55
Debauchery Worlds
Chapter 50
-VB-
6A3
Theramore, Kalimdore
2982.04.20 (Azeroth Year 22)
So.
Funny thing about Azeroth. While we have been busy on our side with wars, Jaina also turned out to be very busy on her side.
How busy?
The Battle of Mount Hyjal happened while we hadn't been looking, and Jaina had put the three basic mechs we sold her to very good use.
Like … Archimonde screamed in rage because he couldn't hit the Locust but destroyed both of the Urbanmechs that Jaina chose to sacrifice to evacuate the Alliance base at the base of Mount Hyjal.
Magic was magic but even magic had trouble eating through literal tons of solid ablative armor.
That Locust survived the battle, by the way, and Jaina was eager to have it repaired. In fact, she was eager to buy more mechs and the knowledge on how to repair them for her and her city-state that she put a lot more on the table for us to purchase and learn from her and her people.
I was more than happy to help her just as she would help me.
"And what is this one called?" Jaina asked us as we showed her the new mechs we brought in for her to see.
"Ah, this one," 6A3 remarked with a smile. "This one is called the Cicada, named after the bugs. Unlike the mechs we've sold you so far, this mech relies mainly on laser weaponry and has no bullet reliance. Perfectly for your city since you won't have to rely on us for bullets! Even without guns, this bad boy can pack so much firepower that it's not funny. It's as fast as the Locust but hits harder!"
"Hmm," she muttered as she looked up and down the medium mech that we've salvaged from our conquest of Cylene II. "It would make it easier on us if we didn't have to rely on a weapons import… but wouldn't that make you and your company not give us the attention we need for repairs?" she asked.
"Wwwhhhaaattt? Don't say something so hurtful, my lady!" 6A2 grinned. Because we certainly liked looking at you and your figure at the very least. "We have a vested interest in seeing Theramore thrive. It is, after all, our connection to your wider world. The wondrous materials and magic that can be found here can't be found anywhere else that we've visited!" Then we slapped the Cicada's foot.
She hummed.
"Very well," she sighed. "How much is this … Cicada?"
We grinned.
-VB-
1M21
Markab, Draconis Combine
2982.05.13
It took a while but we got a picture of what was happening on the ground while he and the other clones maintained an orbital blockade of the planet.
Markab was a planet undergoing ice age, or at least the version of ice age that Earth had been going through in the Little Ice Age period, not the big, definite, and "everything is snow" ice age.
But that still meant that our asteroid attacks led to massive flooding, farmlands being wiped, constant heavy rain, and looming threat of annihilation for the people on the ground.
The Draconis Combine tried their best to break the blockade, but when they only had regular dropships and we had an ever-improving, technologically superior fleet of ships? They gave up after their third attempt at breaking the blockade and stopped trying to blockade run after their ninth try.
Then, food began to run out for the people on the ground, and of course, this applied only to the regular people and not the ruling class.
Things got nasty. Fast.
We watched as riots broke out. The planetary governor of Markab responded by having the local militia kill the rioters. While it went "well" for the governor the first time he ordered it, the militia split into pro-governor and anti-governor factions by the second order. And by the third order, a civil war broke out. The people threw their lot in with the anti-governor faction immediately and rose up in revolt.
We decided to back the populace in the rebellion by delivering weapons, food, and even mechs (normal mechs like Locusts, Commandos, Phoenix Hawks, and Rifleman) to ensure that they won.
And what were we going to do once the rebellion won?
We'll make them a deal.
They can do whatever they want as long as they follow our laws, pay 10% tax on a number of items but not everything, and declare that they are part of the Coreward Principality.
And just like that, Markab was lost to the Draconis Combine.
Though it wasn't secured, we diverted half of the blockading fleet into squadrons of three ships and sent them out to start harassing the Combine jumpships instead of their worlds.
Because the crucial fact of the Inner Sphere was that jumpships kept worlds alive, and as these jumpships were destroyed, confiscated, lost, or rendered immobile, those worlds would die with them.
And so the fastest method of destroying a jumpship-reliant nation… was to destroy the jumpships.
When our ships, which appeared out of nowhere with their portals, started hitting the jumpships, the effect was immediate on the Draconis Combine.
-VB-
Yin Takami
First Circuit Meeting
Terra, Sol, ComStar
2982.05.28
"They must be stopped!" Precentor of Altair yelled from his place in the First Circuit meeting room, and Yin saw many other precentors nodding in agreement and voicing their agreements.
However, he and they all knew what would happen if they chose to take an active approach to the problem at hand.
