And fired.
The Wolverine didn't so much as get destroyed as it explosively disintegrated from whatever anti-dropship shell that cannon fired.
"This is Captain Edward Arlaoskas. It seems that my only mechwarrior also ended the last pirate heavy."
Danylo slumped in the pilot seat.
I-It was over?
The pirates were gone?
"Well, since we got rid of most of the pirates, you'll hand over the pirate dropships and half of the mechs over to us, yes, uh, duke apparent Danylo?"
Oh, the scary dropship captain remembered his name.
Half of the mechs and both of the dropships…?
He was …
Then he remembered to look up at the giant fuck off assault dropship with "fuck you, mechs" gun turrets and "fuck you, dropships" cannon.
Perhaps not pissing off the mercenary who came to his and his planet's rescue was a good idea. Also, he still got half of the mechs. Whatever remained of them. That would replace any mechs he lost in this attack and get him one or two more. Assuming most of the mechs weren't disintegrated like that Wolverine.
"This … this is Duke Apparent Danylo Renomena. I accept."
"Cool."
Yeah, it was over.
-VB-
Final Count:
Edward Arlaoskas's Crew
-1x "heavy" assault dropship
-1x Phoenix Hawk PHX-1
-7x Wasp drones
Gatchina Militia + Duke's Guards:
-1x Warhammer (heavily damaged)
-1x Wasp (damaged)
-1x infantry squad
-2x Leopard dropships (captured)
-1x Crusader (damaged, captured)
-2x Wolverines (ruined)
-1x Orion (damaged, captured)
-1x Wasp (damaged, captured)
-1x Locust (severely damaged, captured)
VS
Varnama's Pirates
Nil
End Result: End of Varnama's Pirate CrewLast edited: Sep 25, 2024 Like Quote Re
Collection
Chapter 9
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Gatchina
3001, June
I got another point after the battle, and combined with the other point I had saved before the battle, I invested both of them into Chakra.
Chakra III.
I seriously hoped that it would let me start using sturdier clones to help me with refit and modifications of my ships, mechs, and everything else.
Anyway.
The Duke Apparent came except the Duke Apparent was now just the Duke.
"My condolences," I said as I bowed my head slightly.
"Thank you," Duke Danylo replied with only a slight tremble to his voice. He was quite young. Not even twenty. Yes, that was around my physical age, but I wasn't twenty mentally and spiritually. The guy didn't even get to mourn his dad's passing properly because he put his people and world before his mourning. "we should… get down to business."
I nodded. "Please, follow me."
The Duke had given us permission to use the empty land near the spaceport, and that's where we were right now.
We had already hashed out the distribution beyond what he agreed to immediately when I proposed it at the end of the pirate raid. Instead of me keeping half of the mechs and both of the dropships, I would keep one-quarters of the mechs and both of the dropships. So out of the ten mechs we downed and the three mechs the locals killed, I would keep two. I could have pushed for four, but I was more than happy really with the two dropships. Also, the reason why I only took two was because a few of the mechs had been, eh, exploded beyond salvageable means.
There were other mechs and equipment that the duke and his soldiers fought prior to my intervention, but most of the pirates they managed to take down weren't half-decent quality battlemechs but converted security mechs, miners, and what not.
Also, taking the dropships, which together was worth multiple times more than the salvaged mechs, was good enough for me.
Anyway, now, I could finally do something I had wanted to do.
But before I got there, I needed to get the duke to get his mechs.
And as we and his entourage of prepared mechtechs -there were only two of them but they were accompanied by other people - reached where I'd left the mechs, they slowed to a stop.
"Which mech do you intend to take?" the duke asked me as he stared at the ruins visages of eight mechs standing in front of him. Or rather five mechs that were standing and three that were on the ground. And then there were two piles of what used to be mechs but were now just spare parts. If there were spare parts. The last pile was just slugged metals that were barely salvageable.
"The Orion and one of the Wasps," I replied while gesturing to the armor shredded heavy mech and the leglesss Wasp.
"I see. So that would leave me with a three Wolverines, one Crusader, and two Locusts."
"Yes," I confirmed. "The slags and spare parts will be mine."
He nodded. "That's fair enough," he hummed before turning to his retinue. "Get ready to move all of the mechs aside from the Orion and the legless Wasp to my ducal workshop."
"Yes, sir!" they saluted and quickly moved to bring their trucks over.
The duke turned back to me. "So what will you do once you finish repairing those mechs?" he asked me.
"Hmm? Oh, I'm definitely keeping the Orion but that Wasp is gonna get ripped and used for something else," I replied.
He looked stricken. "Really? The Wasp merely needs legs, which I assume you have some of in that pile over there."
"Oh, I do," I nodded. "But that's not the point. I want to try my hand at making a new mech specifically for space combat."
He blinked.
"What?"
I chuckled at his reply.
"I'm a bit of a designer and an engineer, you see," I said as I pointed to my assault dropship, Solo Killing, in the background. "I'm the guy who took a regular Achilles dropship and converted it to that."
He stared up at it.
"It's … I'm sorry, but I don't know much about dropships beyond a few ubiquitous designs like the Leopard. Speaking of which, what do you intend to do with those?"
I gave him a grin.
He shivered.
"Play with them to my heart's content."
-VB-
Adept Summer Neumarianburg
Gatchina
3001, June
She sat in front of a computer as she typed away at it. As an adept of ComStar, she had various duties and responsibilities she was expected to fulfill. The first of these was to learn the technologies that the rest of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery threw away in their forever wars. To keep them safe from the marches of time but also from the hands of other people who did not have the right mindset. The kind of people who didn't see beyond their own lifetime.
ComStar was a place where people like her gathered for one reason or another, and made their mark through acts that, while small and insignificant in the present, would maintain a colossal giant that would withstand the tests of time.
Her second responsibility was to ensure that what she learned was not leaked or forced out of her. While neither the Successor Houses and ComStar liked to talk about it, but she knew that there were people who would kidnap and torture ComStar acolytes and adepts in an effort to find out whatever information they could of the lost technologies.
They were fools.
Acolytes didn't know enough. Precentors were too devoted to ComStar to ever divulge it. Adepts, though, laid in that grey zones of "maybe's." Or so they thought. Not everyone became an adept, and not all adepts advanced through the ranks equally. Someone like her, who was tasked with maintaining the space sensors within the local hyperpulse generator's compound, was not even granted the position of her duty if her loyalty to ComStar was not assured at least seven ways to sunday.
That's why she always carried a cyanide pill with her.
She was loyal to ComStar. She did not want to die. She did not want to get tortured. The third was stronger in her than the second, and both of them were weaker than the first.
And of all of her duties, the most mindnumbing of them all was the duty of maintenance.
