships, the Intruder-class dropship that they were on and the Union-class dropship currently clamped onto the jumpship that brought them into this fairly mundane star system.
"What about it, David?" he asked the shorter and leaner man.
"They match the bounty, right?" he asked.
"Yes."
"So we know that they do have some weird fighters, though all of them are smaller than light mechs." The boss paused. "What? Got second ideas about this bounty? You were all up for it when you saw how much they were offering."
"I mean… I was," Jerome replied. "But you've seen what they did with one ship, right? Now, they have two."
David shrugged. "One or two, they're not a real mercenary band like us. Look, their commander is a twenty something civilian who's coasting off of his weird gadgets and upgrades. If a civvie can do that with that ship, then what could it do in a proper mercenary company like ours?"
"... We'll have to get it first."
"Exactly. That's why I brought the Little Red instead of the Big Red. She's a tough nut, not something you can just shoot down willy-nilly."
Jerome conceded to that.
Then he lurched forward after someone playfully hit him in the back of the head. He looked over his shoulder to look at the only person who'd do that. The buff woman standing behind him sneered at him. "You're too cautious, Jer. How did you ever become a mechwarrior again?" she asked with a drawl.
"I got lucky," he grumbled.
"Exactly. Lucky. Leave the actual thinking and planning to people who trained for this shit, alright?"
"... Okay."
Then red flashes and alarms rang out.
Everyone whirled around to look at the sensor officer, who scrambled to get a reading.
"Well?!" Commander David shouted when the lithe girl couldn't say anything within ten seconds.
"W-We're getting jammed!"
"Jammed? Jammed by what?! There's nothing around us in a hundred thousand click radius!"
The radar started pinging like crazy.
The officer froze before her training took over. "Twelve bogies approaching from the bow! ECM is still up and affecting us! I can't read anything in thirty degrees! I can't get a reading on anything from that direction!"
Everyone quickly moved to take their stations.
Jerome, though, didn't have one. So he just strapped himself into the seat inside his jumpsuit and hung on tight.
"Get our fighters out there!"
"They'll die the moment they leave the bay-!" someone spat back before -.
-the ship shook.
"Fire back!"
The sensors were going crazy. The enemy fighters were too fast. Too agile. They made turns that should've killed their pilots. But they didn't die. They kept fighting, using their lasers to dig into the thick armors.
"We just lost the Large Laser at the bow!" the weapons control officer shouted.
Jerome shook in his seat.
He … he may have chosen poorly to follow the commander on this mission.
-VB-
Miguel
Within the Wasp Void-Mech, he took a deep breath in and let it out. His breath momentarily fogged up the "plastiglass" of his space suit helmet before going away.
Trring.
His eyes snapped down toward the one screen showing the order he'd just received from Edward.
[Disabled their ship's thrusters.]
He asked for confirmation. He got it.
Without any more delay, he blasted off toward the Intruder-class dropship that was having trouble against the interceptor drones with the same namesake as this modified battlemech and flew.
He hit 1G. Then 2G. Then 3G.
It didn't feel like it. Oh, he felt the increasing gravity but not the full brunt of it.
As he came dangerously fast toward the dropship, he allowed the computer to manually fire the thrusters all over the mech, some of which adjusted their exhaust to give him the proper point of thrust, while he just piloted the ship with simple movements.
The Wasp mech drifted in space in a near perfect arc, and the moment he saw the rear of the ship, he opened up with the lasers.
The drones harassing the ship took the cue from him as well and fired at the thrusters even as they fired at the dropship's weapons on the hull of the ship.
One by one, those weapons broke, melted, and slagged under the constant assault. The dropship fired back where it could, but the drones were too unpredictable, fast, and batshit insane in some of the moves they pulled.
Then the thrusters broke under their attack.
Trring.
He looked down, not realizing until now that he'd been so focused on his silent mission in space that he had been sweating.
[Demand final unconditional surrender.]
He took some breaths before he opened up on all channels. "This is … Second Lieutenant Miguel Nohara of the Arlaoskas Mercenaries to the Intruder-class dropship. You have one last chance to submit to an unconditional surrender before we cut your ship open and vent you all, over." That was a good enough of a threat, right?
"{...tg… hi … stop! Okay, we got it! I'm Commander David Eremo of the Crimson Red Dragoons! We give, we give!}"
"I want a proper surrender, over."
"{Fuck! Fine! This is Commander David Eremo of the Crimson Red Dragoons! I am … I am unconditionally surrendering to the Arlaoskas Mercenaries!}"
"Good. You better have …"
… What was the procedure for something like this? Usually, Ed already cracked a ship like this open with his siege cannon.