The problem, of course, was the Marris Mercenary Company and the new Coreward Principality, both founded and headed by one Alan Marris.
They already knew that Alan Marris was a ghost of some kind, having appeared out of nowhere with his troops on David II when the Federated Suns invaded it for conquest in 2980.
And everyone here was aware of how they lost an entire battlegroup of warships to Marris. Trying that again… was inadvisable. The man had videos of ComStar's secrets. He could release it, and there would only be chaos where ComStar wouldn't be the one who would come out on top while the rest of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery would surely punish them for the lies and deceits they pulled.
So even with Precentor of Altair shouting at the top of his lungs to try and rally the other precentors to do something, doing something - anything! - against Marris was … it wasn't going to happen. It would just result in a gruesome death of ComStar.
For what he felt like the umpteenth time, he sighed in frustration and helplessness.
There needed to be a pivot point for all of ComStar in these ever-changing times, but what were they going to pivot on? How would ComStar change?
Yin wished he knew.
Then an adept nearly burst into the room.
"P-Primus, we have an emergency!"
"Adept-!" someone shouted but Yin cut them off and looked at the adept in the eyes. Those were fearful eyes, not for herself but for others. Those were good eyes.
"Speak," he told the adept.
"T-The Marris mercenaries! They're attacking all jumpships they're coming across in Combine space!"
Yin felt a snap and felt overwhelming stress coming back to kick him in the back of the head.
-VB-
A/N: the norms of the Succession Wars have been broken. Marris is just showing the Combine why they shouldn't have done that.-VB-
Alan Marris
Skat
2982.07.05
Markab fell to our hands within a few months. Between the starvation, rebellion, and the looming threat of further orbital asteroid bombardment, the people of Markab beheaded their stubborn leaders - military and civilian - and gave them to me on a literal silver platter.
And so on 2982 June 20th, Markab surrendered to us, and we put ourselves into positions of power across the planet, but mostly on the planetary capital. First, we figured out what needed to be fixed for the now damaged world needed.
Food, of course.
We bought food from across David II and the Federated Suns but also imported them much more quickly and at a cheaper cost from the Kingdom of Stormwind, the Ironforge, and anywhere else on Azeroth. Yes, we bought food from a different universe and brought it over to Markab's starving population because, even if they were disgusting Combine citizens, they were also mine now.
Gold was cheaper in the Inner Sphere than it was on Azeroth. We disguised ourselves as normal traveling merchants low on food and went to every single town at the same time and bought as much normal-ish food as we could. Fish, mushrooms, bread, grain, fish, meat, and whatever else they would sell us. We spared no location.
Anvilmar, Kharanos, Thelsamar, Ironforge, Menethil Harbor, Stormwind, Northshire, Goldshire, Sentinel Hill, Lakeshore, Booty Bay, and even Kul Tiras saw one or more of us buying up everything they willingly sold.
They happily accepted our gold and sold us all of the food they had.
Then we visited other universes we've been to. We bought as much food as we could to feed the seven hundred million plus people living on Markab. We deployed mechs planetside to help with flooded farmlands and build greenhouses.
Because even if they hadn't started out as our people, they were now.
… While the feeding effort on Markab ramped up, half of our spaceborne forces and almost three-fourths of our mech, infantry, and vehicle forces moved on to Skat.
Now, Skat was an odd world because it was primarily inhabited by two ethnocultural groups: the Japanese and Koreans. They were, supposedly, always at odds with each other. In the far past, it took the Star League to stop them from killing each other, and obviously, the Japanese were ascendent with the Draconis Combine's Japanese-drived culture.
But their animosity never died out. It ran so deeply that the moment we reached the system, the Koreans reached out to us.
They offered a very simple deal. They will declare for us, and in return, wanted to have it enshrined in law that no Japanese-descent will be allowed to hold any planetary government office on Skat.
Honestly, we were happy to not have to deal with the whole two hundred million people as potential enemies. The Koreans were just the slight majority on this planet at one-hundred thirteen million, and having even half of that number loyal to us would ease the pressure on all of the clones.
We accepted.
Even before we landed on the planet, fighting broke out and it was an all-out war different from Markab.
The lead clone acting as the commander of the invasion force watched from the captain's seat of one of the Irotryoshkas. One of the reasons why the Irotryoshkas and the militarized Crawdads did not remove themselves from the battlefield beyond staying out of anti-air guns' reaches was because they served a secondary purpose. Each of them had the same pulse scanners found on most UEE ships from the Star Citizen-verse.
