Debauchery Worlds 64 (Patreon)

Commissioned by michael stitcher

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 64

-VB-

Alan Marris

Cylene, Coreward Principality

2983.08.01

For all of the threats that came and went, the actual negotiation for the sale and purchase of advanced technology was rather short and tame. I didn’t try to fleece them or anything like that, because I honestly had no need for it. 

No, despite my threat of cracking their world open, I wanted them as friendly as they could be toward me. And so, for a treaty that others might see as fallible and easily breakable, I gave away one of the Javelin-class Destroyers I was making as well as the right to reverse-engineer and replicate anything and everything they can find there. Whoever made it, though, would give me 1% royalty from the gross revenue of the sales of such weapons and ships. 

 Did Michael balk at that price? Not really. He was a mechwarrior and a diplomat in training. He didn’t know the numbers involved in manufacturing. However, considering that the warship and its components would be crucial in bringing up the Federated Suns’ military technology, it was a decent price. 

A quick numbers check.

Constructing my first Javelin from the blueprints I stole costed me 1 billion C-Bills when I compared its material cost at market price. This was because, unlike most Inner Sphere warships whose details I found out over time, UEE’s warships weren’t heavy ships that relied mostly on strong armor and structure to survive. This reduced the cost that went into gathering manufacturing components for such a vessel. 

On the other hand, energy shields were critical to UEE vessels, and without them, they were weaker than their Inner Sphere counterparts due to less weapons, less armor, and overall shorter optimal range of combat. Manufacturing those energy shields would take time as the FedSuns would have to either get a company to make a dedicated line or do it themselves. 

This was, of course, assuming that they could reverse-engineer the components in a timely manner before anyone else decided to sabotage them. 

Speaking of sabotage, I have been working toward one myself to take out my second enemy. 

Because ComStar was soon about to get some competition…

Back to the cost analysis.

If I, someone who didn’t pay workers outside of a very few who weren’t my clones, needed a billion C-Bills to make the Javelin, then I assumed that it would be at least double if not triple the cost. They would also need to set up entire factory lines for the components, so the initial cost might also be a few billion C-Bills. 

By the time they made their first warship, the cost shouldered by the Federated Suns would be in the low tens of billions, if not in the mid tens of billions. But a warship, even one like the Javelin, would be enough to push all of their borders several systems deep, which could mean the death of the Capellan Confederation. 

For that alone, the First Prince would be happy to pay that price. 

It would be worth it for them in the long run, because those technologies would put them on a path to Star League parity. 

As for me, I was already pushing ahead of that technology. 

And there may be a new opportunity for me in one of the already explored universes.

-VB-

Alan Marris (clone)

Tyran, Imperium of Mankind

726.M41

Something was wrong. 

And I could tell something was wrong because one of the rare and visible psykers who stood guard at the entrance of the Adeptus Mechanicus headquarters (something about identifying heretics and daemonic possessions?) started screaming and then fell over dead with blood trickling down from her eyes.

Was it some sort of daemonic invasion? Over time, I knew that there were things here that could not be detected by my sensors until seen. Those psykers and their powers had been one of those things. 

And for her to keel over dead? 

There was something very bad going on.

Before I could even make heads or tails of the situation, the general alarm rang throughout the city. 

But it wasn’t just the city that one clone was in.

It was across the entire planet. 

“What’s going on?!” I asked one of the frantic workers who were heading towards the armory of all places. 

“Invasion!” 

Before I could ask, I noticed it. 

Or rather, I noticed the sky. 

There was no nebula near Tyran. 

So why was there a nebula that was growing in size? In broad daylight? 

I reached into my Rust inventory and pulled out a helmet, which came with magnification. We quickly put it on. And enhanced. And enhanced. And enhanced. 

And then I saw it. 

My body broke out into a sweat immediately and a shiver ran up my spine. 

“That’s a lot of very big bugs…” I muttered to myself. 

If I could make out giant worm things in space with my helmet’s magnification, then those were big bugs that were all heading towards this world. 

… Bugs ate a lot. They ate multiples of their body weight every day. Even if those weren’t true or false insects up there in space, the few who were distinct enough for me to make out didn’t look nice. 

They were close to what I would have drawn if someone told me to draw a “carnivorous spaceship.”

“Right,” I hissed. “This world is about to die. Bringing my own fleet is going to do jackshit against that many of them.” Even if I brought my entire fleet to bear, I couldn’t take down insects that were literally several times bigger than my own ships. My Pilum Heavy Destroyers wouldn’t be big enough to do anything meaningful even if I had it ram it into the heart of their formation and self-destructed it. I could try to open a portal large enough to send them elsewhere… but that would just make it some other universe’s problem without knowing if some sort of evolutionary pressure doesn’t somehow make them worse there. 

No, the best I could do was run away while saving as many people as I could. 

But I also learned quite a bit about these people. They were hierarchical to a fault. They considered merely divergent thoughts, those that did not align themselves with their state propaganda, to be religiously heretical and thus worthy of the worst sorts of punishments “for my sake.”

Going to the authorities to start evacuation was not going to work. 

No, I had to put myself to work to evacuate the few regular people.

I quickly ran towards the densest part of the city, hoping that people would listen to me when I opened a portal in front of them. At the same time, my original and clone selves back in the Inner Sphere began to prep one of Cylene’s continents for mass refugee crisis.