Part of that duty included journaling every entry and exit in and out of the system by traders, pirates, and locals.
She denoted that the latest visitor to the planet, a mercenary with a single dropship, had arrived on June XX of 3001, and that he did so from the edge of the system rather than at the nadir and zenith of the star. It took them three days to reach Gatchina from the edge of the system and vanquished the pirates that had been stayed long to keep raiding the planet. She did note that the jumpship that brought the mercenaries to Gatchina hadn't even bothered to contact the planet and left. 'It must have been one of those rare jumpships that has a large battery.' Those jumpships didn't need to wait for recharge between every jump.
"... and two Leopard dropships were given to Captain Edward Arlaoskas for his part in subjugating the pirates. Precentor Gatchina noted that the dropship pilot, the aforementioned Captain Arlaoskas, was particularly reckless with his engagement, but because none of the ComStar members of Gatchina HPG Station is versed in military matters, that is the best analysis we can provide at this time," she finished. She looked through the report once before nodding to herself and submitting it.
Though she did not know it, Adept Summer's report would remain within Gatchina HPG Station's archives for months until Precentor ******** would come investigating rumors of a jump-capable dropship. Precentor Gatchina would open up the archive to the visiting inquisitive precentor, who, after finding her report…
-VB-
3001 June
Repairs to the Phoenix Hawk completed. My armor modification was essentially swapping out ablative armors found in most armors in the Inner Sphere with modified silicon carbide composite armor plates designed for heat loss, shock absorption, and flexibility. With the current microforge I built into Solo Killing, it'll take at least a month to replace the stock of armor plates I had to use to fix the Phoenix Hawk.
I used chakra in discretely. Figuring out the actual techniques was hard, but I knew how to use Shadow Clone technique because, well, Naruto crossed his fingers too much for anyone who ever saw Naruto to not recognize it.
Using Shadow Clone technique that produced two clones left me floored and unable to do anything else until at least one of the clones popped.
For now, I stuck to one clone and made sure to dress up to prevent recognition. It doubled my work speed, which I loved.
The looks from my crew definitely did not sting.
---
3001 July
Between Spaceship Design, Starship Rigging, and Starsector Spaceship Engineering, it was not hard to make a primitive design of a mech that could arguably operate fluidly in space. It was not so easy to make it into reality even with another me to help me.
The result was the Wasp - Giant Hornet Variant, a heavily modified Wasp that had a gyroscope connected and mini-fusion reactor powered jet pack. The missing legs were replaced and equipped with maneuvering thrusters. As for its weapons, I beefed up the arm volumes and put in four Medium Lasers, two per arm.
Essentially, it was a non-transforming Land-Air Mech that had inferior utility in atmosphere in exchange for better armor, better maneuverability, and better armaments.
And considering that I also took the time to make a copyable blueprint, I didn't waste any time at all. The blueprints alone was probably worth upwards to a billion C-Bills. But without patent protection, I wasn't going to sell it for anything less than five billion C-Bills, and whoever buys it can do the patenting on their own.
Miguel had a lot of fun test piloting the thing.
---
3001 August
I finally started modifying the Leopard. By taking apart one of the two Leopards.
Managed to take one apart and started changing the second.
---
3001 September
The remaining Leopard's hull was extended vertically. The once sleek and lithe Leopard … was now a humpy dumpy. I was going to call it a Beehive class because it kind of looked like one from the side. Kind of. If you squinted.
Named it Humpty Dumpty.
---
3001 October
I modified Solo Killing, removing all things drone-related.
Changed the lower decks into a turret socket. Made sure to make it adaptable, so it could take on anything from Small Laser to Small Naval Laser.
---
3001 November
Finally finished the modifications of the Leopard.
Added eight bays, each capable of holding one microfabricators. Each bay could individually hold up to 6 Wasp Interceptor Drones or two to four of larger drones. Could hold ASF if need be, but servicing was gonna be hard with how cramped it was.
I needed to let Armas name the ship. It was going to be the ship he and Amy got to captain.
-VB
Armas Arlaoskas
Gatchina
3001 November
"W-What?" Armas stuttered out as he stared across the table at Ed.
Ed looked nonchalant as ever, which was why no one in the crew trusted that poker face when he kept bringing out ridiculous stuff like this, and waited for his reply as if he was asking if he wanted cheeseburger or chicken salad.
"I'm asking if you would like to be the captain of that drone tender over there," Ed repeated as he pointed with a thumb at the chonky "drone tender" Leopard on the other side of their allotted dock space. Armas glanced at the ship on the other side of the room's reinforced glass(?) window and then looked back to Ed. "It'll have a lot of defensive drones on top of the Wasps, so it should be a pretty safe ride. It lacks a bit of the armor that Solo Killing does, though."
"But why me?"
Ed just raised an eyebrow before leaning forward, making both him and Amy lean back at the half-lidded stare he gave them.
"Family first," he replied with all of the seriousness of a man declaring war.
Actually, considering that it was with that same tone that he told the pirates to get bent, it just might be that.
"If I thought that you couldn't do it, then I wouldn't even ask you this. In fact, I would have asked Amy here instead of bringing you here, even if you would have been hurt by my decision to exclude you on the decision."
Armas didn't know whether to feel great about being considered competent or hurt that he considered Amy to be more competent than him. "... But what I make a mistake and let someone in who shouldn't be?"
Ed just raised an eyebrow at that. "Armas, if you think I'm going to let you hire people, then you are dumb. That's a decision that will never be in your hands."
"Wait, what-?"
"Renold."
"Wait-."
"Josephine."
"You can't just -."
"Vladisclaw."
"Okay, he had -."
"Tiffany."
"She's just -."
"Thomas."
Armas clicked his mouth shut. "... I get it. I'm generally horrible at finding friends."
"I know. Amy here is the best you've ever had. Don't waste this opportunity."
He felt a blush creep up his neck and face, and saw the same happening with Amy.
"Look. You've been studying from the materials I've given you, right?"
Armas nodded. There just wasn't much things to do on the ship, so, well, there was a lot of studying if only to put off the boredom of long travels. Ed did tell him to study how to be a captain for the Solo Killing, though it wasn't labeled as such on the computer files.
(He also may or may not have wanted to learn how the fuck his brother made artificial gravity inside the ship. That mystery dug at everyone.)
He took a deep breath in and squared his shoulders. "What would be my responsibilities?" he asked.
Ed grinned. "Essentially, you or Amy, whoever takes the command of the ship in battles, will act as my support. Solo Killing and that Leopard - I'm thinking about calling it a Beehive-class Drone Tender - will exchange targeting information, so all you have to do is follow my orders. It'll also serve as the primary cargo vessel, and the drones will keep you two safe. It'll probably be safer than Solo Killing when we're on the ground, since the drones are capable of rapid deployment if need be."