Which meant that all of the ships provided an overlapping field of view that saw every single movement of the enemy vehicles, mechs, and even infantry.
A certain Iron-Blooded Commander didn't need to invest in so much equipment like we did and hers certainly had a bigger range, but limited as ours were, it still provided all of the information we needed to crush our enemies.
What made it worse for our enemies on the ground was the fact that our mechs weren't even manned. They weren't being defeated by honorable warriors but machines.
Oh, that pissed them off like nothing else, and made quite a number of them far more reckless. Some of the smarter - but still foolish - mechwarriors just committed seppaku rather than fighting a losing battle.
The really smart ones went underground, both literally and metaphorically.
But it was too late. As we oversaw the last active resistance fall to a tidal wave of unmanned mechs, fighter drones, and even drone bombers with the local Korean infantry support, Skat was bound to fall to our total control.
We wondered what that was like. To fight something inevitable and anathemic to their culture and way of life. To know that there was no help coming because even their help was powerless against us when we shot their jumpships down.
And if the Coordinator and his ilk tried to nuke us again…
Well, there were a few things that we've been researching, not just copying from other universes. Luthien will make for a great testing bed for it if the Combine gives us the reason.
-VB-
Hohiro Kurita
Luthien, Draconis Combine
2982.07.15
"Coordinator, Skat has been lost."
First, it was Cylene.
Then, it was Markab.
And finally, Skat fell.
Three worlds close to each other and all of which were important border worlds.
This "Coreward Principality" was nothing but a Davion ploy, but it made no sense if it was. ComStar showed videos of absurd technologies that he's barely heard of before. Dropships that effortlessly hover over cities? Many of those dropships with hull configurations that would have broken them on atmospheric reentry?
If the Federated Suns had all of those, then why were his spies within their ranks reporting a nervous military? Or that the Frist Prince didn't have better mechs? Or why they weren't using it against him and the Draconis Combine across their entire border?
Things did not make sense.
What information his people have been able to gather showed this "Alan Marris" on David II and nowhere else. There was a verifiable growth of the mercenary company, but it was the growth itself that was suspect.
Too quickly. Too much. Too … strong. They brought out lostech from the start and didn't stop, even though they made claims about how they made their own tech. No, ISF analysts and civilian arms engineers all rejected those claims, pointing to the streamlined designs that couldn't have been made by a single mercenary company of all people.
And the way that the Federated Suns avoided taking them over…
…
…
Could it be?
The owner of the mercenary company was Alan Marris.
Alan Marris.
Alan Marris.
A. Marris.
Amar-.
Hohiro's eyes widened.
No, it couldn't be! Their line was wiped out! But the name of his new state. The lostech! Research and development that couldn't have been done by a few people!
If they survived out in the deep periphery, then it was not impossible.
And they came to strike at him.
The impudence.
The gall!
They thought him weak!
With narrowed eyes and a flushed face, he picked up his brush to pen a haiku.
Banners must be called.
To make a new example.
The dragon awakes.Chapter 52
-VB-
Alan Marris
Al Na'ir, Draconis Combine
2982.10.09
The trio of systems that used to represent the galactic easternmost reaches of the Azami Brotherhood's reaches all fell into my hands before August. Now, we rapidly reinforced those systems in every manner and method possible.
And one of our reinforcement methods included building orbital defense platforms. From our orbital factory on Prosperina VI and the ground factories on David II, we pumped out the platforms and guns, respectively. Then they were brought over to the three systems via the portals (with converted Crawdads as tugs for the orbital platforms) and assembled on the site.
This was how we managed to put six orbital platforms on each of the main colonized planets across Markab, Cylene, and Skat.
Instead of one giant magnetically accelerated cannon, our ODPs were built with six small MACs for main firepower, each of which were barely bigger than the Stomata-class dropship. These MACs, Mini-Krakatoa-class MACs, fired their fifty ton steel slugs at 5,000 kilometers per second at four rounds per minute. With a 90% accuracy with computer-assisted targeting at over 200,000 kilometers and nearly 100% accuracy within 100,000 kilometers for dropship-sized or bigger targets, they were the best fit for the current technological state of the Inner Sphere. Combined with three dozen point-defense high intensity lasers and energy shielding we installed from the Star Citizen-verse on each platform, we've properly secured the defense of the three new "core" worlds of the Coreward Principality.
Of course, our enemies did not loiter while we fortified our systems. The Draconis Combine, in particular, set up a rallying point deeper inside their territory. We weren't sure where it was, but they were gathering their forces in what had to be the biggest counter-invasion force seen up to date in the Third Succession War.
