Collection 20 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 20

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

I prepared myself. 

“Are you sure about this?”

I looked over my shoulder. 

When I told the crew that I would going in the enemy dropship personally to send an even bigger message, they had been adamantly opposed to it. 

Sure, the message might stick, but if shooting a dropship to utter hell didn’t send a message, then whatever I intended to do won’t! They argued that, and, admittedly, they had a point. 

‘But this wasn’t a message to the people up in their ivory towers trying to pull me down,’ I thought as my power armored finished locking all of the joints and let out a hiss of air. ‘This is a message to every who will be risking their lives.’

And standing behind me with his one last attempt was my younger brother.

“I’m sure, Arm,” I told him as I picked up my weapons of choice for this venture. 

Armored from head to toe in a still unnamed power armor that I made as a side project, this thing had a few things that would give me an edge over the mercenaries defending their dropship. 

The first was the armor’s composition. It had armor plating that, in past tests, nearly ignored all small arms. So unless they fired a rocket launched grenade at me, I wouldn’t even feel the laser beams and bullets. 

I swung my arms around, and didn’t even hear the servos in the power armor so much as make a quiet hiss. 

Good, it was working well.

I cracked my neck and then brought my hands together for Naruto ninjustsu.

“Ninja Technique: Smog Cover.”

There was a hiss from between my hands and then abruptly everything in the room turned black from a smog. I couldn’t even see my hands. 

“GAK-! P-Put it out!” Armas shouted as he started coughing up like crazy.

I quickly stopped, and the smog dissipated quickly. But I used the chance to test out the power armor’s sensors. I quickly switched between thermal, radar, electromagnetic, and other more exotic sensor types. 

Through the smoke, I could see the room with some but not all of the sensors. That was good enough for me. 

“Alright. Is the Solo Killing connecting with the dropship?” I asked him once the smog finally went away. 

He glared at me with tears in his eyes before sniffling and nodding. “Just … don’t do that again. Whatever the fuck that was. Is that something you instal-. No, it isn’t, isn’t it?” he asked with a frown. “You said something technique. That’s the same thing as your clone thing, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I hummed before walking over to where I kept my weapons. I ruffled through them before picking out five weapons: a heavy LMG, a plasma knife, a pair of battle axes, and a shoulder-mounted blaster. The last one I equipped right there and then on the Aliens vs. Predator-inspired Yautja shoulder mounted cannon. It wasn’t as strong as the Hunters’ cannons; mine could barely punch through a thin plate of steel.

But against conventionally armored and armed soldiers and mercenaries, it should do just fine. 

“Time to go,” I said as I nodded to my brother before heading towards the airlock. “Make sure to keep the bathroom warmed up and ready, yeah? I’m definitely gonna need to clean the armor once I’m back.”

-VB-

Jerome Asauchi

Little Red, Intruder-class dropship

Crimson Ace Dragoons

Cursa System, Free Worlds League

3002 October

The captain made the kind of mistake that broke mercenary companies like this in half. 

First, he picked a fight with an enemy that was way above their paygrade. 

Second, he lost and refused to back down.

Third, the captain then falsely surrendered, though that wasn’t because he wanted to but because it was clear to them that the moment they left the ship was the moment they would be left behind in their life pods. Why else would the bastards demand them to leave in life pods? 

And now, their ship was dead in space with no thrust and no hope of getting it fixed while the enemy’s airlock was locking up with theirs. 

“The moment that door opens you open fire, got it?” the captain hissed as half of the crew in the ship crowded around the only way with guns of all kinds in their hands and sandbags for cover in front of them.

Jerome took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as he heard the mechanisms of the dropship clicking away as the connection between theirs and the enemy’s formed…

And then … 

Black smog? Black smog was seeping through the airlock door.

“Shit! They’re trying to flush us out!” someone hissed as she backed up.

“Hold steady!” the captain ordered. “Even if they are trying to flush us out, we have to hold here! It’s the only way in for them!” 

And so, Jerome held. Even as the smog filled the corridor and began to hurt his eyes. He held along with the rest of the crew. 

Then he and everyone else heard it. The airlock door opening.

“FIRE!”

And they did.