Armas stared at his brother.
"... But why?" he asked again.
Ed stared at him before sighing.
"Idiot," he grunted. "Are you so fucking convinced that there must be something that you keep questioning a blessing coming your way? I already said it, idiot. You are my brother and I love my family, including your stupid self. Family first. Family always. Never forget that."
In the end, he and Amy accepted his brother's offer. He may or may not have been sniffling a little. If anyone ever asked if he cried, then the answer will always be no. He only sniffled a little at his brother's generosity and love. He did not bawl like a baby!
He definitely did squawk in horror when Edward told him that the ship's name was Humpty Dumpty. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 856 others
Collection
Chapter 10
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
3001 November
By the time I was ready to leave Gatchina, I got another point. I dropped that into Chakra, making it Chakra IV, and tested that out in the hidden safety of my ship. I could now use six Shadow Clones with some difficulty. It was much better than what I experienced with only Chakra II and confirmed once more that each point I invested into a skill was not a linear progression.
Unlike with engineering skills, the difference between a 2 and a 3 on an actual combat skill was noticeably significant.
This also meant that I could more or less operate Solo Killing by myself if I wanted to.
But why would I want to do that? Being by myself was maddening.
The radio crackled, and I stopped tinkering with the electronics on the workbench and pressed on the radio button on the wall with the tip of my screwdriver.
"This is Ed speaking, over."
"Ed, we have a familiar face on the ground, over."
I frowned. A familiar face?
"Just tell me who it is, over."
"It's Captain Wendy with the Hau Brand, over."
My eyes widened.
Oh shit.
I completely forgot.
Jack Wendy and the Hau Brand was the captain and the ship transporting grain along the periphery edge of the Free Worlds League who we temporarily signed up with as an escort. After I took down the Marian Hegemony pirates above Lesnovo, we parted ways because I wanted to keep modifying Solo Killing, but the merchant continued on.
He should have been the faster one to cross the periphery but instead, we were here first. Or was I just thinking too hard? He could have already passed through Gatchina and could be on the return path toward Kendall.
"I'll be right out there, over."
I made sure to return all of the tools to their boxes and the spare electronics to "work" boxes. Then I walked out of the tinker room, through the narrow corridors, and finally out of the Solo Killing via the cargo hold bay underneath the front half of the ship.
I squinted as Gatchina's horrifyingly bright sunlight reflected off of the arid landscape and the bone drying heat pressed on me from all angles.
I looked around and found Riley, our janitor, standing to the ship's starboard side underneath the Solo Killing's shade along with a pair of strangers.
Well, not quite strangers, actually.
"Jack!" I called out as I walked over to them.
Jack, a clean shaven man (hair and facial), looked up from whatever conversation he was having with Riley, and grinned when he saw me. "Edward! The hero of Lesnovo and Gatchina!"
I grunted. "Do you have to call me that?"
"I don't know. Are you going to stop shooting down pirates wherever and whenever you encounter them?" he asked me with a grin.
I sniffed. "They're just salvage and scraps I can use to modify my ship."
He laughed before looking up at the Solo Killing. "And what a fine she is," he hummed. "I heard from the locals you used its guns to take out pirate mechs."
"Yeah?"
He gave me his business stare. "I'd like one such turret on my own dropship, the Hau Brand."
My eyes widened. "... I mean … I'm not against it," I told him. "But that's a lot of bullets you'll have to keep in your hold. Isn't that something merchants don't like? Gotta have more hold for goods and whatever."
He snorted. "If I use your guns to take down a mech, then that'll net me more profit than anything I'll make in a year. So how about it? How much would it be to have one installed on my beaute?"
I scratched my stubbles.
"... Do you have the materials?" I asked.
He blinked.
"Ah. No, not quite."
"Yeah, just had to ask. Gatchina isn't exactly somewhere that's good for buying stuff like that," I hummed. "And I used up most of what I got from my most recent salvage into making that," I said while pointing to my new ship.
"Making what?" he turned around to look and then paused. "That … is not a Leopard."
"It was a Leopard-class dropship," I grinned. "Now, it's a Beehive-class Drone Tender Dropship, maximizing ASF bays compatible with automated fighters and cargo hold."
Captain Wendy turned back to me with a gaping mouth and wide eyes. "You … made your own dropship design?" he asked me haltingly, still shocked by what he was looking at.
A Leopard-class dropship was the most ubiquitous dropship for mercenaries in the entire Inner Sphere. I had taken it and changed it so much. While its length and width hadn't changed, its height had, nearly doubling its main body's height to accommodate the increased number of bays. It made it look boxy and unwieldy but it didn't need to be maneuverable when it was supposed to stay out of the fight. Even then, I still gave it two naval grade mounts while maintaining all of its medium laser and LRM mounts. I had to exchange the PPC and large laser mounts and space for the naval mounts, though.
Not that anyone would know because I didn't put any naval grade weapon (or the equivalent of Starsector Large weapons) on it. No, I just gave it two large autocannon equivalents. Starsector lovers would appreciate the thought of Devastator Cannon on a Mudskipper.
I wasn't against letting people know I could design new dropships. Dropships weren't uncommon, even if their numbers were woefully low compared to what their numbers were like in the Star League era.
"I guess," I grinned. "But essentially, what I'm trying to get at, is that I'm out of scrap, weapons, and other materials for upgrading, and Gatchina's self-sufficient subsistence agriculture and a lack of any other industry means we can't get anymore while still on Gatchina."
As if to punctuate that point, we watched a man and a cow pull a cart to deliver woven bags of grains.
Jack sniffed. "Right. Maybe at our next destination?"
"Our?"
"Yes. I want to hire you again," he grinned. "You were the most dependable escort I've had in years, and what you did here just proved that point. What do you say?" he asked.
I crossed my arms and thought about it.
It wasn't like the crew and I had another job lined up. Technically speaking, we didn't need money right now; we had too much of it after I sold some of the mech parts that I didn't need over to the duke. So even after spending so much time on the ground doing nothing but tinkering and modifying the ships, I had nothing but time and money, which was not a state of affairs I was used to.
I wanted to be on the move. To find new places. To see more things. To scrap and salvage. To test myself.
To fight.
… Okay, maybe not fight as much as tinkering, salvaging, and techifying my stuff. An occasional scrap here and there would satisfy me.
"Sorry," I told him. "I've got my own set-up now, and can't afford to break it up to be an escort.
Jack looked disappointed by my rejection. "That's a shame. It would have been good to have you escorting me into Magistratcy."
I blinked. "Isn't Canopian space one of the safest places to be?" I asked him incredulously.