We, of course, did not make it easy for them.
Al Na'ir was a "Azami Brotherhood" world like Markab. Practically, this meant little to me aside from the fact that Azami worlds were essentially semi-autonomous worlds that provided war materials to the Combine and enjoyed relative independence from Luthien due to how early they ended up as part of the Combine.
To me and my Coreward Principality, Al Na'ir was important because it was a factory world that had an integrated vertical production for all sorts of weapons from infantry gear to heavy battlemechs, particularly the Catapult. The two main companies, the Yori 'Mech Works and Scarborough Manufacturer, made those war materials and I needed them gone; I could not allow a world producing war materials so close to my foothold in the Ashio Prefecture.
And we were lucky.
Because we entered the system at the zenith of the Al Na'ir Star to find a trio of Combine jumpships loading up dropships.
The lead Stomata's sensors-fed computers quickly identified the jumpships and the dropships.
[Joshua's Revenge Monolith (Combine), Hoshimito Wastes Invader (Combine), Glorious Miko Invader (Combine), 3rd Al Na'ir Flight Achilles (Combine), Madman's Armor Leopard (Mercenary), Kentucky Anti-Rangers Intruder (Mercenary) …]
The computer kept listing, but by the third dropship listed, we didn't care. It was clear to us that this was a military rallying point for mercenaries and Combine troops. While three jumpships and thirteen dropships weren't a lot … it was a lot of enemies who were vulnerable to our attacks.
The three lead Stomatas opened fire immediately. The MAC rounds punched through two jumpships while one shot missed.
It took a second for the ships to realize what had happened.
One, we entered the system without a jump signature.
Two, there was a giant portal behind us.
Three, the lead ships were all not attached to jumpships.
We wondered if this was the moment when one of our secrets would get exposed.
But did it matter at this point?
The Davions already knew. ComStar already knew. Combine would start suspecting it sooner or later. And we didn't care about the rest of the Inner Sphere because most of the people working in our factories were those from another universe and dependent on us or one of the clone hivemind.
We looked at the exploding jumpships and dropships as our ships continued to pummel them from a range they had no response to.
… Yes, we'll keep it a secret a little while longer.
And that meant no survivors today.
While the Stomatas fired off a few more shots, the rest of the fleet headed toward Al Na'ir at conventional sublight speeds.
We would burn the factories on Al Na'ir before we left. That was a promise.
Now, the question was if I wanted to depend on ordinary orbital bombardment or fling some asteroids.
… Considering that many of those factories were in cities, asteroids would be an overkill.
Regular orbital bombardment, it was, then!
---
Wande Kelani
Al Na'ir, Draconis Combine
2982.10.09
When he heard the sirens ring of an impending invasion and not a raid, he had felt anxious.
Because he lived in the city of Yuranban, which was home to a Yori'Mech Works factory. He knew that it would be a target.
But then the news of jumpships and dropships getting destroyed struck home. That anxiety almost turned into a panic.
Destroying jumpships was a taboo. Everyone knew that unless they were some periphery subsistence farmer. If they were willing to destroy jumpships, then there was no taboo that they were not willing to partake in. A nuclear bomb might destroy a city but not a world. Destroying a jumpship will destroy multiple worlds.
So there was no point going to the bunkers. Instead, being the loner that he was, he picked up a six pack of beer (because he wasn't a Muslim like most of the people on the planet), a fistful of khat, and sat down on top of the four story building his mother had left for him before she died fighting as a mechwarrior somewhere along the Lyran border.
He sat down, opened a can of beer with a pop, and took a sip.
He couldn't help the hiss that slipped out of his lips.
"Yeah… if I'm gonna die, this is the way to go."
No wife, no children, no parents. Some friends, but they all wanted to be with their family. Needed to be with their family.
Wande leaned back into his seat and nearly froze when he saw the gleaming red hulls of aerodyne dropships above.
"Right… guess the apocalypse is here," he muttered and chewed on his khat.
The plant tasted like ass but drugs wer drugs and he couldn't stop himself from chewing on them like he did as a kid.
It just reminded him of the good old times when he did have a wife and his parents were around. Family dinner. A few leaves of khat around the dinner table. Talks about kids.
Fucking Davions ruined everything.
So he chewed and closed his eyes, waiting for the death to come.
It should sound like explosions, right?
Right.
Then he heard and felt it.
Something crashed into the ground in the far distance. The air buffeted and his building shook under him.
His body trembled in fear despite the odd calm he felt paradoxically at the same time.
It was going to be all over. He's going home… he's going home…
…
…
He's, uh, going home…?
