Debauchery Worlds 56 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 56

-VB-

Alan Marris

Cestulus (Davien II), Davien System, United Earth Empire

2982.12.28

Despite the fact that our deal didn’t go through, there were other means for us to acquire the blueprints for them.

In fact, this was always our Plan B.

On the surface, all of the clones who’d arrived on Cestulus went back through the same way they arrived: leaving on our Crawdad. 

(We actually kept getting insistent inquiries about it from Drake Interplanetary about that, because Crawdad was based on their Caterpillar. We decided to license it to them in exchange for getting blueprints but no production right for their Cutter. Unlike Aegis Dynamics, Drake was willing to play ball, especially when it was clear that they were benefiting far more than we were.)

Back on track, we had a Plan B for getting the Aegis Dynamic ship blueprints. And considering the fact that they refused to work with us, we were going all out to take everything they had. 

Once Jupiter’s Descent, our Crawdad, jumped out of the system, one of new clones opened a portal deep underground in Cestulus’s slums. And out of the portal, nearly a hundred heavily armored and armed clones walked out. 

Each of the power armored clones wore our latest infantry development result: the second-generation FLEX power armor. 

All of their armors was designed after the PROJECT: Zed from League of Legend on the surface. Because, why not, right? The actual armors and structures of these armors, though, was a composite of enchanted titanium diborite plates with two properties: flexibility and mana-fueld repair.

Yes, after hundreds of hours working with the mages of Theramore Isle, we managed to produce two new enchantments and had them applied to our third generation power armors. 

The first generation was composed of all prototypes, and none of its generation had enchanted material used in them.

But it and the “FLEX” second generation armors were true power armors. 

I doubted that the base power armor would have stood up to Mjolnir armor from Halo, but that was part of the reason why the clones were deployed here with the FLEX power armor.

The raid on Cestulus’s Aegis Dynamic research headquarters was its test in the proving grounds. 

But why were we gathering in a basement in the slums? 

To give the UEE’s intelligence agencies a plausible location and whatever connection they could concoct up in their paranoid minds. 

And then we opened up another portal from there to the roof of the Aegis Dynamics research headquarters at the outskirts of the planetary capital city. 

Surrounded by a dense forest, it was an isolated location where they could easily conduct all sorts of research, most of which were engineering and material research. 

Which also made any kind of non-aerial reinforcement longer to reach the location. 

All of the clones came through the portal in a hurry and divided themselves into twenty squads. Each squad had a rocket hammer and energy shield bearing “juggernaut,” a plasma rifle and speed-boosted “sniper,” an illusion magic and close quarter combat-focused “wraith,” and a duo of more standard rifle, grenade, and pistol totting “gunners.” 

Each squad’s snipers stepped forward as the rest of the clones backed up into a rough circle.

They pointed their guns down, fired, and walked in a perfectly sync’ed circle. 

Not only did the roof of the building fall in, so did the three other floors underneath it.

Alarm klaxon rang immediately, and our clone squads immediately jumped in.

---

Jennifer was just a good security guard. 

She was good because she knew everything expected of her and carried it out as best as she could.

So she knew, in the heart of her hearts, that this was not the kind of situation she was expected to die in.

Because who the hell raided one of the most secure locations on the planet?! 

She watched on the security cameras as soldiers wearing the some sort of power armors she never saw before running through the facility with human dexterity and kicking into any room they thought might hold important data. 

And then she watched as some of Aegis Dynamic’s higher end security guards - mercenaries - tried to stop the rampaging raiders. 

They threw up barricades at the end of a corridor with a fucking laser repeater and held the location. A dozen of them held that wide corridor down… and then a trio of hammer-wielding raiders stepped up.

Jennifer’s eyes widened as they held up their left arms and circular energy shields crackled to life from the body armor sized device hanging off of their left arms. 

Human sized shields?! There was no way it could hold up to a ship-sized laser repeater, right?!

The mercenaries opened fire without even demanding surrender. 

The red laser bolts screeched across the clean, immaculate white corridor. 

And slammed into the shields to no effect. 

“Oh fuck,” she muttered. 

She started hearing screams behind her. 

And then she watched on the screens as rockets lit up from the back of the power armored mercenaries and they rumbled across the hallway.

Their hammers - rocket hammers! - flared.

And they brought it down on the horrified mercenaries as they reached that end of the corridor. 

She looked away as human bodies broke apart from the force of the attacks. 

The screams grew louder behind her. 

No. It was loud. It was just outside her door. 

A thud shook the door, and she hastily pulled out her service pistol.

Like it was going to do anything! 

The door to the security room shattered open to a kick, and she whimpered as she stared up at the blood-painted raider walking into the room.

It was only now that she realized she, a 170 centimeter woman, was dwarfed by this thing which had to be at least two meters tall. 

The visor-less helmet tilted down to look at her. 

“I’ll let you live if you tell us where they are keeping the blueprints and important documents.”

She’s been with the company for over a decade. 

Surely… they wouldn’t expect her to die for this, right? 

“T-Third floor, Room B187.”

The power armored raider looked at her before turning around. 

Jennifer fell to her knees and let out a relieved sob.

Yeah, she was fired, but she’ll just go work at her sister’s ice cream shop. Ice cream wasn’t going to get her killed, right? 

---

We were happy with the power armor. 

We very much intended to deploy it in the next land invasion into Draconis Combine. 

We wanted them to understand how screwed they were.