Collection 51 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 51

-VB-

John Wu

Victoria, Arlaoskas System

3005 April 4

“So the new ruler of Victoria … is selling jumpships,” he asked the supposed “man” in front of him. 

Dressed like a supermall sales representative, this man, who claimed to be an artificial intelligence, nodded. “That is exactly right,” he replied. “It is the deepest wish of the Fleetmaster that the people of Victoria and all other worlds under his new rule are not bound by the old rules and are allowed to explore the greater galaxy as they wish. Or make money. The Fleetmaster respects the hustle.”

John hummed before looking down at the brochure that he had been given. 

Jumpships. 

Under normal circumstances, jumpships were considered one of the irreplaceable treasures of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery. They were the blood that kept the trade flowing for the majority of self-insufficient worlds. Victoria was not one of those worlds, of course, but the food, tools, and weapons produced here supplied many other worlds.

“And how much would this jumpship be…?”

John Wu was of House Wu-Victoria, one of the many greater nobility of Victoria. His house had grown rich from manufacturing many things that the confederation had needed, and now that they were under the “Union,” they will make the same things for the union.

Except…

What this man was saying was that the military under the Arlaoskas Union did not need the weapons made by his house. 

But jumpships and dropships that the Fleetmaster’s shipyards made might need them.

On the brochure were nine new jumpship classes among nearly two dozen new classes of dropships and interplanetary shuttles. The odd thing, though, was that each and every single one of them boasted possessing an “XL Germanium Core,” which the Fleetmaster’s shipyards proclaimed were so efficient that they accounted for only 70% of the jump capable mass. But due to how they were manufactured “it cannot be installed on larger hulls.” Whether this new XL FTL Core worked or not was going to be something John would let other more adventurous and foolhardy individuals find out for themselves. 

What he found interesting was how cheap the two smallest ships were… and how mindnumbingly expensive the largest ship shown on the brochure was. 

YT-1300 Light Freighter looked nothing like the ships he was familiar with. Its disc-like hull yet two-pronged front evoked a sort of hybrid mix of both an aerodyne and spherical models of what spaceships should be in John’s eyes. However, it could only carry 100 metric tons of cargo. It was tiny. Small. Nearly useless! But it had a jump drive, one of the XL Core drives. The drive was designed with this freighter in mind, and built into the hull; removing it would be “ill-advised.” Regardless, it would be the smallest ship capable of jumping.

And John thought that even if it could not be used as a standard cargo hauler, it could be used to ferry people, which was a business that not many cared about in standard dropship freight business. People were kind of the “side gig” to the standard dropship freight business, after all. With this “YT-1300,” people ferrying would be the main gig. 

And it was only 15 million C-Bills. Sure, it was twice as expensive as an Atlas assault mech, but that was 15 million C-Bills that can be used to make more money without violence needing to be part of the income. For a lot of people, that was a good deal to be able to own their own “mini-jumpship.” Besides, with a 100 metric ton cargo hold, it could feasibly move smaller, more compact mechs like Locusts, which itself was worth considering.

On the other end of the spectrum was a monster. At a mindnumbing 2 Trillion C-Bills, the Lucrehulk-class Super-Freighter was a monster among monsters. Able to hold up to twenty million metric tons of cargo, it could move entire cities if someone wanted to. But at a cost of 2 trillion C-Bills… no one was going to buy that. 

Assuming it was real.

For John Wu of House Wu, he was much more interested in the likes of the YT-1300 freighters and the other smaller and cheaper options. 

“Is it really 15 million C-Bills for a dinky freighter?”

So he had to engage in the age-old Capellan shenanigan.

Haggling. 

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Victoria Fortress Station, Arlaoskas System

3005 June 10

I sat on my throne. 

The back of my head leaned against the head of the throne where there was a hidden socket that connected me at the base of my skull to the throne and the wider Victoria Fortress Station.

And for the past few months since the end of the war and the formation of the Arlaoskas Union, I have been putting a plan to work. 

Phase 1 had been to design and manufacture jumpships that were cheaper than the ones currently offered within the Inner Sphere. To do that, I put my new knowledge to work … and created the XL Germanium Core, which didn’t need to make up 90% of a ship’s overall mass - just 70% of it. Then I put it mostly into hulls that were too vertically challenged to transport battlemechs. 

Phase 2 was to then sell them en masse at a (relatively) cheap price. Ideally speaking, I didn’t need money, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to be just giving away things that my shipyards and factories made using my time, effort, and design. So even if I didn’t need money, I accepted all sorts of things as payment, including C-Bill and literal shit. As in, yes, if you provided enough shit that could be used to make fertilizers and in enough quantities, I will accept them at market price in place of common currencies. 

So far, Phase 2 worked great. In the past month alone, I sold more than a hundred new shuttles, dropships, jumpships, and even asteroid miners. And the people who bought them put them to work one way or another. 

And now, Phase 3 would soon be underway: revealing what I have been working on for the past few months even before the start of Phase 1. 

I looked through the camera of one of the many construction drones working.

The circular object that was bigger than most spaceships. Bigger than any single part of a space station. A circular object that was big enough to transport my Onslaught across hundreds of lightyears in seconds if need be. 

I chuckled.

I wondered how the Inner Sphere and the Periphery would react to my stargate. Or how I just turned the entire union into a militarily impenetrable fortress.