Trring.
[Order them to get into the escape pods and launch them. We will pick them up and hand them over to the Crusa authority.]
He relayed that.
There was no response.
Miguel gritted his teeth.
The bastards just tried to offer a false surrender.
"No joy, commander," he spat back on their private channel. "They just tried to fuck us over."
There was a moment of silence before Ed finally answered. "{I'm bringing the ship about. I thought utterly and effortlessly disabling a ship would have sent a message, but I guess not.}"
He let out an explosive breath. "Then what do we do?"
"{... We can just leave them to die in space. Space them all. But no. That won't send a new message. That's what we've been doing since we started, and that's not enough because apparently getting spaced by a giant fucking gun isn't enough of a deterrent! I think I'm going to have to board their ship and … make a point. And record it all.}"
Miguel felt a shiver run up his spine.
"{I think people forgot how I got my first ship,}" Ed rumbled. "{I think I'll have to make it very clear with lots of evidence what will happen to people who thinks they can fight me.}" Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 709
Collection
Chapter 20
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
I prepared myself.
"Are you sure about this?"
I looked over my shoulder.
When I told the crew that I would going in the enemy dropship personally to send an even bigger message, they had been adamantly opposed to it.
Sure, the message might stick, but if shooting a dropship to utter hell didn't send a message, then whatever I intended to do won't! They argued that, and, admittedly, they had a point.
'But this wasn't a message to the people up in their ivory towers trying to pull me down,' I thought as my power armored finished locking all of the joints and let out a hiss of air. 'This is a message to every who will be risking their lives.'
And standing behind me with his one last attempt was my younger brother.
"I'm sure, Arm," I told him as I picked up my weapons of choice for this venture.
Armored from head to toe in a still unnamed power armor that I made as a side project, this thing had a few things that would give me an edge over the mercenaries defending their dropship.
The first was the armor's composition. It had armor plating that, in past tests, nearly ignored all small arms. So unless they fired a rocket launched grenade at me, I wouldn't even feel the laser beams and bullets.
I swung my arms around, and didn't even hear the servos in the power armor so much as make a quiet hiss.
Good, it was working well.
I cracked my neck and then brought my hands together for Naruto ninjustsu.
"Ninja Technique: Smog Cover."
There was a hiss from between my hands and then abruptly everything in the room turned black from a smog. I couldn't even see my hands.
"GAK-! P-Put it out!" Armas shouted as he started coughing up like crazy.
I quickly stopped, and the smog dissipated quickly. But I used the chance to test out the power armor's sensors. I quickly switched between thermal, radar, electromagnetic, and other more exotic sensor types.
Through the smoke, I could see the room with some but not all of the sensors. That was good enough for me.
"Alright. Is the Solo Killing connecting with the dropship?" I asked him once the smog finally went away.
He glared at me with tears in his eyes before sniffling and nodding. "Just … don't do that again. Whatever the fuck that was. Is that something you instal-. No, it isn't, isn't it?" he asked with a frown. "You said something technique. That's the same thing as your clone thing, isn't it?"
"It is," I hummed before walking over to where I kept my weapons. I ruffled through them before picking out five weapons: a heavy LMG, a plasma knife, a pair of battle axes, and a shoulder-mounted blaster. The last one I equipped right there and then on the Aliens vs. Predator-inspired Yautja shoulder mounted cannon. It wasn't as strong as the Hunters' cannons; mine could barely punch through a thin plate of steel.
But against conventionally armored and armed soldiers and mercenaries, it should do just fine.
"Time to go," I said as I nodded to my brother before heading towards the airlock. "Make sure to keep the bathroom warmed up and ready, yeah? I'm definitely gonna need to clean the armor once I'm back."
-VB-
Jerome Asauchi
Little Red, Intruder-class dropship
Crimson Ace Dragoons
Cursa System, Free Worlds League
3002 October
The captain made the kind of mistake that broke mercenary companies like this in half.
First, he picked a fight with an enemy that was way above their paygrade.
Second, he lost and refused to back down.
Third, the captain then falsely surrendered, though that wasn't because he wanted to but because it was clear to them that the moment they left the ship was the moment they would be left behind in their life pods. Why else would the bastards demand them to leave in life pods?
And now, their ship was dead in space with no thrust and no hope of getting it fixed while the enemy's airlock was locking up with theirs.
"The moment that door opens you open fire, got it?" the captain hissed as half of the crew in the ship crowded around the only way with guns of all kinds in their hands and sandbags for cover in front of them.
Jerome took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as he heard the mechanisms of the dropship clicking away as the connection between theirs and the enemy's formed…
And then …
Black smog? Black smog was seeping through the airlock door.
