Collection 19 (Patreon)

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.}”