Collection 28 (Patreon)

Sorry about that. Seems like only half of the chapter copied.

Collection

Chapter 28

-VB-

Janos Marik

Atreus, Free Worlds League

3003 May

The realm trudged on. Whether it did so proudly on its two legs or a crutch made out of suffering and misery mattered not. The realm trudged on, even one dysfunctional and bureaucratically byzantine as the Free Worlds League. 

There was always too much for him to work on. Too many things for him to do. 

And the most recent military campaigns against the Lyran Commonwealth was not going well at all. 

In fact, it was going so poorly that his opponents within the Parliament were using it as their cudgel. There were very few ways he would be getting out of this if the campaign continued to go so poorly but -.

“Captain-General.”

He looked up and saw one of his secretaries. “Yes?” he asked. His secretaries knew not to bother him too much when he was deep in his work. They would only do so if it was realm-related and urgent.

“The Kendall Mercenary has surfaced…” 

He frowned. Just because the mercenary who painted ComStar in a bad light surfaced shouldn’t mean that his secretary would bring up the fact to him. Something else was at play right now. 

But this was about the Kendall Mercenary, a man going by the name of Edward Arlaoskas who’d gone and become a mercenary by engaging in void combat with no prior experience, heavily modifying his salvage dropship, taking down pirate raids from Marian Hegemony, and shooting down even more pirates along the Magistracy-League border. His story was more akin to a fiction than real life except that it was real.

And he showed up after half a year of silence with a fleet of dropships of unknown make and design. 

Then went into hiding again after he blasted a jumpship for attacking him first. 

But not before releasing all of the footage he had on four separate League worlds. ComStar and CNN, which both initially tried to play the mercenary captain out to be a dangerous pirate who broke the unspoken taboo of interstellar navigation, were quick to turn around and demand investigations on why a jumpship would engage nearly a dozen heavily armored, heavily armed, and very well coordinated flotilla. 

“And?”

“He is currently en route to Atreus, Captain-General. He’s broadcasting on open public radio channels that he wants an audience with you.”

“...What?” 

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Atreus, Free Worlds League

3003 May

“Are you sure we should be here right now?” Armas asked a little nervously as he followed me toward the ramp. 

Currently, we were on one of the Glimmers instead of Solo Killing or Humpty Dumpty. I didn’t want to give anyone the chance to sabotage my two most important ships (center of manufacture and where most of my family lives), so I’d come down to Atreus on a Glimmer. It was a horribly cramped ship because that’s how I designed it; it wasn’t for long-term human use.

Sufficed to say, merely walking down the corridor toward the ramp had to be done in a line instead of side by side. That’s how narrow the corridors were, almost like those of naval submarine. 

“[Landing in progress,]” a soft toned ambiguous voice spoke over the intercom. I paused as did Armas and neither of us felt anything, which meant that the inertial dampeners were working as intended. “[Landing complete.]”

I nodded in satisfaction and continued on. 

“The Captain-General acquiesced to our request. Normally, a man like him wouldn’t meet people like us, you know?” 

And wasn’t that the truth of it? 

Even here within the Free Worlds League where the titles of nobility held less sway among the people both legally and culturally, there was still something to be said about the Captain-General and the Mariks. 

The Mariks was de facto ruler of the Free Worlds League, but it was also an accepted that that this was not de jure, or how it was and could be. If circumstances changed, then someone else could become the Captain-General. But the same could not be said about the Steiners and the Archonship or the First Prince and the Davions or the Coordinator and the Kuritans.

And I think, personally at least, this gave the Captain-General more respect among his free minded and entrepreneurial people. 

Including me. 

Because I knew more than most the struggles he faced and will face. 

And maybe that coupled with the fact that I was also a Free Worlds League citizen brought me to him first.

I stood in the cargo bay and pressed the ramp lever button. 

The ramp clunked and lowered slowly. 

“Still… it’s the Captain-General!” 

See? 

“He’s just another man like us,” I replied with a smile. “Besides, if the guy has bad intentions, well, we’ve got mini-warships in orbit.”

When the ramp stopped lowering after hitting the ground, I took a small breath and walked down. Armas hesitated for a split second before he quickly followed after me. 

We walked down the ramp and found ourselves staring out into a private spaceport.

A man walked up to us. 

“The Captain-General awaits, Mister Arlaoskas.”

So he did. 

I wondered how he’ll react to the Star League Memory Core? 

… Armas, will you stop tittering like a school girl? God, you’re wife has more guts than you.

---

The black limousine slid to a stop and both Armas and I stared out of the window briefly before the driver got out and opened our door. 