"Well, yes, but I also planned on going around the rimward edge of the Capellan Confederation to visit the Federated Suns."
My eyebrows rose up.
This wasn't like back on 21st century Earth when someone took a flight from New York City to Los Angelos. This was closer to 17th century Earth when someone took a gamble from Acre to sail to London. Capellan didn't have a reason to allow a Free World League merchant to pass through their territory. Hell, they might even seize both the dropship and whatever jumpship for their own use, if they could with the latter. It was obviously why Jack wanted to go around the rimward periphery of the Confederation, but that had its own challenges.
I've spent a lot of time here and on Campoleone researching about the periphery, mostly because even if I had already decided that ComStar wasn't after me, I didn't want to go near their outposts and centers of power and bring myself to their attention. This left the periphery for me to travel around and I made sure to research the periphery regions immediately bordering the League and some beyond it.
The region that Jack wanted to cross? That was the New Colony Region, or the Capellan March if you talked to Capellans. That area of space wasn't unsafe but it wasn't exactly safe, either. Between the Magistratcy of Canopus, recently established Aurigan Coalition, and the Capellan Confederation, it existed in a state of political limbo where everyone had a claim to it but no one moved to consolidate the independent worlds there.
And it was crawling with pirates and "pirates."
'I could get a lot of salvage and impressionable recruits there without having to fear ComStar…' I thought to myself.
It sounded really good to me.
Hell, maybe I'll even go and get myself a contract with the Magistratcy. They give me a piece of land to rent, I go and kill pirates, and I sell whatever salvage I don't want to them.
"... How about an escort mission up to the border of Canopus with the New Colony Region?" I asked.
He frowned. "I was hoping you'd follow me all the way into the Federated Suns."
My eyebrows that had fallen back to their normal levels after the last surprise rose back up.
"All the way into the Fed -. Jack, we're talking about half year journey. Do you even have the goods they want?" I asked him incredulously. "Is there even a trade happening?"
Assuming that he had the perfect route to go around the Capellan Confederation, each jump had a recharge time of around four to five days. I didn't know the jump numbers needed to reach the Fed Suns through the New Colony Region, then that would take at least thirty jumps, if not more.
"Ah, well," he grimaced. "Not quite?"
"... Well, I suppose if you don't want to tell me, then that's your business, but I am not going to make a journey that long, especially since there is a chance that we'll be stranded in the New Colony Region."
Jack sighed. "I guess that's it then, huh?" he asked and I nodded. "Well, I tried. Good luck on your journey out there, captain."
"You, too."
Not all meetings have a productive end. Sometimes, nothing coming out of a meeting was the best outcome.
As for my future, I wanted to get myself a brief mercenary commission with the Magistratcy of Canopus. It wasn't because I wanted Canopian woman to fuck in my bed in a now much more sparsely populated ship but because Canopus was the most technologically advanced nation outside of ComStar itself and would have parts, equipments, and components that would be easier to buy than to make myself.
Because everything I have done so far was me pushing my abilities to their limits with the subpar materials I had on hand.
If I had better materials and tools, then I could make better ships, weapons, and systems.
I wanted to see enemy mechwarriors and ship captains gawking when I used plasma jets to maneuver my mechs and ships.
-VB-
Arlaoskas Squad
Commander: Edward Arlaoskas
Solo Killing, a heavily modified Achilles-class Assault Dropship
-Captain: Edward Arlaoskas
-First Mate: N/A
-Crew: N/A
-Cargo: 225 tons
Humpty Dumpty, a heavily modified Leopard Dropship, reclassified as "Beehive" "Drone Tender" Ship
-Captain: Armas Arlaoskas
-First Mate: Amy Arlaoskas nee Karmi
-Crew: Miguel Nohara, mechwarrior; Sato Marahadi, mechanic/cook (mean curry); Riley Do, janitor/gunner; Danielle, mechanic/gunner
-Cargo: 200 tons
-VB-
A/N: in my mind, SS's light autocannon is the BT equivalent of small AC, SS.arbalest autocannon is the equivalent of medium ac, and SS.hypervelocity driver is the equivalent of large AC/PPC. SS.Hephaestus Cannon is small naval AC and SS.Gauss Cannon is medium naval PPC. In my mind. In my opinion.Last edited: Oct 13, 2024 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 686 others
Collection
Chapter 11
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Ildlandet System
3001 December
The warp ended right at the edge of the abandoned system I'd charted us to.
Ildlandet was originally a Free Worlds League star with a colony. The colony's been abandoned for some time, about fifty years or so, so there was no one in this system.
First, I didn't want to go through the exact routes that everyone else used. It made tracking me and my crew harder.
Second, Ildlandet was supposedly a world that had an active colony only fifty years ago, so I wanted to know what happened to it.
Third, if the original colonists left behind a lot of metal in any shape or form, then I could scavenge that. Armor plates were expensive to purchase, so I tended to jury rig mine from scrap metal.
Ultimately, it was an unknown place that barely anyone knew about or visited, so it was a safe place to stop by. I think.
Ping.
I blinked a few times rapidly before looking to my left.
I was the only one on the bridge because no one else was on the ship. I didn't need a big crew, and my shadow clones sufficed. I was also getting henge down, so if I did get boarded or inspected, then I could make my clones all look like different individuals.
As for that ping…
I slid my chair over and looked at the radar. The ship hadn't sent out a radar ping of its own. No, my Solo Killing got pinged.
There was someone out there in the system.
"I guess it was too good to be true," I grunted irritably. I picked up the radio transceiver, adjusted to our designated "fleet" frequency, and pressed down. "This is Solo Killing. I just got pinged by radar. That wasn't you, right? Over."
After a few crackling moments, I got a response. "Danielle here. Amy says we did get pinged by something. Said she hoped it was you. Over."
"Yeah, that wasn't me. There's someone else in the system, and we just got pinged. And if they're pinging us from beyond a few lightseconds, then they already got our thruster flares on their infrared. Since this system was supposed to be dead… I can only think of pirates being here. Over."
I could almost hear the groan from the other side. "Miguel from Hum… Humpty Dumpty's engineering. Does that mean we're going out to fight again? Over." He sounded dutiful, maybe even eager.
"Hell, no," I grunted. "We don't even know how many of them there are, what their composition is, or if there are more of them waiting to jump in on us. No, we're turning around and leaving the system for the next star. None of you released the connectors holding us together, right? Check it, please. Over."
The connector in question was one of the upgrades I've made to Solo Killing and added to Humpty Dumpty. It was a mechanism that would connect our two ships together so that when Solo Killing jumped into warp drive, it would take Humpty Dumpty with it. Of course, the connector and the warp bubble needed to cover the drone tender dropship meant that my fusion reactor spent more power per jump and thus it took us more time to cross the void, but hey, I still made Humpty Dumpty knowing this.
