Collection 18 (Patreon)

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.