Wande opened his eyes and frowned.
Why were those dropships turning around?
Why were they leaving? Weren't they here to invade?
He sat up and looked around.
He narrowed his eyes at something that was burning in the distance. That's roughly where … oh, that's the Yori'Mech factory.
…
Wait, that's it?
They literally just shot the factory up and they were leaving?
"Fucking cowards!" he shouted up at the sky. "You're not even going to even properly -?! Just shoot us up and leave?! What the fuck do you think you're doing, an interstellar hit and run?! Get the fuck back here and fight the Azami Brotherhood like a proper man!"
He'd continue on but he lost the strength after the last bit. He fell back into his cheap aluminum veranda chair.
He felt empty.
"Fuck."
He thought he was going to die but that's … that's not in the cards, apparently.
He didn't feel good about being left alone to live, though.
-VB-
Chapter 53
-VB-
Part 1: From across the Inner Sphere (2982 AD), post Coreward Principality's formation
---
Lyran Commonwealth
Operation ZIGSAW
Tamar Pact:
-Invasion of Skokie
-Invasion of Moritz
Federation of Skye:
-Invasion of Camlann
-Reconquest of Marfik
-Invasion of Kimball
-Invasion of Ko
Protectorate of Donegal:
-Defense of Loric
-Raid-Defense of Arcadia
Archon Alessandro Steiner took the Combine's dwindling jumpship numbers and concentration of forces away from the Raselhague Military District to stage a border-wide invasion. However, there has been no concentration of forces on the Lyran Commonwealth's part, and as such, it is expected that, even optimistically, the Lyran Commonwealth may only seize six worlds temporarily.
---
Federated Suns
Draconis March:
-Invasion of Tripoli
-Invasion of Paris
-Invasion of Gandy's Luck
-Raid on Irurzun
-Raid on Ludwig
-Invasion of Weisau
Capellan March:
-Raid on Ronel
-Raid on Tybalt
The Federated Sun chose the perceived weakness of the Draconis Combine in the wake of the Coreward Principality's violent birth to strike all across the Combine border in an effort to prevent the DCMS from effectively counterattacking in light of their dwindling jumpship numbers. It is expected that the AFFS will be successful in claiming upwards to twelve worlds. Optimistic analysts claim that the Federated Suns may claim as many as twenty worlds if the Coreward Principality continues to wreck havoc within the Draconis Combine.
---
Coreward Principality
-Raid on Al Na'ir
-Invasion of Murchison
-Invasion of Sadachbia
The "new kid on the block," the Coreward Principality showed that they are willing to repay like with like, stating that the nuclear attack on their original home base on David II as catalyst for their indiscriminate attacks on Combine jumpships. Had they been a normal break away state, then they would not have lasted long against the vastly numerical superiority Draconis Combine, but the advanced technologies seen only during the likes of the Star League era and their utilization of orbital bombardment against hard and soft targets alike is allowing them to cripple the local Combine military response. Analysts from across the Inner Sphere that are aware of Coreward Principality's vastly technological superiority and unorthodox military doctrine of using semi-autonomous and fully autonomous drones believe that the Coreward Principality may take over half of the Dieron Military District before the end of the century, as deep as Algedi and Al Na'ir, coreward and Terra-ward respectively.
---
Draconis Combine
Raselhague Military District
-Defense of Skokie
-Defense of Moritz
Dieron Military District
-Defense of Camlann
-Defense of Marfik
-Defense of Kimball
-Defense of Ko
-Defense of Al Na'ir
-Defense of Murchison
-Defense of Sadachbia
Galedon Military District
-Defense of Tripoli
-Defense of Paris
-Defense of Gandy's Luck
-Defense of Irurzun
-Defense of Ludwig
-Defense of Weisau
Beset on all sides by their enemies and upstarts, the Draconis Combine had to focus on the defense across multiple worlds across multiple theaters of war, stretching their numbers thin. Compounded by the fact that the Coreward Principality was destroying any and all jumpships working for the Draconis Combine, movement of troops has reduced to a standstill across the Dieron Military District in particular. It is expected for the Dieron Military District to lose all worlds directly invaded by neighboring Successor States due to a drop in available jumpships for reinforcement transportation.
-VB-
Part 2: CNN Coverage of Coreward Principality
ComStar News Network
The Surrender of Sadachbia
By John Metters, 2982.11.02
The Coreward Principality's violent war crimes across the Inner Sphere has been widely published for all to look at. From orbital bombardment from their assault dropships to hurling asteroids to create mass extinction events, the "Prince" of the Coreward Principality Alan Marris is already known for his ruthless efficient and efficient ruthlessness.