"Connector secure, over."
"Sweet. We have an hour before we're jumping straight towards… Canopian system of Bass. Any objections, Armas? Over."
"None, over."
And that was that.
-VB-
Free Worlds League, Research World
Ildlandnet
3001 December
ILNSensor2Net1: Uh. Did you see that?
ILNSensor2Net5: Yes, we saw that. All of you have that on record?
ILNSensor2Net3: I've logged mine.
ILNSensor2Net4: Those were not standard jumpship emergence signature. There was no ESig.
ILNSensor2Net1: Yup. That looks about right. Instead of EM, I got spatial distortion.
ILNSensor2Net3: Spatial distortion? Let me check.
ILNSensor2Net3: Yes. I have spatial distortion in my log. Weird.
ILNSensor2NetAdmin: Submit all of your logs right now and tell no one about this. This just got classified. If you don't have clearance level 8, you no longer know anything about this. The nerds in the labs just got their panties wet.
ILNSensor2Net1: As long as it's something they can use to help the League, I can keep my silence.
-Chat Log of Ildlandnet League Research Site 2 end-
-VB-
Armas Arlaoskas
In-trainsit
3002 January
He was a captain of a dropship now.
'Never thought I would be a captain but I guess having a good brother gets you places,' Armas thought as he leaned back into the captain's chair on the bridge of the Humpty Dumpty.
It was a … nice little ship. It held almost all of the drones Ed made and the mechs that Ed kept for himself and the crew. He wasn't sure about the drones and how they matched up one-for-one against mechs and aerospace fighters, but even an agriworld hillbilly like him knew the importance of the mechs currently in his ship's mechbays.
Miguel's Phoenix Hawk was a monster that, despite weighing the same as a regular Phoenix Hawk, could take on heavy mechs with ease. It had one more ton of armor, moved nearly 20 kilometers per hour faster while running, had more weapons and heat sinks, and the structure itself was more durable than the other Phoenix Hawks out there. It was powerful even for a custom mech, and Miguel loved it. Everyone could tell from how he spent half of his free time shining it up.
And then there was the Orion heavy mech.
He knew from school that General Kerensky also piloted an Orion mech, and there were a lot of mechwarriors who swore by it. But Ed had done something to his Orion mech, and if Miguel's Phoenix Hawk was any indication, then that Orion in Humpty Dumpty's mechbay was powerful beyond measure. It could probably take on assault mechs without a problem.
And knowing the values of those mechs, Armas knew that his brother put a lot of trust into him by handing him the captaincy of the ship.
He still felt immensely grateful, but it came with a weight of guilt. His brother gave so much to him and yet Armas didn't know how to pay it back. Oh, sure, he could do the job that Ed gave him, but Armas felt that was the minimum he needed to do.
The door to the bridge slid open with a hiss of air.
"Arm?"
He looked over his shoulder. Only Amy called him that, and she stood there in the doorway.
"Hi, Amy," he greeted back. "What's up?" he asked her as he looked to stare back out into the void of space and the space distortions caused by the warp bubble surrounding Solo Killing and Humpty Dumpty.
"It's time for dinner."
"Got it," he said as he got up.
Time was a fickle thing in space, but Ed had a solution to that.
Light.
The lights that lit the corridors could not be turned off, and they were glaringly harsh. It ran on a 24-hour cycle that would see the light intensity follow the day-night cycle of Earth. He said the reason why he set the day-night cycle to Earth's cycle was because he felt like it, even though the difference between Earth's day-night cycle was only one hour longer than Kendall's cycle.
This was also apparently how other dropships and jumpships kept people sane, because people did go insane if they spent too long in a place where there were either too much or too little light for a long time.
And Armas was not keen on finding out how freakier Amy would get in bed to blow off her stress because Ed and he decided to skimp on lighting.
He loved Amy and sex was great, but there was a point when sex became a little demented.
He did not want know to if Amy was serious about that candle wax on dick thing. No, he did not.
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Bass System, Magistratcy of Canopus
3001 December
We arrived in Bass days before Christmas, and I got another point in transit from Ildlandnet to Bass. Maybe I got that point for dodging a potentially risky fight or something like that?
Whatever the case, I now had another point, and I found myself asking what I would spend it in.
And then I had an idea.
Battletech was not the only mech-centric universe. It would only benefit me if I had perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and maybe even blueprints of other mech-centric verses.
So I invested my new point into perhaps the most iconic of the mech verses.
Gundam Engineering I.
Even if it didn't work out well, I could use its knowledge to build space maneuvering mechs at the very least once I got to working again.
Speaking of which…
I picked up the radio.
"Armas. How does your crew feel about stopping on Bass III?" Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 732 others
Collection
Chapter 12
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
Bass, Magistracy of Canopus
3002 February
Bass was a quaint world without the opulence of Canopus IV. It was better off than half of the League worlds I visited, but the difference was small. Like the difference between 1930's technology and 1960's technology. Vast from 21st century perspective but insignificant from that of the 31st century lens.
For example, farmers on Lesnovo still used horse-drawn harvesters. Many used mechanical harvesters running on local fossil fuel, and the richest farmers used industrialmechs for their harvests. However, the number of industrialmechs on Lesnovo could be counted on two hands for the entire planet. It wasn't the Kendall equivalent of Rim Commonality.
Bass was not as far behind as Lesnovo but they weren't also as advanced as Kendall, which boasted hundreds of industrialmechs working in everything from resource exploitation sites like mining and forestry to local heavy industries like refineries and spaceports.
However, Bass lacked a high tech industry of its own. They depended on factories from Canopus to provide them microelectronics to replace the aging parts inside their electronics.
This surprised me because I found Bass to be a decent planet for developing heavy industries. It had the population, mineral resources, and peace that was lacking in most Inner Sphere worlds. What it did lack, however, was education. I had intellectually understood that Magistracy of Canopus suffered an education crisis worse than the Federated Suns' in their Outbacks. Their own universities were second rate, and most of the professors there weren't local Canopians but rather academics, mostly men, drawn in from the rest of the Inner Sphere, especially Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League, both of which had extremely well-funded education systems.
Bass, not being Canopus or an industrialized world (by the standards of the periphery and the Inner Sphere), didn't have the luxury of expat academics. It didn't even have "regional" universities, this era's equivalent of American state-level universities like Ohio University and the University of California, Davis.
If there had been one, then its staff would have been pulled back to Canopus long ago even before the start of the Succession Wars.
Overall, this made Bass not a good place to settle down.
