Debaucherous x Division 8 (Patreon)

Commissioned

Debaucherous x Division

Chapter 8

-VB-

Cooperland Port City

3020.10.21

“Pirates?” I had one of my clones repeat with a frown as the dropship operated by a pirate crew came rumbling down from the sky. I saw this from the city hall’s mayoral office, which my clones had taken over along with a few more rooms and jobs while I remained firmly tucked underneath the mountains for safety. 

Unlike the first pirate band I ran into, this crew had a working relationship with Baron Agone before his demise. 

“Yes, sir,” nodded one of the few competent and non-corrupt leaders of the port city, a thirty year old woman by the name of Agnes Churchill. “Their crew is called Twin Red Lancers, and is headed by a man named George Reisen. The last time they came to Cooperland, they had a Merchant-class jumpship, a Union dropship, a Leopard dropship, and two mech lances.”

“... So not a small time pirate,” I hummed. 

“No, sir,” she replied while glancing around at my clones. 

“What is his deal with the former baron?”

“The pirate crew follows the local laws, sells any goods here that they pilfered from elsewhere, and receive a safe harbor and repair facility for their vehicles, mechs, and ships.”

I hummed. Repair and recreation were the main contributors to the “services” income for the planet. The ledgers pointed to revenue increases every time someone visited the planet. 

“Ask the captain to come and meet me,” I ordered her. “We’ll see whether or not that deal will continue.”

She nodded and left the room, leaving me to my thoughts. 

Pirates, slavers, and traders made up what little foreign trade Cooperland saw. Pirates, in particular, brought goods that Cooperland couldn’t access without stiff tariffs levied by both the Federated Suns and the Taurian Concordat, the two closest nations. As such, honest traders barely visited Cooperland with their wares. What they came here for was just the raw resources. 

Slavers looking to buy slaves was one thing. I was not going to tolerate slavers coming here to hunt. 

Pirates… pirates were in a gray zone, even for Cooperland. There were pirates who raided the planet but there were also pirates who came and went to sell their goods. 

If this pirate crew were of the latter category, then I would … treat with them.

If they were using their former agreement to raid the city, then the Clovers stationed all around the city will make short work of them.

Then the phone on the office desk rang. The screen on the phone said Secretary Churchill. I picked up the phone.

Ten seconds later, I knew that the pirate captain will be here to see me soon.

I wondered what kind of a person he was. 

---

George Reisen was born a pirate. 

Literally. 

His dad was a pirate. His mom was a slave. And he was just good enough at violence and stealing that his dad decided he deserved the most inheritance out of all of his kids, both legitimate and illegitimate. 

George made sure to disappear his siblings and their kids who were too ambitious for their own good and took good care of the rest who were willing to work with him.

Such was business. 

He also knew that he was not a big fish. Sure, he had a jumpship and two dropships, but a lot of mercenary companies had more than he did. He was a small fry. The FedSuns’ Outbacks ponds just happened to be small enough that he was able to come and go as he pleased.

And apparently, there was someone else who could throw around more weight than he could.

“So who is this Alan Marris guy?” he asked one of his “retired” pirates, who’d become a local here on Cooperland. They were walking toward the city hall on foot so that he could get as much information.

The old man, an infantryman who had worked for his father, scratched his silver chin. “Someone with a lot of guns,” he replied. “The two mechwarriors who got out of the fight alive basically blurted out to everyone of their dispossession and the numbers Marris fielded. Apparently, Marris has two medium mechs, six light mechs, and another five ultralight mechs at the very least.”

“That’s… a lot,” he muttered. 

“That was before Marris fucked over Baron Baldie and salvaged the mechs. No one knows if he managed to fix them up yet.”

“And ultralight mechs?”

“Fast little buggers. Barely four meters tall but they zoom around like the bug mechs,” the retiree noted. “If you stay in the port long enough, then you’ll see them occasionally patrolling the main streets and the city’s perimeter.”

“And how strong are they?”

“Rumor has it that a single ultralight mech can take on a Locust and win. That’s how Marris got his hands on two mediums. There was a pirate raid months before you came. It wasn’t the baron who kicked their ass but Marris and his ultralights.”

George’s eyebrows rose up. 

“That strong?”

“Ye.” Then the retiree paused. “Oh, and be careful. He has access to some kind of Star League cloning technology. All of the pilots for his mechs? They are all his clones.”

He stopped walking. “What?”

