Collection 27 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 27

-VB-

Marco Arlaoskas

En route to Helm

3003 April

It’s been four months since Edward came back home and carried them all to safety. Away from ComStar of all people. 

Oh, he also had a fleet of pseudo-jumpships.

A fleet.

That still tripped him up. 

Tall Lil’ Edward, the boy who once went around collecting rocks in elementary school and then picking fights over politics in high school and college had gone and come back home not just as a successful mercenary captain but the fleetmaster of perhaps the second most powerful mercenary fleet in the Free Worlds League… it tripped him up. 

He certainly wasn’t ready for Edward to become someone important.

The thought still didn’t register well. It was one thing to see that Edward captained a ship. It was another to equate that to his command over the rest of the ships or that those crew-less “drone” ships would listen to each and every command Edward sent them. 

‘Even a warship won’t be safe,’ Marco thought as he stepped out of the hot shower. ‘Because Ed’s drone ships were designed with some level of ramming in mind.’

Edward had said as much when he explained the smooth bows of the droneships, which were solid bulkheads. 

One did not simply make solid bulkheads which would add needless mass to ships needing maneuverability without a very good reason. And that reason for Edward had been “ramming time.”

He shuddered despite how warm he felt. 

He remembered Edward as a boy capable of petty cruelty if he wished it. He had no doubt in his mind right now that he wanted to make ComStar suffer for daring to threaten their family. Marco wanted that, too, but he was just a simple soldier who only knew how to shoot and kill. 

Ed? 

Ed wanted to make an interstellar empire in all but name suffer. He wasn’t going to stop at just shooting some of ComGuards or bombing one of the HPGs. Marco knew fully well that Edward intended to make them crash and burn a very slow death, and if what he said about how ComStar held back technology, it would be a very slow painful death indeed. Because what else was the death of purpose? 

Empires were like any organization out there. An organization existed as long as three things existed within it: manpower, power, and purpose. Manpower fed power, power fueled purpose, and purpose brought manpower. 

If ComStar lost its technological edge, then it would lose its purpose. Lack of purpose would slow down recruitment. Lack of recruitment would reduce their effective power and influence. Ineffective power and influence would lead to even weaker purpose.

Everything in existence was about balance, and Edward wanted to break ComStar’s balance. 

It made him wonder just how long ComStar had to live. 

---

“Hey, Ed.”

Edward looked up from whatever he’d been working on in his computer. “Sup, Big?”

Big was the name Edward had tacked on him. Maybe it started off as something of an insult when they were young, but considering that until Edward came around with his fleet, Marco used to be the Big Stick his family wielded when it needed one, he wasn’t against the nickname anymore. 

“... So what’s going to be my job around here? I’m not gonna sit around and get fat. That’s not how I want to go.”

Edward kept staring at him for a moment before nodding. “Depends. Want a mech or a ship?” 

Marco stared at his younger brother. “Wait, what?”

“A mech or a ship? Do you want to fight in space or on the ground?” he asked before going back to whatever he was designing on the screen. “If you don’t know yet, then I recommend that you go around the ship. This is the second ship I’ve ever modified, and there’s a lot of mechs aboard here that will let you see how I might make your mech.”

“You … make mechs, too?”

“Yup~,” Ed popped his P. “Modified a Wasp light mech into a void mech. That’s the one our mech lance commander Miguel uses. It’s agile and just tough enough to survive a AC/20 once.”

A light mech surviving an AC/20?

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Edward shrugged. “You can ask what riding one feels like. Oh, and it doesn’t walk. It floats above the ground.”

Marco stared at Ed for a long bit before he huffed. Ed wasn’t the type to lie even on occasions where he had things to gain. He would occasionally if he felt the need was there, but getting him to lie, not keep quiet, was like pulling teeth. Not that he didn’t lie. Ed’s lied plenty of times, mostly to cover for him.

“And if you designed a mech for me, then what would you make?” he asked instead as he pulled out a free chair and sat down arm’s reach away from his brother. 

“Last time we talked, you were bragging about your tank crew, right?” 

“Yeah…?”

Edward hummed. “I think I can make you a tank.” There was a pause. “How would you like to be the commander of a 100 ton assault tank?”

“Sold.”

-VB-

Michael Arlaoskas

Helm, Free Worlds League

3003 April

“Wait,” Michael said as he buried his face in one hand and held up a hand to stop his increasingly troublesome and not-paranoid middle son in the middle of his explanation. “So ComStar has been killing people across the Inner Sphere?”

“Yes,” Edward replied with a double nod, something he did when he got too deep into explaining something. “”Usually, their preferred targets are those in high education. Engineers, professors, biologists, and and even directors of organizations. Their favorite targets are people whose job is to hold such organization of highly educated people together, because the eventual fracture would make their job easier. The only professional field that they prefer not to touch is the medical field, but since even high tech medical devices require high levels of engineering, medical field gets affected anyway.”