See, part of my plan had been to set up a company in the periphery, hand over some minor patented blueprints for small ships (not even dropships), and start manufacturing them to sell to whomever would buy them. I actually thought up the idea while in slow transit within Bass System. Instead of staying permanently to oversee the new factory (if there would be one), I would hand over the general management to the local government, giving them a share of the pie and an incentive to make sure its managers and workers worked while the owner was not in the state.
As for what I wanted to make…
Well, it didn't quite matter.
Not when there was no chance of it taking off here in Bass and while the government started to question how I came into the system.
Even if they were economically and technologically doing poorly in the civilian sector, the Magistracy still defended their worlds, and that included long range sensors.
"We have determined that you are a legitimate mercenary company from the MRB, but their records of your whereabouts doesn't line up with what we see," the Bass government representative, a dark skinned and smartly dressed lady, asked me as she slid a small stack of papers from the other side of the small metal table within my ship inside my office room, which used to be a crew living space.
MRB had been keeping track of me apparently. Or rather they kept track of all mercenaries, and military head of Bass militia, whoever it was, was smart to look me up when I entered the Bass System from the opposite side of their closest neighbors when we dropped out of warp at the edge of the system instead of the nadir or zenith of the Bass Star.
I thought I was being careful by avoiding as many systems as I could, but no, I wasn't being as careful as I thought. I was starting to leave behind concerning information.
I glanced at the woman and then picked up the paper.
It was a list of feats and the assets listed under me as far as the MRB knew.
Including the autonomous combat drones.
I knew that it was at that point that it would be just a matter of time before ComStar's First Circuit knew about me.
And the troubles would start.
This was one of the reasons why I wasn't settling down on Bass.
"And that matters?" I asked her.
The representative looked at me without so much as breaking that fake-ass smile. "Of course not, but since Bass has an interest in hiring you for garrison duty…"
"Then I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing. I have no interest in garrison contract here."
"I'm sure we can sweeten the deal for you. The Countess of Bass is willing to offer you much for a five year contract. Just name your price."
Five year contract?
No, that was too long.
"I'm alright, thanks," I replied. "One year contract would have been too long. Five years is too much. And Bass has nothing I want. A landhold would be the minimum I would start negotiating with if you want me to stay here."
The representative finally twitched.
A landhold might not sound like a lot, but it was, in essence, giving a non-citizen/resident of the planet an indefinite lease to a piece of land, assuming that the mercenary company didn't attack the nation that owns the land.
And from the way the representative showed emotion, she thought my demand was ridiculous.
"Let me remind you that my company has taken out more dropships and mechs in the first year of existence than most mercenaries companies encounter in the same time period. I wonder what the count was again? Five dropships and nearly forty mechs?" I listed off casually. "I am serious about the landhold. So unless the countess has allowed you to sign off on that…?"
"... She has not, because a landhold is generally not an offer given to green companies."
"Then what has she authorized to offer?"
She handed me a contract.
I read through it and nearly laughed.
So.
The garrison contract was pretty generic. In fact, it was so generic that it may as well have been printed out of the local network or something.
The contract was very simple.
One, the garrison pay was 1,000 C-Bills per month per mechwarrior.
Two, we would be renting one of the local defunct military bases at a flat 5,000 C-Bills per year unless we want some other location.
Three, there was not a single mention of the dropships being used for defense.
Four, there was no mention of maintenance pay.
I shrugged. "The countess has no eyes to see with, obviously. You've gathered information on us during the month we've been staying here on Bass, and this is the best you've come up with?" I asked dismissively. "You can leave the ship. I don't think I'll be signing up with the countess with how little she thinks of us." The rep opened her lips to talk with a slight frown but I raised my hand to stop her. "I'm serious. I will not be negotiating with the countess. Not after this insult," I added as I shook the contract.
There was a moment of silence as the representative, whose name I didn't even get because she got straight into the discussion without even introducing herself, finally frowned.
"It seems you have made up your mind. Very well. Enjoy your stay. However long that may be." She stood up and left.
It was only after I saw her leave my ship through the ship's security cameras which fed into my office room's computer that I allowed myself to relax a little.
"{Well, she's a rude bitch, ain't she?}" Miguel grunted through the networked intercom between Solo Killing and Humpty Dumpty. "{But you were too pushy, too, captain.}"
"I did it on purpose," I replied easily. And then I forgot that they couldn't hear me if I didn't press down on the radio. I sighed, reached over to my left, pressed down on the intercom button, and then spoke. "I did it on purpose," I repeated. I continued without letting go of the button. "I thought Bass might be a decent place for us to temporarily stick around, but after my assessment of the planet and its people, I decided against it."
"{Bass is nice!}" Riley crowed with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes. "You mean you enjoy the beach and the sun too much?"
"{Exactly.}"
"{Bass is … nice,}" Amy chimed in. "{But I agree with the captain. It's not a place for us. Aside from garrison work, there's nothing else to do here.}"
"Exactly. That's part of the reason why we're not staying," I told them. "Because part of the reason why I came to the magistracy in the first place is because I want to set up a factory out here away from the wear and tear of the succession wars."
"{A factory for what, captain?}" Danille, the normally quiet one, asked.
"Aerodyne ships for interplanetary travel and asteroid mining. Something half the size of your regular Leopard."
"{Asteroid mining, huh. I don't think anyone does that.}"
"Their loss, then. There's a lot of germanium up in those space rocks, you know?" Then I paused. "Anyway, some of the other things were like for microelectronic components, consumer electronics, and even something called a graviton pulse generator. The last one is actually what I'm using in both of our ships for artificial gravity."
"{... Huh?}"
-VB-
Armas Arlaoskas
En route to Afarsin
3002 February
In the end, they didn't stay at Bass. Armas agreed with Ed's decision to not stay there after he and everyone else aboard the ships got to see the offered contract.
He knew enough about mechwarrior and mercenary company contracts because he learned about them from retired mechwarriors on Campoleone (those old bastards really liked to chatter).
A green mechwarrior was expected to be paid around 1,200 C-Bills per month while on garrison duty, but that was not including the equipment and maintenance costs. Such costs were added to the mechwarrior's pay and got calculated at around 4~6% of their personal mech's price. That cost included pay for astech, mechtechs, mech hangars, and everything else.
So even a green mechwarrior with an Urbanmech 60,000 C-Bills a month just to maintain their mech.
But instead of paying for even 30,000 C-Bills, the countess wanted them to pay to use a defunct base?
Yeah, no. The countess obviously didn't care about hiring a mercenary company right now. This was either her wanting to play games or looking to see how desperate they were.
And desperate, they were not.
In fact, Ed talked about how he intended to take the copy of the contract to other Canopian worlds to talk about how batshit stupid the Countess of Bass was. That'll certainly rile up her enemies within the magistracy.
"So where are we going now?" Miguel asked him from behind the captain's seat.