The retiree grunted. “Clones. The new baron has clones of himself. You see them patrolling the city along with the ultralights.” 

George worked his jaws a little. “You’re not joking.”

He snorted. “If I’m joking about this, then you’re going to come after me for the pay,” he said as he gestured to George. 

George dropped a small silver bar. The retiree nodded and left, leaving him by himself at the steps of the city hall.

And on top of the stairs… were two same-faced guards.

Oh.

Clones were real. 

He cleared his throat, a nervous habit he never got rid of, and walked up the stairs. Once he was at the top, he found himself being stared at by the clone guards. 

“... I am Captain George Reisen of the Twin Red Lancers. I am expected.”

The guards stared at him.

George stared back, his eyes shifting back and forth.

Finally, the guards nodded together at the same time in the exact mirror of each other and gestured for him to get in.

“The mayor’s office,” the one to George’s left said. 

“And be quick about it,” the one to his right added. 

He nodded and quickly walked into the city hall, through his corridors, ignored all of the other clones in the building, and found himself standing before the mayoral office. He knocked. 

“Come in.”

He opened the luxuriously carved wooden doors and walked into the room. 

And sitting at the other end of the room in front of a tall glass window was another clone. 

… Or could this be the real man? The one in charge? 

“Welcome, Captain Reisen. Let’s start talking, shall we?”

Oh boy.

Why did he feel like he was walking into a tiger’s den? 

He nodded. “Thank you for seeing me,” he greeted the man with a half-bow. 

“Please, take a seat.”

George did, sitting perpendicularly to the new ruler’s desk yet turning his body sideways to make sure he was showing through his body language he was giving the man all of his attention. 

“Good morning to you, captain. I am Alan Marris. Though I supposed that I am now a baron by right of conquest, I don’t care for titles. I am the lord of Cooperland, and as long as you recognize this, we won’t have issues.”

George nodded. “Of course, sir. And you’ve looked into me already, I suppose.”

“I have. I hear that you are a pirate who had an agreement with Baron Agone before his recent demise at my hands,” Lord Marris asked. 

“I did, yes. It was a simple agreement that a lot of pirates who operated out here partook in.”

“I see. I suppose the pirates who raided Cooperland two months ago weren’t exactly in on the deal, then.”

“Cooperland is…” George hesitated. “A lot of it wasn’t under the baron’s direct rule, and he didn’t bother to protect them, either. So pirates who thought they could get away with it would raid other settlements on the planet.”

“The baron was a very lax ruler, then?”

“More like he didn’t care,” he shrugged. “So what can I do for you?”

“A continuation and an expansion of the agreement,” the lord replied casually. “I’m not interested in building an empire, though I seem to have gotten one anyways. See, I have a patron, Captain Reisen, and that patron very much wants me to mess with the Federated Suns.”

“I… see.”

Was the patron someone from the Draconis Combine or the Taurian Concordat? It couldn’t be the Tortugans; they would do it themselves.

“To that end, every time you bring proof that you have struck and harmed the Federated Suns in a meaningful manner, I am willing to pay you in materials,” he smiled. 

A jolt ran up George’s spine. 

“How… meaningful, milord?”

“Let’s say… 10% of equivalent value? So if you take down a Locust, then I will give you 10% of a Locust’s market value in silver or gold.”

The jolt became a shiver. 

Oh…

This was a great opportunity. 

“Of course, you will have to keep mum about the fact that I am willing to sponsor you like this,” Lord Marris grinned. “And if you happen to capture a jumpship from a Federated Suns’ merchant, then why, I will provide repairs for free! Of course, should those jumpships ever return to Federated Suns’ service, then you and I will have a problem.”

George gulped. Whoever was backing Lord Marris must have a lot of money… 

“Of course, I can’t simply be the one to give you all of these things without adequate compensation, no?”

“W-What would you like?” 

Lord Marris smiled. 

“I have five new mechs I need to field test against proper Inner Sphere military. You and your fleet will be the ride to the Federated Suns and back.”

-VB-

Cooperland

3020.11.11

Another 20 points! 

I bought another Template this time. 

See, after working with Ernesti and Celeste’s Templates, I realized that I had a big gap in the tech trees I had access to. If Ernesti’s Template offered me access to exotic mech tech tree and Celeste’s Template gave me access to all manners of space war-related technologies, then I was lacking traditional ground-based technologies.

So where - or rather who - was I going to get those from? 