It was a small mercy for the people of Sadachbia's three hundred million people living on islands across the northern hemisphere that he did not order such bombardment on their planet. The floods from the asteroid bombardments would have wiped out all settlements across the planet without question, thus leaving it open for the Prince to design Sadachbia as it pleases.
This did not, however, stop the Prince from direction a dozen "Stomata" assault dropships from attacking the military bases across the planet. With no room to hide on their islands due to the superior sensor technology Principality ships are suspected to have, the militia defenders of Sadachbia did not last more than a week before the Prince declared the planet fully conquered.
Like all other planets that have been conquered by the Coreward Principality, the Prince keeps his hands off on local affairs, leaving the locals to operate as they wish beyond providing 1% of their population as troops and paying 10% tax on all services, goods, sales, and resource extraction. Oh, and an expectation that the locals will take care of their own rebels lest they get an orbital bombardment…
---
BREAKING NEWS: Coreward Principality unveils a new warship: the Javelin-class Destroyer*
By Washidi Qin, 2982.11.24
---
BREAKING NEWS: Coreward Principality's True Strength: Alternative FTL
By John Metters, 2982.12.06
The secret to how the Coreward Principality has been able to conduct a lightning campaign across Draconis Combine's Dieron Military District has finally been revealed! Videos and pictures taken of their latest attack, the Invasion of Murchison, show a portal opening up before their arrival.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read it correctly…
-VB-Chapter 54
-VB-
Alan Marris
Cylene, Coreward Principality
2982.12.03
We were slowly moving many of our major operations to Cylene as we built up its defenses.
But infrastructure was not the only thing we focused on. No, now that we had conquered planets and took people under my banner, willingly or not, and a lull in the offense bought many of our clones time to work with, it was time to feel out the people.
And where best to do that if not bars and coffee houses?
---
One of my clones sat drinking coffee.
Thanks to Warcraft arcane magic, changing the appearance of the clone had been too easy. Mannerism had been harder. So instead of trying to fool the locals of Cylene into thinking that he was one of them, he made it clear he was a displaced dispossessed mechwarrior from Raselhague Military District, having become dispossessed due to the new rulers of Cylene.
That got the clone a lot of credit and pity. Here in the Draconis Combine (or rather the former territories), dispossessed mechwarriors were looked upon with both scorn and pity. "How dare they lose to the enemy?" was the general sentiment of the nobles.
Speaking of nobles, all non-essential nobles had been stripped of their titles.
Some of those very nobles were here in the coffee house, grumbling alongside him.
"The Coordinator will come back," one of them to his right hissed.
The clone, going by Georgio (not exactly Scandinavian but who cared?), hummed. "Maybe I'll get to take one of their mechs when the DCMS comes to this world."
"Hah! You jest! DCMS will sooner kill you then let you back in!" someone else shouted. That person wasn't a noble, and was in fact very happy with the current state of things.
"Bah! If I have a mech and a few heads, they'll let me in!" he snapped right back over his shoulder. "Probably from those mercenaries."
"... But is that the right thing to do?"
A lot of people in the vicinity of the latest speaker turned to look at a woman.
Cylene had been a very traditional Japanese planet, something that had been forced down upon its people. This included a lot of the traditional values as well as modified ones. Unlike in actual Medieval/Edo/whatever era Japan, women had not been allowed to roam freely in certain sections of the capital city. Such rules did not exist for small towns and farming villages, but it was still a rule that had existed. And the commercial district where this coffee shop was had been one such place a woman could not visit.
And now, there were women here, which was already getting frowns from some of the men.
"What do you mean the right thing?" he probed.
"Tell the woman to piss off!" a deep baritone shouted from the other end of the shop and a few people laughed along.
The woman, a black-skinned and lithe woman with a few scars, glared at the baritone toned speaker before glancing back to temp-Georgio."I mean… Marris isn't an asshole like the Coordinator."
Someone shot up from their seat. "You take that back, you traitorous bitch!"
"Or what?" she snapped right back. "Are you going to kill me?"
"You think I won't?!" There were people getting shoved and things getting tossed aside… until a white man stood up and stopped whoever that had been. "Get the fuck out of my -!"
There was a snap and then a thump.
People backed away, but Georgio didn't. Instead, he looked over his shoulder and saw someone who looked like a veteran.
"... I am Joshua Matohira," the man spoke to the entire shop. "I am a veteran of DCMS. I was let go because I lost my leg in combat in one of my battles that happened in Dieron Military District. I was told by my superior that I, who had fought for two decades for the DCMS, was now a liability and told me to go die in a ditch."