Armas didn't look over his shoulder to reply, because he didn't want to look away from the batshit insane FTL lightshow in front of him. He didn't get tired of watching it. He still did reply, though. "Ed said he's going to head straight to Canopus. We're not stopping by any systems on the way, so it's something like sixty-three light years of constant travel."
"... So about two weeks aboard the ship?"
"Roughly."
He hummed. "Still better than any wait time I've had before for the distance traveled. After that?"
"He wants to see whether or not he could set up a company there. You saw some of the things he wanted to make."
It was Amy who hummed from the assistant pilot's seat. "I knew that we were walking around instead of floating because of some artificial gravity, but I didn't expect him to just … bring it out like that."
"It'll change everything," Miguel remarked. "The shape of the dropships, the mech hangars, everything."
Armas didn't know much about that.
What he did know, however, was that he was excited for the future.
Whether that excitement would be tinged by exasperation, terror, or exhilaration, he didn't know yet, but he expected Ed to keep them all safe.
---
Edward Arlaoskas
I thought.
I pondered.
I ruminated.
I thought about my assumptions, knowledge, and everything else.
And came to a conclusion.
'If settling down on a planet to make manufacturing factories is not possible… why settle down at all?' I thought as I looked at the microfabricators that I had previously used to fix the drones. Four of the seven microfabs had been moved aboard the Humpty-Dumpty, but I still had two aboard my ship, making everything from spare parts to bullets.
Why couldn't I build more microfabs (and use microfabs to build nanofabs), grab another dropship (or make one, if painstakingly), and just … be a roaming factory? Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 856 others
Collection
Chapter 13
-VB-
Danielle
"Somewhere between Amnesty and Bonavista," Magistracy of Canopus(?)
3002 March
She was the quiet one. The entire crew said so, and she wasn't going to say contradict something that was so … objective.
But being quiet did not mean mindless, even if mechanic work can sometimes substitute for meditation.
And all of this was impossible.
She wanted to scream it out loud, but there was only the confined spaces of the two ships. Well, one ship. Humpty Dumpty had more or less become the dependent's ship while Captain Edward and his Solo Killing became the primary combat ship.
Oh, sorry. She mislabeled that.
The sole pocket warship in the entire Inner Sphere and the periphery.
Oh yes, she rode one of, if not the most dangerous, ship in the fucking galaxy!
Did it scare her?
… No. It made her feel safe. Even though she wasn't inside of it anymore, the thought that the captain would turn it around to defend her and the rest of the crew of the Humpty Dumpty (horrible name) assured her more than anything else.
Because she saw what happens to aerospace fighters, battlemechs, and dropships that thought they could take on Solo Killing. All were found wanting.
Personally, she didn't care for the Free Worlds League. Miguel might have said a thing or two about how great it would be if the captain worked for the League, but he didn't make a fuss because he knew - and everyone else knew - that it was half-hearted jest at the worst and his own propaganda-filled brain spewing out stupidity at best. And because no one in this "fleet" cared for the League and definitely cared a lot about their new jobs, nice comfy and safe interior of pocket warships, and the knowledge that any life they might have outside of it was subject to all manners to stupid fuckeries of the Succession Wars, no one was going to be leaking anything without consulting the captain.
Besides, she got to play with all sorts of new tech and get her hands dirty learning about them.
Well, there were few things that she couldn't understand. All of the high tech stuff that let him do the FTL stuff was out of her league, but the Siege Cannon, the drones, and the other mechanical things were right up her alley. Hell, the Siege Cannon wasn't even complicated. It was just a really big gauss rifle!
… But saying it like that ignored how gauss rifle production was a lostech, but a lot of things that Edward did was impossible, so one more impossibility was not surprising. It was, however, what really highlighted Edward's ability to make things that are out of this galaxy.
Back to the Siege Cannon. It was a very big gauss rifle - or cannon - that didn't fire a slug but a self-propelled anti-dropship grenade. The rail produced a really powerful electromagnetic field using its own miniature fusion reactor (ripped out from a Warhammer, apparently) that Edward redesigned for maximum output in exchange for diminishing the reactor high consistent output. This would sling the bomb along the rail from zero to a max of five thousand kilometers per second! Edward didn't use that maximum output ever in atmosphere, though. He said something about either the gun breaking apart or the shockwave breaking the gun in atmosphere.
But in space, that was no problem.
This was apparently a very old technology that Earth abandoned in favor of what would become Gauss Rifles of the Star League because each shot ate away at the physical rails.
Edward got around that by manufacturing the rails within the ship itself and replacing as needed, because the Siege Cannon came with automated rail replacement mechanism.
Yeah, as long as Edward had the scrap metal onboard for his "microfabricators" to make stuff like that, he didn't need to do maintenance. Hell, he could break down the broken rails to make new rails!
Danielle stopped, mentally and physically, because she knew that if she continued with this train of thoughts, then all she would do was praised Edward in her head instead of focusing on what she needed to work on: Miguel's PHX-1XEM and the spare heavily modified Wasp-1L. Hell, calling it a Wasp was actually a misnomer at this point because it was a freakin' Frankenmech at this point with the weird thruster legs and odd jump jets.
The Wasp, as the captain explained it, was for "mech space combat."
She wasn't sure how that was going to work. Sure, mechs were sometimes put on the surface of a dropship when going got tough (according to the the holonews, school, and holovids), but that was supposed to be once in a decade situation if not never encountered by some people. Yet this one was supposed to fly around like aerospace fighters and LAMs?
So she learned by getting her hands dirty.
Because she could understand what she touched.
-VB-
Edward Arlaoskas
A random red dwarf star 1.1 lightyears rimward and anti-spinward of Amnesty
3002 April
"I name this star … Rest Stop," I said out loud on the public announcement system linked between my two ships as I logged in the star system's position into my ship's star map.
"{That is a terrible name,}" Armas scoffed.
And my computer spat out an error; Rest Stop existed already, the name of a star system spinward of Outworlds Alliance.
"... Apparently, it's already taken."
"{Eh. Can't be worse than This is it? over on Lyran's Enders Cluster.}"
Right. I forgot that that was a thing.
"Okay, how about Curiosity. After the Mars Rover?"
"{The what?}"
The computer accepted that one.
"Sweet. This system is now Curiosity System."
Curiosity System was centered around Curiosity star, which was a M7V red star, or a main sequence red star of low luminosity. It had two asteroid belts, the first between its first planet and the second between its second planet and the third planet. It had five planets orbiting its star; Curiosity I was barren, half-molten, and tidally-locked rocky planets. The second was a semi-habitable rocky world with 1.8 atmospheres pressure at "sea" level. Unfortunately, its sea was a toxic alkaline sea that didn't have any life in it except maybe some extremophile bacterias. The third was a toxic planet 1.5 times the size of Earth. The fourth planet was a cold, rocky world.
