Collection 47 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 47

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Victoria System

3004 November 20

I got another point, and after a brief thought, pushed it to Medical Knowledge, bringing it up to level 4 and very close to the edge of what the Star League was capable of. With that done, I turned to the sight before me.

Dressed in a dark blue business suit, I stood in front of the glass separating me from the cold vacuum of space, but having designed and made this ship myself, I didn’t feel too particularly afraid about the glass shattering. Or at all. It wasn’t exactly a single sheet of thick glass but multiple layers of clear polymers designed specifically for spaceships.

And on the other side of the vacuum was the giant hull of the Onslaught, my Onslaught-class dreadnought. Modeled after the Starsector ship with the same name, my Onslaught didn’t rely on ballistic weapons and more on laser and energy weapons. 

Which also meant that my ship was a laserfest by itself. 

It was also a statement. ‘Here is a warship that would have run over any one of your fleets from your glorious past. Look upon it and despair’-ish kind of way. If I really wanted to, then I probably didn’t even need to fire Onslaught’s weapons. Battletech’s warships were lightly armored and structurally reinforced because warships needed at least half of their weight to be their FTL drive. Onslaught, on the other hand, didn’t have KF Drive like all Inner Sphere jumpships and The Maw, and could convert all of those extra free weights into armor, internal structure, and more firepower. 

Whatever the Successor States and ComStar thought about Onslaught, it was far stronger than their best estimates. 

But today was not about taking Onslaught on a joyride across the Inner Sphere to give everyone a heart attack. 

No.

Today was about diplomacy, politics, and reorganization. 

I watched through the window as my ships, most of which were Slashers, came carrying the leaders of the worlds that I conquered from the Capellan Confederation. Today, we would meet in the heart of the Onslaught and mete out a working government. 

Whether they liked it or not.

“Edward?” 

I minutely looked up before turning around to face the speaker. 

“What is it, mom?” I asked. 

Maria Arlaoskas was the matriarch of the Arlaoskas family. She played that role rather well. She was just that kind of a woman: a womanly woman. She didn’t have material ambitions for herself beyond what she wanted for her children. She did have desires like certain art pieces and luxuries, but she was pragmatic enough to not make demands of dad or her children. The most she demanded was to take care of her and dad if they ever end up being infirm.

Well, they will be taken care of better than anything I might have been able to provide back home on Kendall. 

And mom… she looked troubled. 

“Are you doing alright?” 

I stared at her with wide eyes in surprise. 

Then I felt it. 

A burst of laughter. 

I laughed. 

I laughed long and hard.

And mom just walked up to me and gave me a hug. 

I let my mom, who only came up to my collarbones, hug me. It felt good. It grounded me. 

And I felt the love my mom had for me. It didn’t matter that I was now the head of a state or in charge of the biggest and most powerful military in the universe.

I was just Edward Arlaoskas, her son, and her priority was my well-being, not the flow of history. 

Well, as long as I tried my best to not be a evil bastard, that was. I firmly believed that if I were to do something comically evil (like, I don’t know, indiscriminate bombardment of civilian population centers), my parents would disown me. 

“I think I’ll be okay, mom,” I told her as she pulled away. “But I think I’ll end up dirtying my hands a lot. Politics, you know?” 

She chuckled. It was slightly sad. It was slightly bemused. Maybe even a little exasperated. 

“As long as you know where you are heading, Iwon’t fault you for lightly straying from the path as needed.”

---

And finally, after another hour of waiting, the delegates arrived. Thirteen representatives from thirteen worlds. Old, young, men, and women. 

They walked in and took seats as directed by their human-lookalike AI guides. 

“Welcome,” I told them when the last of them arrived and took her seat. “I am Edward Arlaoskas, the Fleetmaster of the Arlaoskas Fleet… and now, your liege lord.” I brought my hands together and clasped them in front of me. “Please, introduce yourselves.”

One by one, the delegates introduced themselves. Most of them were nobles in charge of the world or governor appointed by the confederation prior to my conquest. 

And while they were meeting me for the first time, I have had my eyes on their worlds for months now. I knew how their worlds operated. Who was in charge of what. What each world did differently. 

And which of these delegates were execution worthy assholes.

I smiled as the introductions came to an end. “I do not have many demands …” I began.

-VB-

The Victoria Council of 3004 marks a point in the Arlaoskas Fleet’s direction. 

Prior to this point, the Fleet operated as a family unit, not too differently from how many jumpship clans operate within the Inner Sphere. Starting from this event, the Fleet gained legitimacy, worlds, and a population that truly elevated them from being a “rogue mercenary fleet” in the eyes of the Inner Sphere’s Successor States to a “nation.” 

During the Victoria Council of 3004, Fleetmaster Edward Arlaoskas laid out the new rules that would become the laws of a nation that would come to be known colloquially as the Fleet Constellation. 

Or FleetCon, if you abbreviated.

Officially, the thirteen systems and the four additional systems Arlaoskas already had under his control came to be known as the Arlaoskas Union of Systems (AUS).