"Shit! They're trying to flush us out!" someone hissed as she backed up.
"Hold steady!" the captain ordered. "Even if they are trying to flush us out, we have to hold here! It's the only way in for them!"
And so, Jerome held. Even as the smog filled the corridor and began to hurt his eyes. He held along with the rest of the crew.
Then he and everyone else heard it. The airlock door opening.
"FIRE!"
And they did.
The small corridor lit up with ear bursting levels of bullets and lasers zipping forward into the smog… And the smog wasn't parting. As if it wasn't even there like a bad computer game graphic.
He didn't bother to call out his reloads. He just did it while others did the same and -.
"Done yet?"
Everyone snapped to their left and saw a -.
His eyes widened as he saw a man armored from head to toe in some futuristic plated armor with singes and bullet impact marks but not a single penetration. But how did he get from the airlock to their side of the corridor without being seen?
Then the man brought out a knife.
He turned it on.
And the dimly lit corridor found itself bathed in a baleful orange light.
"My turn, then."
And stabbed down with the hateful burning dagger.
The smell of cooking meat filled the gunpowder smoke filled corridor.
Jerome screamed as he ran for it.
He did not get far.
He tripped forward when he felt a hand - not a armor gauntlet but a slick, wet, and definitely warm hand - grab his ankle and pull him down. He scrambled to turn around and -.
Blood drained from his face when he saw a headless man, bleeding from the now headless neck and other cuts, pulling him toward him… and so many other wounded and dead zombies.
"AAAHHH-!"
---
Edward Arlaoskas
"Nightmare Scenario Technique works well, apparently," I muttered to myself as I looked around the crew.
After I used my power armor's sensors to penetrate through the opaque black smog, I had shunshin'ed into their midst while they were busy firing blindly into the smogged corridor.
And well, I activated my illusion technique.
The result?
I now stood over a dozen plus crew of the dropship frothing at their mouth and trembling on the ground.
I had a choice to make now.
Did I kill them or stuff them into a lifepod?
… Even if their captain might have tried to falsely surrender, I didn't kill everyone here. Besides, most of them would have a worse life due to dispossession if I left them alive, and I think that's enough of a punishment.
And their captain was going to get eaten alive by whoever was left in his mercenary company. Because after this kind of false surrender, their MRB rating was going to tank if they weren't outright removed from the listing.
… maybe I shouldn't be trying to create potential future enemies for myself.
Okay, so maybe I might have to kill the captain who gave me the false surrender.
I crouched over the guy who ran away the furthest before slapping him awake. He trembled a little longer before blearily looking up at me. He froze and kept still like a deer fawning.
"Oi. Where's the captain?"
He raised a trembling hand and pointed to a guy slumped against the back wall of the tri-junction where they tried to hold.
I walked over, raised my knife, and stabbed it into his skull.
It slid in easier than a knife going into tofu.
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Cursa, Free Worlds League
3002 October
"You confirmed it?" I asked the MRB liaison.
She nodded. "We have the videos and audio recording of the entire fight," she replied. The smartly dressed woman had been suspicious of me from the start when my crew and I landed back on Cursa along with our loot dropship, the one used by the "Crimson Ace Dragoons."
The copies of the video and audio logs, however, did a lot to ease her misgivings, because she'd gone from her original terse barely concealed disdain to a "please forget I might have been rude in the past" professionalism. It was obvious that her initial impression came from the local news reporting on the battle in space. I wondered what they said about me.
The copies, of course, did not include my boarding of the Invader-class dropship. No, that was going to remain mine because I did not have a death wish.
Because as soon as video proof of my supernatural abilities became public, I would be the target of so many honeypot and assassinations that I might exile myself from the Inner Sphere and the Periphery.
"And the verdict?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"It is the professional opinion of the local MRB chapter that you have conducted yourself well, which we cannot say the same about the Crimson Ace Dragoons. In lieu of a standing contract, the dropship is yours to claim."
"Nice," I hummed. Another dropship to weld onto my Solo Killing. Or maybe this one could be the dedicated forge ship that I needed? Decisions, decisions, decisions… "Is there anything else or …?"
"No, Commander Arlaoskas. Thank you for your patience and cooperation."
"... Actually, I had something to ask from my end. How exactly did the local news cover my battle in space that you were … not so friendly with me?"
She blushed, obviously embarrassed by being caught like that.
"It … had to do with how the news was covering it…"
Yeah, see? I guessed that there was someone just not happy with me here.
Not a big deal. I'll just leave and take my business somewhere else.Last edited: Feb 27, 2025 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 598 others