Revelation after revelation. 

Secrets after secrets. 

This was the exact kind of shit that he didn’t want to get involved with but here he was not out of his own volition but because he would otherwise be a liability for his son.

But the more he learned about the true state of the Inner Sphere, the less compunctions he felt about making sure ComStar met an untimely end. 

At the same time…

“And they actually think that this is the best way forward?”

“For the advancement of their goals, yes. Inner Sphere under the benevolent rule of ComStar.”

“So. ComStar is… just another Great House.”

“I suppose it is,” Edward hummed. “But even when compared to other Great Houses, ComStar is even more factitious internally. Even if they did gain a significant support of the Inner Sphere, they would break from internal pressure as different philosophies exert themselves when power reveals the true faces of ComStar’s players.” A pause. “That isn’t to say that the lower ranks are complicit.”

“They aren’t?”

“No. Most of the lower ranks, especially the acolytes, really do believe in what they are doing. Or are doing it to climb the ladder, but there’s ladder climbers everywhere, so that’s a moot point.”

“Then the ones who attacked us…?”

“Probably not a single acolyte among them. ComGuard’s different from ComStar, even if it is under the latter’s control. A lot of their most fanatical members are recruited from ComStar’s hidden worlds, too.”

“... Hidden worlds?”

“Ah. Forgot about that. ComStar has hidden worlds throughout the Inner Sphere. Some are just outposts for processing but others are fully fledged inhabited systems with everything from robust agriculture to warship shipyards.”

So ComStar was not only intentionally pushing humanity towards technological regression, they also possessed the very weapons of war that they internally decried the Great Houses for having once had. 

What kind of hypocritical bullshit was his life and that of every life built on?

Michael sighed. “And you intend to make sure they won’t be able to do all of that in the future.”

“Yes. The sooner they vanish, the better it’ll be for everyone, and loosening their grip on technology - preferably completely loosening their grip - will ensure their fall from grace,” Edward nodded. “Because if that doesn’t do it, then I have other methods. Power distributed to the common people is power taken away from the rulers and all.”

“And what would that entail?” Please don’t say weapons.

“Commercially available blueprints for faster-than-light communication buoys that are probably cheaper than most assault mechs.”

“Huh?”

There was a ding.

“Ah,” Edward muttered. “We’re in orbit of Helm now.”

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Helm, Free Worlds League

3003 April

My latest point with Inspired Inventor was put into Combat Vehicle Engineering. Part of it had been because I wanted to get Marco something. I wanted to make everyone something that they would like and enjoy. 

Amy probably wanted a stealth suit that both made her look sexy and be deadly effective at the martial arts I was teaching her. 

Armas probably wanted a house. He was a house husband who’d like a house (or ship) to his specification. Probably with a big ass kitchen because he was the best cook.

Mom and dad… I wasn’t quite sure. I’ll have to ask them. 

Anton and Katrin would probably like a ship that they could use to do their own little things in like raising a family or operating a business with.

For Marco, who boasted about his tank, tank crew, and the well-oiled militia of Kendall, a tank that he could operate by himself or with a crew of his choosing. 

(Of course, there will be additional protection and software in the tank in question to protect him from potential traitors.)

But there was also another reason why I chose that particular bit. See, combat vehicle was a phrase with a very wide definition in modern Inner Sphere. Traditionally, it referred to any land-based military vehicles, but it also technically included dropships, fighters, and so much more because its most basic definition was thus.

A combat vehicle is a military vehicle used in combat zones.

That’s it. That was its most basic definition. 

This meant that while it was a weak knowledge tree by itself, it had a compounding effect on all other vehicle-related tech trees. Sure, I had Starsector Space Engineering 7, or two steps above what would already be called a genius, but with just one level in Combat Vehicle Engineering, I could now make better Starsector ships. 

Already, I was getting ideas about certain very powerful ships.

But that’s for the future. Right now, I had the Helm Memory Core to get. 

As for how I was going to do it…

---

“This is why A.I. is a very powerful tool,” I said after turning around to my family. 

It took one hour - just one hour! - for a mediocre artificial intelligence to break through the Star League Castle Brian’s security lock, and with one of the Glimmer droneships nearby, my family and I were not in any danger. There was a chance of failure, but, well, it didn’t. 

Marco and others stared at the slowly opening gates of the Castle Brian that they hadn’t realized existed here until we were almost stepping in front of its gates. 

Starsector surveying equipments were something crazy, lemme tell ya.

“Oh my God,” Anton muttered for the fifth time. 

“God probably didn’t like the Star League. Bunch of pretentious pricks,” I huffed. “Anyways, once we get the core, I’m going to slag this entire mountain.”

“What?!”