Some people grumbled and grunted while others nodded.
"I found myself here in Cylene because my relatives were too generous and kind to leave me to die when my family did." He looked around. "Only months later, Marris came and conquered the planet. And then they medically treated me and anyone else, local militia included, without asking too much questions. All of you know someone died in the invasion but you also know someone who lived because of the invaders. These invaders - these conquerors - are soft, but because of that softness, they provided me with a simple prosthetic," he said and lifted up his pants leg.
It was then that Georgio and the rest of the hivemind remembered him.
Joshua Matohira. A veteran mechwarrior. Piloted a Panther, and according to the files held in the local offices, lost his leg and mech defending Altair during a raid. Nearly got captured. For his loyalty, they didn't kill him.
Yup, that was what was on his official file.
"My enemy has shown me more mercy, more kindness, and opportunity than my own Coordinator, who abandoned me immediately for defending his world!"
"YEAH!" "Fuck the bitch!"
People were getting riled up.
Georgio took a sip of his now cold coffee.
But before Joshua could continue, someone came rushing from the side and punched him.
That's how the entire shop descended into a bar fight.
---
While scenes like those weren't common, they weren't rare, either. People generally liked what we did.
But we had done was, in our books, not giving a shit about them beyond basic human decency. I made sure the hospitals were stocked with necessary materials, didn't execute enemy soldiers and militia, and then allowed the militia to go back home sans their equipment.
I still deeply hated the Draconis Combine (and I will hang the nuke-to-face over them for the rest of my life), but I wasn't going to torture people for it!
And I hadn't.
And … And that was apparently more than they expected to get.
Outside of the ruling nobility that had somehow survived, Cylene's populace generally liked what I brought to the table, even if that was just human decency.
It made me hate the Draconis Combine even more.
Situation on Cylene was stable.
That wasn't so on Markab and Skat, the larger colonies of the three worlds I've conquered. They had many reasons to hate me.
I didn't mind.
Loyal, disloyal, or whatever. I just needed to who stood where.
… But it was also nice to know that there were people who wanted stand by my side.
-VB-
Alan Marris
???
2982.12.05
While our operations in the Inner Sphere continued, it did not mean an end to our exploration across the multiverse.
The latest planet we arrived at was a water world!
It was nice.
What was even better was that there were human settlements that got picked up by our long range sensors, and they looked advanced if all of their sensors reading was anything to go by.
So we hid on the small rock cropping we found ourselves on and continued to receive local radio waves from those settlements, listening to their strange language and tried to decipher them as best as we can.
And by the end of the day, we even understood a few worlds.
Like … imperator had to be emperor. Mundus was world.
Though one world that we couldn't quite translate stuck out between ships in orbit and what had to be the local spaceport authority, and often used with mundus, the world for world, so it had to be the name of the world or something close to it.
Was Tyran the name of this world?Chapter 55
-VB-
Alan Marris
Tyran, ???
2982.12.12
Even with advanced technology and even implants to make learning easier for the expedition clones, learning a whole new language took time. Cutting that time down to a week was a miracle in my humble opinion.
Once we learned the language, we were able to parse through all of the communication logs we took from the local's radio waves, and managed to piece together a dozen or so things.
One. We were indeed on a world called Tyran.
Two. We knew exactly what universe this was: Warhammer 40k.
Three. The time was somewhere around the mid-millennia of the 41st millennium.
Four. This world was an outpost world, but an outpost world by the standards of the Imperium of Man was still a world that had upwards to tens of millions of people.
Five. This world was indeed a water world. It was closer to an archipelago world, but the difference was quite small.
Knowing all of these… the hive mind was, for once, unable to agree on what we should do.
For one, we, as an entity, were the kind of "abhumans" that the Imperium eradicated. However, we were pretty good at hiding stuff like that because we didn't use technology and warp-stuff to achieve our thing. Just Entity-based shenanigans, which was an Outside Context Problem that the Imperium most likely didn't know how to deal with.
Two, the Warhammer 40k universe was … it was a very powerful place. There were technologies here that would absolutely curbstomp anything we had on hand. Hell, even UEE from the Star Citizen-verse would be beaten to death in a bumrush so fast that most people would get concussion just looking at unfolding events. And if we could get access to those technologies, then what could stop us in the Inner Sphere?
Three, the Warp. We did not want to deal with the warp. We didn't want to touch it. We didn't want to know how our Shard would interact with it.
Four. The STCs. Enough said.