The small corridor lit up with ear bursting levels of bullets and lasers zipping forward into the smog… And the smog wasn’t parting. As if it wasn’t even there like a bad computer game graphic. 

He didn’t bother to call out his reloads. He just did it while others did the same and -.

“Done yet?”

Everyone snapped to their left and saw a -.

His eyes widened as he saw a man armored from head to toe in some futuristic plated armor with singes and bullet impact marks but not a single penetration. But how did he get from the airlock to their side of the corridor without being seen?

Then the man brought out a knife. 

He turned it on.

And the dimly lit corridor found itself bathed in a baleful orange light.

“My turn, then.”

And stabbed down with the hateful burning dagger.

The smell of cooking meat filled the gunpowder smoke filled corridor.

Jerome screamed as he ran for it. 

He did not get far. 

He tripped forward when he felt a hand - not a armor gauntlet but a slick, wet, and definitely warm hand - grab his ankle and pull him down. He scrambled to turn around and -.

Blood drained from his face when he saw a headless man, bleeding from the now headless neck and other cuts, pulling him toward him… and so many other wounded and dead zombies.

“AAAHHH-!”

---

Edward Arlaoskas

“Nightmare Scenario Technique works well, apparently,” I muttered to myself as I looked around the crew.

After I used my power armor’s sensors to penetrate through the opaque black smog, I had shunshin’ed into their midst while they were busy firing blindly into the smogged corridor. 

And well, I activated my illusion technique. 

The result? 

I now stood over a dozen plus crew of the dropship frothing at their mouth and trembling on the ground. 

I had a choice to make now.

Did I kill them or stuff them into a lifepod? 

… Even if their captain might have tried to falsely surrender, I didn’t kill everyone here. Besides, most of them would have a worse life due to dispossession if I left them alive, and I think that’s enough of a punishment. 

And their captain was going to get eaten alive by whoever was left in his mercenary company. Because after this kind of false surrender, their MRB rating was going to tank if they weren’t outright removed from the listing. 

… maybe I shouldn’t be trying to create potential future enemies for myself. 

Okay, so maybe I might have to kill the captain who gave me the false surrender. 

I crouched over the guy who ran away the furthest before slapping him awake. He trembled a little longer before blearily looking up at me. He froze and kept still like a deer fawning.

“Oi. Where’s the captain?”

He raised a trembling hand and pointed to a guy slumped against the back wall of the tri-junction where they tried to hold. 

I walked over, raised my knife, and stabbed it into his skull.

It slid in easier than a knife going into tofu.

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Cursa, Free Worlds League

3002 October

“You confirmed it?” I asked the MRB liaison. 

She nodded. “We have the videos and audio recording of the entire fight,” she replied. The smartly dressed woman had been suspicious of me from the start when my crew and I landed back on Cursa along with our loot dropship, the one used by the “Crimson Ace Dragoons.”

The copies of the video and audio logs, however, did a lot to ease her misgivings, because she’d gone from her original terse barely concealed disdain to a “please forget I might have been rude in the past” professionalism. It was obvious that her initial impression came from the local news reporting on the battle in space. I wondered what they said about me.

The copies, of course, did not include my boarding of the Invader-class dropship. No, that was going to remain mine because I did not have a death wish.

Because as soon as video proof of my supernatural abilities became public, I would be the target of so many honeypot and assassinations that I might exile myself from the Inner Sphere and the Periphery.

“And the verdict?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“It is the professional opinion of the local MRB chapter that you have conducted yourself well, which we cannot say the same about the Crimson Ace Dragoons. In lieu of a standing contract, the dropship is yours to claim.”

“Nice,” I hummed. Another dropship to weld onto my Solo Killing. Or maybe this one could be the dedicated forge ship that I needed? Decisions, decisions, decisions… “Is there anything else or …?”

“No, Commander Marris. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.”

“... Actually, I had something to ask from my end. How exactly did the local news cover my battle in space that you were … not so friendly with me?” 

She blushed, obviously embarrassed by being caught like that. 

“It … had to do with how the news was covering it…”

Yeah, see? I guessed that there was someone just not happy with me here. 

Not a big deal. I’ll just leave and take my business somewhere else.