Debauchery Worlds 74 (Patreon)

Commissioned by southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 74

-VB-

Alan Marris VC5 (Vat Clone, not part of hive mind)

Mallus

2984.08.17

We stayed in the Warhammer Fantasy world for exactly one week as we amended our plans to. During that time, we didn’t move much, relying mostly on our long range scanners. 

And suffice to say, we weren’t ever coming back here. 

First off, the rats - the skaven - scared the shit out of me. There were so many of them just underneath the surface in tunnels, caverns, and mines. Like…

Jesus fucking Christ. 

God, you probably don’t exist in this world because you wouldn’t let something so cursed and unholy continue to exist otherwise. 

The skaven… they were uncountable. Literally. My sensors figuratively threw their hands up in surrender and just stated “undefined” for how many skaven there were when I knew that each sensor could individually separate up to ten million individuals!

So even with all of the clones working together, we couldn’t count them all! 

Which was …

Alarming. 

And our long range scanner didn’t even cover a tenth of the planet’s surface. 

I was actually half-tempted to get a lot of nukes and burn this world to kingdom come. Maybe I should just burn chaos? It was in the far north or something like that, right? Just drop nukes over there until there’s nothing left. 

Would orbital bombardment work? 

God, I was so curious.

… Actually, why don’t I just ask? I kept forgetting that I wasn’t part of the hive mind anymore. 

“Umm, guys.”

“Yes?” the clones on the other side of my camera asked immediately. 

“Can we nuke the north? Like where the chaos is.”

Silence. 

“... Well, it’s not like it’s going to affect us after we leave. So sure. Let’s nuke the north to kingdom come.”

“Sweet. When are we doing it?”

“As soon as we start producing the new expeditionary ships. We’re not sure how Chaos would react to our warships, so we’re not going to risk any of the capital ships.”

“Cool. And in the mean time…?”

“If you want, then you can come back home. No point staying there or any Warhammer universes.”

“Thank you.”

I turned to my expedition clone-mates. “Alright. I guess we can go back home, then,” I said out loud, and the other two clones sighed in relief. I understood why they felt so relieved. It had been kind of a nerve wracking week here. Sure, we hadn’t been attacked or threatened by anything, mostly because we stayed well and truly out of the way from everyone and everything, but that didn’t change the fact that we knew there were millions of giant rat-men underneath the ground ready to burst out of it for no rhyme and reason.

Because skaven were like that.

I knew from lore that they were more likely to screw each other than anyone else, but, seriously, it didn’t change the fact that they could make literal towns disappear. 

Thousands of people. 

Poofed. 

I - and all of my clones and the original - can’t afford to look down on the races of this because they were technologically inferior. No, no, no. That kind of overconfidence and stupid-think was how someone with all of the advantages lost to enemies they shouldn’t have lost to. 

No. If we were going to fuck over Warhammer, then we were going to do it Skitter style. 

Escalation, escalation, escalation.

… Actually, would nuking Chaos to kingdom come actually fucking over the locals or helping them? Even with Chaos fuckery, it would take a lot of work just to keep a baseline human alive and functioning in the radioactive zones that the nukes would create. Or would Chaos not even flinch at the nukes and thank us for creating a buffer zone that would weaken any and all crusades into its territory? 

Something to tell the other clones (and the original) just in case.

… But then again, I’m a clone. Any thought I would have, the numerous clones across vast, literal multiverses would have thought of it sooner or later, if not already thought of before me. 

… I should ask, right? 

I’ll speak up about it later. I still have a job to do. 

…

…

Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of rats. We’re just staring at our scanners with morbid awe at this rate. 

-VB-

Alan Marris (original)

Cylene, Coreward Principality

2984.08.20

“No.”

All of the clones in the hive mind mentally stared at me. 

“We’re not going to nuke them. We’re just going to leave their world, lock down that coordinate to prevent further travel, and stay away. Are guys all forgetting the fact that the bugs almost got us? Just staying there is trouble,” I grunted. 

I have been asleep for just half a day and this was what I woke up to. 

My clones planning on bombing the hell out of Chaos.

“Did you learn nothing? You don’t touch Warhammer worlds. No. Nada. Nein. Ahn-dweh. La. Nahin. Ie.”

‘It’s a guilt-free nuclear bombing run!’ one of my clones objected to my objection. 

‘It’s boring just killing orcs over on Halass! Their new improved tactic is mass charge from the flank!’

‘It’s Chaos! There’s nothing wrong with bombing Chaos! What you’re saying is the equivalent of “Middle East, bad. So leave before we can bomb ISIS!”’

‘Yeah! Wimp original!’

‘Wimp!’

‘Coward!’

‘BOOO!!!’

‘We wanna nuke Chaos!’

Their voices grated against my mental. 

“Shut!” 

They did.

Before bursting out into more grumbling, if quieter.

“Who the fuck knows if Chaos is going to infect us the longer we stay over there. We’re not going to fly anything in the skies above Chaos. That’s fucking stupid!” A pause. “So we’re just going to open a portal between them and a star.”

A pause.

Then a cheer from the rest of the Hive Mind clones. 

---

After the VC expedition team returned home, we prepared to unleash the sun. 

We, of course, chose to use a star in a wholly unconnected universe, one that we have already explored. It had an Earth but without any humans or any other advanced sentient species in the solar system or neighboring stars. 

One of our Pilum-class Heavy Destroyers remained on standby just above that universe’s Sol.

And then … we opened the portal. 

We didn’t have anyone on the ground on Mallus, but we had our sensors looking through the same portal we were pouring celestial plasma through to observe the situation on the ground.

“They’re not burning,” someone noted. 

“Hmm.”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, nothing’s burning.”

“This is distressing.”

“The holy fuck?”

“I think you mean unholy fuck.”

It was like watching two gaseous misasmas mixing and fighting each other. 

The burning yellow might of a star’s fiery flares clawing and singing the miasma but the reddish-purple miasma shrieked as it ate away at the plasma at the same time. 

We watched the battle happen…

And why was the sun losing the fight? 

“Yeah, no, I’m shutting this down,” I said before doing exactly that. I shut off the portal and then left the universe where we used a star to siege Chaos. Or rather failed to siege Chaos.

Because apparently, Chaos laughed at astral bombardment.