So as we continued to compile more data about Tyran and the Imperium, our hive mind descended into its first ever chaos.
---
Alan Marris
Tyran, Imperium of Man
2982.12.15
It took three whole days for the a consensus to be made.
We would stay. We never heard of a world called Tyran in the first place, so we assumed that it was a decent place to stay. I mean if an Imperial world wasn't ever mentioned before, then it had to be a mostly peaceful world, right?
With the occasional enemy raids?
Almost like Inner Sphere?
Probably?
Yes.
Our decision to stay and start filching local tech meant that we needed a way to interact with the people and move about not just on Tyran but beyond.
We … knew nothing about that. I mean, we knew that there were Rouge Traders who needed warrants and charters that came from Terra. Considering that Tyran couldn't be near Terra, that was a very tall order.
And faking a charter sounded like asking for trouble, even if the sluggish imperial bureaucracy…
The sluggish imperial bureaucracy…
…
…
I mean.
It can't be that hard, right? The right words. The right phrasing. The right content. We could try it on other worlds. It wasn't like each world kept tight contact with each other, and it was normal for paperwork to get lost on Terra.
I doubted that the Administratum even knew how many rogue traders there were, never mind the more numerous chartered captains.
Yeah… We could try it.
But in the mean time, we needed to infiltrate Tyran's society.
-VB-
Alan Marris
Cestulus (Davien II), Davien System, United Earth Empire
2982.12.20
While our expeditionary clones were hard at work infiltrating Tyran's human society and the vast majority of the clones in the Inner Sphere worked to maintain and upgrade our forces on Cylene, Markab, and Skat, a company of clones in the UEE worked to secure a business deal.
The representative of the Aegis Dynamics, a salt and pepper haired woman by the name of Alexandra Qi, held a hand over my mouth while her fingers drummed against her cheek. Despite being somewhere in her 50's, she looked like she was in her late 30's and had a figure to show off.
And the reason why we were talking to her instead of middle managers was because we came to them with a lot to offer.
With our new space stations and factories backed up by five system's worth of resources, we could provide a lot more components and raw resources to them at a cheaper price.
Of course, we had set up a business with the UEE so that we wouldn't get questions about who and what we were, but the fact that we couldn't explain where we were getting our stuff from would probably get us questioned anyway.
So the idea had been to set up a "factory" on Daymar, a moon of Hurston in the Stanton System. From that factory (read: a warehouse filled with random machinery), we would have a point of origin to sell our components from.
Originally, those components - ranging from coolants to weapons - were sold in the Stanton system, and then we got contacted by Aegis Dynamics. They wanted a lot of components to use in their ships, and we were willing to sell. But they didn't just want to buy them off of the shelves. They wanted direct business-to-business contract.
And we?
We were willing to give them that if they were willing to pay us not in money but in blueprints. Not even the license to produce Aegis Dynamic ships but just the blueprints for some of their ships.
Like the Javelin.
"Personally, I find it hard to believe that you are willing to sell tens of thousands of components to us at cost in exchange for having access to some of our blueprints and the engineering that makes them possible," Ms. Qi said after a while. "And I am an executive at the company. However, the people above me also want this deal. So here's the deal that I have been authorized to offer you. We will buy the components at 150% of their production cost and we will offer you the blueprints and production rights to the Idris-P, not the Javelin."
We frowned. "But Javelin is what we want."
"You can't even make a Javelin with the production facilities you have," she countered. "And even if we give you the license to produce a few ships a year, you would have no buyer for them in your home system."
"Idris-P does not fit the criteria that we want the Javelin for. Besides, isn't the profit margin for the Javelin so low that even if we were to somehow to produce them, it wouldn't matter?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Whatever it is, we aren't willing to offer the Javelin to you. That's why we are willing to eat the extra cost for the components in exchange for offering the Idris-P blueprint instead."
We thought about it.
Javelin was a destroyer. At over 400 meters in length, it was armed to the teeth with missiles that would individually one-shot dropships. It could honestly take on half a score of dropships by itself and come out unscathed because of its energy shield system.
The Idris-P, on the other hand, was a civilianized refit of the Idris-M used by the UEE Navy. It was a patrol frigate that relied mostly on its guns to do the talking. However, UEE's ship weapons weren't suited for void combat. Idris-P also didn't have the Destroyer Mass Driver Cannon found on its military counterparts, which was its only source of long range combat damage. Hell, it even had less missiles turrets, too!
It was exactly the kind of civilian model we didn't want.
"Make it Idris-M and we will accept."
The deal didn't go through.