Collection 26 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 26

-VB-

Armas Arlaoskas

3003 January

“Now what?” he asked his brother while the rest of the family and crew had gathered up in the mess hall of Humpty Dumpty. They had to leave Kendall in a hurry after that brazen two-pronged attack. 

But they didn’t leave Kendall System entirely. No, the entire fleet was now positioned in the shadow of the outermost gas giant, waiting on his brother’s orders. 

“Now, we have to discuss what we are going to do,” Edward replied. “Honestly, my first response is to get some payback in a very … unorthodox sense.”

“How unorthodox?” Amy asked with a raised eyebrow. 

His brother grinned. “I’m going to find a Star League memory core and distribute it everywhere, which is the exact opposite of what ComStar wants.”

The room froze before several people stood up. They all began talking at once, but Armas wasn’t among their number. None of the core crews were. Why would they? Sure, Star League was the glorious past of the Inner Sphere but he and the crew had been around technologies his brother had built by hand for the past few years. 

Alternate FTL, weapons that outdid anything Star League had, energy barriers, microfabricators and even a nanofabricator Edward treated like his baby, artificial intelligence, drones, and so much more…

What was Star League compared to that? 

His family - his other brother, sister, parents, and their families - looked at how the crew didn’t react.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just dump half of what you knew instead?” Miguel asked. “Hell, your FTL communication tech alone would bankrupt ComStar.”

“Probably,” Edward shrugged. “But if I go that extra distance to fuck with them and they do collapse, then all of the retards suddenly don’t have much to lose, now do they? They’re going to start doing stupid shit like bioterrorism to get their way instead of spying and wiretapping.”

“So you want to hurt them … but not hurt them enough to push them over the edge,” dad spoke up as he slowly sat down. 

“Bingo,” Edward grinned. Then he paused. “Hold up for a second…” he muttered as he blanked out. 

‘Ah,’ Armas thought as he recognized what was happening. This happened every time Edward suddenly got new ideas and technologies. “Anything new?”

“No, just a way of making better AI.”

“Cool.”

“Cool?” Marco drawled. “AI is cool?” he asked incredulously. 

Of course, everyone in the family had been told about the other dropships and how there was no one inside of them. That every single one of those dropships except Humpty Dumpty and Solo Killing were FTL-capable drone ships that followed Edward’s orders. 

“You know, if I don’t find a wife for myself soon, then I might make myself a robot wife or something,” Edward joked. Then he paused. “Or make a robot nanny for Jeremiah.”

“Yes, please,” Armas grunted out and Amy giggled. He looked at her and shrugged. 

What parents wouldn’t want free reliable nanny for their babies?

“I would’ve liked one a few decades ago,” mom joked, too. Then she got serious. “And then after you had your fun with ComStar?” she asked. 

“We can leave for the periphery,” Edward hummed. “Staying in the Inner Sphere with my tech and with how loudly I’ve been exposed just means everyone and their spy agencies will be looking for me. What we talked about back home on Kendall. Because even when I break out the Star League memory core from where it’s hidden, I will still be technologically superior. The Inner Sphere houses will start making warships, but it’ll mean jackshit when I have energy barriers that'lI tank their biggest guns.”

Armas nodded, briefly remembering how the ComGuard tried to firebomb their house, only to be thwarted by Edward’s preparations. 

There had been a good chance that half of the family here wouldn’t be alive to think about all of this if Edward hadn’t thought multiple steps ahead of his assassins. 

And speaking of which…

He wanted to ask Edward how he knew to be paranoid about ComStar from the get-go, but he wouldn’t do it here in the open.

See, it was one of those things he learned by osmosis from being next to Amy, who was learning all about the psychology and everything. Questions and criticisms happened in a good workplace, which this crew (fleet?) was because his brother wasn’t an idiot sandwich. However, openly asking questions that was best left discrete meant things got hairy quickly. 

He did provide a decent explanation back at home, but it had been weak then. 

He glanced at Edward, and saw him notice his stare and nod. 

---

“So?” Armas asked once they were out of the way in the noisy manufacturing chamber of Solo Killing. “How did you really know to avoid ComStar at all cost from the get-go?”

Edward tittered. He looked like he wanted to answer but … he also looked like the answer might give someone an aneurysm. Because when Edward got crazy, it did give someone an aneurysm before. 

“Come on, I’m waiting, bro.”

Finally, he sighed and answered. 

"Do you want the most believable explanation or what I believe I am?”

Arms frowned. 

When Ed started asking questions like this, Arm knew that Ed was serious because he was thinking about how to explain himself. 

“What you believe.”

“I’m someone who reincarnated from another universe that had insights into this universe in the form of a fictional media spanning across books, board games, video games, and more.”

Well.

Um.

… He wasn’t delusional, Arm knew that. A delusional man wouldn’t be capable of making technological wonders or predicting how an interstellar organization like ComStar would behave.

…

“We’re real, right?”

“You’re real, don’t worry about it,” Ed huffed. “If this wasn’t real, then I would have gone off and done something far more ridiculous.”

Arm pulled his head back. “This isn’t ridiculous enough?”

“... Well, I always did dream of a harem in my past life.”

Armas nearly choked to death on the spot. 

But he finally got an answer out of his brother… and that only led to more. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” he asked as he got the tears out of his eyes and got his choking under control. “So … what … you saw how the Inner Sphere’s future goes?”

“Yup. Mad Max is going to do something stupid, First Prince Hanse marries the future archon’s daughter, they form a united nation, and then the descendants of Kerensky’s Star League come back as a neo-barbariac confederation who don’t understand the basics of war because they spent too much time ritualizing it.”

“... Huh?”

Ed grinned. “I’ll tell you when it becomes relevant. And speaking of relevant,” he said before wrapping his knuckles twice on the microfabricator. “This thing is a technology from another fictional media from my past life.”

Armas filed the bit about the future for later. “... You’re talking about how you’re getting your technology.”

“Yup,” he popped the word. “I can access any skill or tech, one arbitrary level at a time, from any and all fictional media from my past life. And since this ‘fictional media’ is real and everyone here are living breathing people, all of those fictional medias are real as well, and thus I am not making shit up as I go but rather drawing them from … other realities, essentially.”

“... Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“How far can you go?”

Ed snorted. 

“Nothing is out of my capability. The only limitation is time.” 

“... and you just want to tickle ComStar? After they tried to kill everyone? Amy, Jeremiah, and our parents?” Arm asked a little hotly. 

“The other option is to be responsible for the deaths of billions in the decade to come,” Ed replied with a sigh. “I may really only care about my family, but I’m also not one for senseless death. What I intend to do will hurt ComStar on a fundamental level. Trust me.”

-VB-

A/N: So Ed finally told Armas and, by extension, Amy. They’ve been with him through thick and thin, and after a very front and personal attack on their lives, he decided to be more open with them than before. It’s a secret, however, that has little to no impact beyond strengthening the brotherly trust. Even if it gets out, so what? It’s not how he gets the power but what he does with it that matters here.