Collection 14 (Patreon)

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.