Curiosity III was the one we were currently orbiting after I had gone and surveyed the entire system.
"{So why are we here instead of some other place with people?}" Armas asked me.
I was about to answer him when Inspired Inventor chimed in and tossed me a point. A bit surprised by the random event, I unintentionally muted myself, but then remembered that Armas was expecting me to answer soon, so I cleared my voice and did just that.
"Because I want to test a few things out, mostly with the drones, and a system where there are no eyes looking at us at all is the best place for exactly that kind of a test."
"{Cool. Do I need to do anything?}"
"Nope. I can command the drones from Solo Killing."
"{Alright. Then I'm gonna go and sleep. Good luck with whatever you're doing.}"
And then he toggled off the comms on his end.
I hummed as I did the same.
I crossed my fingers, and a shadow clone popped to life.
"Sup."
"You know what to do. Experiment Mining Drones is a go."
"Aight," my clone said as it sat down in front of a computer specifically tied to the drones. This computer didn't work unless I manually overridden Humpty Dumpty's command over the drones, which I did right now.
Experiment Mining Drones was a very simple experiment. Currently, Humpty Dumpty had only Wasp drones but it had the necessary blueprint, fabricator chip, and materials already installed and loaded up into its microfabricators. The Beehive-class ship also had a small refinery ready to turn any raw materials the drones would mine into refined materials that the microfabricators could use.
Oh, and for the new point, I thought about it. I had already invested points into spaceships, their designs, and some of the related fields that gave me. I had a total of twenty-eight points invested into the fields and then some more in related fields like mechanics and material engineerings. I needed to diversify a little.
… So I put that point into Gundam Engineering. The moment I did that, I realized that Gundam engineering was a lot more complicated than I imagined. I mean it had to be considering how much more advanced it was compared to the regressed technological levels of the Inner Sphere.
I mean, the Inner Sphere and even the Clans didn't have laser sabers.
Well, there was work to be done, tools to be made so that I can make tools to make even better tools, and designing to do.
I got to it.
---
The mining drones, which were shaped more like box with tools haphazardly attached to them, each took an hour to dig up, identify, and bring one ton of useful ores. With the limited space on both the Humpty Dumpty and Solo Killing, this meant that the drones could only work a few hours a day. Which was inefficient.
So I got to work expanding Humpty Dumpty.
---
Humpty Dumpty's rear expanded so that it could now hold another two hundred tons of cargo. This necessitated an increase in wing size, more thrusters, and reinforcement of the original hull's internal structure. However, this also made it longer and even less maneuverable than before.
Armas and Amy didn't care, though. The additional material from ice rocks and room could now let them have hot tubs on demand. They and everyone else ignored how I made more graviton plates that made artificial gravity possible. They were just happy they could soak in hot water.
---
The mining drones' algorithms got better at detecting what was a good ore. This actually reduced their ore output per hour from one ton to quarter ton. I was fine with that; two-thirds of what they used to bring were junk rocks in the first place, so the drones sifting through them before they brought it onboard meant less work for us.
---
After a month in space with the occasional trip towards the inner system for a crew-wide sun bathing, I finally finished the experiment and optimized the systems, cargo holds, refinery, and microfab production line for me to make anything I wanted, though anything big will take a long time to make.
But this also meant that I now had the manpower and the materials to upgrade Solo Killing into something more dangerous and defendable without having to worry about C-Bills!
And that's exactly what I did.
Oh, and I also should mine as much raw germanium as possible. It will be the best commodity good to carry and sell as I fly around the Inner Sphere, especially in trade hubs where it will be sought after. It should help me buy any components I want but don't necessarily want to queue up on my microfab.
Like armor plates. Those wasted the most amount of material and time.
-VB-
Ellison Terans, Precentor Mu XII
Gatchina
3002 April
She's been in ComStar for thirty-nine years, and had spent thirty years of it within ROM.
One could say that she was a veteran spy… but that would be a lie.
She was Mu/Mu, ROM's information analysis division. She didn't go out of her way to infiltrate and kill people. No, no, no. Getting her hands dirty would be taking the jobs of Rho agents.
Besides, she was way too sickly for that. Getting a cold every other month kind of limited any kind of long time missions, yes?
But sometimes, things required a more hands-on approach, and she would gladly do them for the sake of ComStar and the Inner Sphere.
It was why she had traveled from Atreus all the way out here to the rimward-antispinward periphery of the Free Worlds League after receiving word of strange phenomenon surrounding a mercenary company whose main war platforms were their dropships.
It wasn't like there weren't those before; Mercenary Review Board counted at least a couple dozen mercenary companies that was used more for their dropships than their mechs, though that was a drop in the bucket when there were hundreds of thousands of mercenary companies.
Hell, most of them didn't have a battlemech!
But the word of this company and their MRB listing unnerved her. Their speed across the periphery unnerved her. Most of all, the supposed "spinal cannon" of their main dropship really unnerved her.
It sounded less like a real mercenary company that managed to scrounge up decaying metal and more like a Free Worlds League's experimental weapons research group operating a front company.
So she was here to personally see to the information while disguised as a mere adept on her pilgrimage across the Free Worlds League.
Of course, once she was inside of an HPG station's safe space, she'd shed that disguise.
Like now.
Precentor Gatchina smiled. He was a Free Worlds League local, unlike her Terran-self. And standing next to him was Adept Neumarianburg.
"So you can confirm that all of these readings are what you saw?" she asked the adept.
"Yes, precentor," the adept responded sharply out of nervousness.
Ellison nodded smoothly.
She walked into this office smiling.
She wasn't smiling anymore.
"Thank you, adept. Not only did you write down a very detailed report, you also measured and saved the … anomalous entry and exit signatures of their ships. Ships that should not be able to jump yet did so anyway." She closed the window of the report on the computer and turned to the two. "Of course, this will remain only between us three, yes?"
"O-Of course, precentor," the other precentor replied. Yes, he was very nervous.
It was not often a Precentor of ROM (not Precentor ROM but of ROM) came by.
"Good. I must go to Terra as soon as possible. Please schedule me for the quickest route there."
-VB-
Current Inspired Inventory Skill/Knowledge:
Starsector Spaceship Engineering 7
Special Forces 5
Mechanic 7
Material Engineering 6
Battletech Spaceship Piloting 4
Stargate Hyperdrive Fundamentals 4
New Eden Warp Fundamentals 4
Starship Rigging 6
Close Quarter Combat 3
Spaceship Design 3
Chakra 4
Gundam Engineer 2 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:tacodragon, Stalkerdarkshadow, Stagger13 and 738 others