Armas took a step outside and I followed suite.

We now stood in front of the Marik Palace. Not the Parliament but the Marik Palace. It was a whole different institution in and of itself, and I meant institution, not just a different building. 

See, the Mariks have been in power for so long that while the Parliament was still where all of the representatives gathered, a lot of actual work was done away from the Parliament and in Marik’s own complex, and the realm of power that the Mariks enjoyed the most was the military. 

So it didn’t surprise me to see a pair of Marauders standing guard next to the front gate. 

Much imposing. Very scary. 

… Was there supposed to be battlemechs standing guard here? I never heard of that before in documentaries of Atreus that Kendall’s public broadcasting station played almost on an annual basis. The documentary was old (like over a hundred years old). For all I knew the mechs were put in place there before I was even alive. 

The driver left just as someone walked out of the ornate palace that reminded me a lot of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg except it was bigger and even more decked out. The new person looked like a military personnel from the uniform he wore. His shoulders showed him to be a lieutenant. 

“Mister Arlaoskas?” he asked and I nodded. “And this is…?”

“My brother.”

“I see. Very well, please, follow me.”

And he led us through the palace gardens and then into the palace itself. 

I blinked. From the inside, the palace wasn’t so ornately decorated, though it was still expensive with how much gold and marble I saw. 

I glanced at my brother and saw him looking even more nervous at the sight of the sheer luxury on display. For us, this was beyond luxurious. Sure, I was rich and he was a captain of a ship, but this was a different kind of wealth. A flaunted wealth rather than practical wealth. 

There was also a lot of history. Portraits of past Mariks and Captain-Generals, which was essentially one and the same, stared down at us, and seemed to make my brother even more nervous than before.

Normally, I wouldn’t have brought him here (would have come by myself to minimize the risk) but I brought him with me for a very good reason. 

The lieutenant continued to lead us through the corridors, and all of us went through a couple of security checkpoints. 

And finally, we arrived in front of an office. He knocked on the door.

“Enter.”

The lieutenant opened the door and gestured for us to enter. “The Captain-General is waiting for you.”

We walked in and there he was.

Captain-General Janos Marik. 

“You better have a good reason for forcing me to clear out my schedule for today, Mister Arlaoskas,” he said almost snappishly but not quite. “Please, take a seat.”

I smiled as I did so. “I’m here to help you, actually,” I said while glancing around at the guards around the room.

“... Indeed?”

“Indeed,” I chuckled, and Armas looked utterly confused by my near casual regard of the Captain-General. “Would you like the advice first or the help?”

“Straight to the point. I will see whether your help gives you a chance to offer me advice.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a bulky flash drive, one that I made compatible to most common systems found in the Free Worlds League. 

I set it down and slid it over the table. 

“And this is…?”

“A copy of the Star League Memory Core,” I replied with a smile. 

Janos paused. He gestured at one of the guards, and they brought him a noteputer. The guard plugged the bulky thing in (it had an extendable plug) and showed the result to the Captain-General.

He stared at some of the pages passing by and leaned back.

A heavy moment of silence settled in the room and even the guards looked surprised. 

“... When I agreed to meet you, I thought that you had some dirt or the like on ComStart that you wanted to sell to me or offer to sell me one of your odd dropships for a title.” He took a deep breath in and let it out. He obviously tried to keep calm but his hands trembled minutely. “You are offering something invaluable.”

I smiled and didn’t say anything. 

“Very well. Your advice. I will hear it. If it is half as good as your gift…” he trailed off. 

“The general in charge of the Solaris campaign. He’s a friend of Anton, isn’t he?”

“... I am aware of the connection.”

“But he failed.”

“He did.”

To be clear, the man failed miserably. 

“Don’t execute the man for his failure when you didn’t execute your friend for his. That’s the fastest way to alienate your biggest supporter, aye?” I said as I slung my arm over my brother. 

Armas, never someone who looked at politics, looked confused at my words and the Captain-General’s reaction. 

Janos tensed. 

He worked his jaw as he obviously found the very idea that a mere mercenary dared to question his decision (a decision he no doubt hadn’t told anyone yet) and glared. 

But he reigned himself in and let a slow breath through the nose. 

“... That advice is not worth a Star League Memory Core, if it proves to be that.”

I grinned, happy that we got through the roughest part of it all. “I just wanted to say that,” I replied with a shrug. “Oh, and if it confuses you and makes you paranoid as to why a mercenary would give up the biggest haul of his life and not demand anything in return… then let me tell you something about our mutual enemy and what they do to keep everyone down.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Mutual enemy…?”

He heard what I had to say. 

And he was not pleased to say the least.