Someone with access to knowledge or tech that could be relatively cheap to manufacture…

Someone like … Kelbor-Hal of the Mechanicum?

[Purchased Template I: Kelbor-Hal].

My clones and I all stood still for a second. Those of us who could afford to, at any rate. 

We waited…

And then the knowledge and memories of the ancient tech priest struck us like a freight train.

And laughter.

Laughter broke out of our lips like an unstoppable river. It was a stream of cacophonous glee from a near psychotic deluge of memories both threatening to overwhelm my ego and the torrent of knowledge that promised that my future was in my hands now. 

And because of the prep work I have done so far with all of my clones, mining, refining, and infrastructure set-up, I could almost immediately get started 

---

Wiska knew that whatever little time she had as a mechanic had come to an end when there was a sudden sharp uptick in her husband’s productivity. 

In fact, he began to use techniques, technologies, and production lines which she hadn’t even heard about before. 

And she used to work for Space Dwergr, one of the premier shipbuilders of the empire. 

“... Did you get yourself a new ‘template’?” she asked one of his clones. 

“I did,” Alan replied honestly. 

“Was Tina and I not doing well enough?” she asked hesitantly while looking away. “Or not doing enough?”

“You were doing the best you could,” he replied casually. “And for what I need on Cooperland, you were doing more than enough.”

She blinked in surprise and looked up at him just in time for him to look down at her. Their eyes met… and she blushed a little at the intensity of his gaze. 

“T-Then?” 

“You know how I have been basically strip mining this entire mountain and have begun to do the same for the other mountains in this mountain range?” 

She nodded. 

It still amazed her that Alan had a superpower that let him mine, categorize, refine, and manufacture more efficiently than the most efficient manufacturers in her home universe. He was a one-man mining megacorporation. 

“Can you guess how much iron I have stocked up?”

“Um…” He wanted to make multiple patrol boats. The designs he showed her imagined a ship that would be operated by ten people, max. He also told her and Tina that he had enough material to make a hundred such boats. “... 10 million tons?” 

He smiled but didn’t answer. 

“20 million…?”

He still didn’t answer. 

“I can’t be more than 50 million, right?” she asked disbelievingly. 

“Wi, what is the largest number of my clones you’ve seen active at once?” 

“I… don’t know? I think I saw ten at once before…?”

He nodded. 

“I can make up to forty clones right now, but if you have only seen ten at once, where are the other thirty?”

Her mouth opened to answer but she closed it slowly a moment later without having said a word.

“There’s five over at the new shipyard, right? And another ten here.”

He nodded. “That’s fifteen out of forty.”

… Where were the other twenty-five?

“Let me tell you,” he grinned. He looked giddy like he was finally revealing a secret. “On average, there are twenty clones working the mines at all times and have been like that for the past month. Before that, it was fifteen clones. They work around the clock. They don’t get tired. They don’t get nauseous. They don’t feel pain. They don’t need sleep, though they want sleep sometimes. And whatever entertainment they need is covered by one of the clones looking at an entertainment loop on a screen 24/7. Psychic link ensures everyone gets whatever music, video, or even games through the entertainment clone. And if they start to feel stressed in one role, they change roles.”

Her eyes widened. 

She also knew just how quickly a single clone could carve into the mountain using just a pickaxe. 

“Wait, wait, then that means -!” 

He nodded. “For the past ten months, my clones have been mining in the mountain and deeper inside,” he smiled. “Somewhere in this mountain, there are thousands of chests that spatially compress the contents inside. It didn’t use to but as I used my powers, it regained its original ability just as my ability to create clones got better and let me make more clones at once. And each chest holds its content not by weight but by volume. And each long chest can hold three thousand cubic meters worth of materials.” Then he began to laugh. “In just raw iron, each long chest can hold a little over 27,000 tons of iron. We also have other metals, both common and rare, as well as minerals. Personally, I think we finally have the necessary amount of materials at hand to get into setting up infrastructure for bigger things. We’ll also start working on making automated drones for things like mining, salvaging, and transportation.”

Wiska stared at Alan and almost felt faint. 

There were dozens of rooms stacked to the ceiling with those long wooden chests. Thousands of chests as he said.

“Oh, right. I should tell you how much stuff we have. If I had to say just how many tons of iron I have on hand, then I think it’s close to sixty million tons in just iron. And that’s not counting the material income even after subtracting the Clover production cost.”

She fainted.