Collection 37

Collection

Chapter 37

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Aboard The Maw, New Vandenberg, Taurian Concordat

3004 May 

“Good morning, Protector Calderon!” I greeted the elderly stateswoman and the one-eyed man who walked by her side and slightly behind her. “And I assume Heir Thomas Calderon as well?” 

“You presume correctly,” Thomas Calderon nodded with far more reluctance than I expected of someone from his position. 

With the two Calderons were their bodyguards, which I allowed as many as fifteen to board my ship to protect their charges. 

Not that it was going to protect them if I really wanted to hurt them, but I wasn’t here to show off. Right now, I just wanted the permission to build a shipyard, build one, and then move onto the Federated Suns. 

But pleasantries had to be observed because such a thing was the foundation of civil conversation. 

“Allow me to introduce myself and my people. I am Edward Arlaoskas, the Fleetmaster of the Arlaoskas Fleet, and these are my families and in-laws. This is my spymaster Amy Arlaoskas.”

Zarantha’s eyes sharpened as they met Amy’s eyes and as they shook hands. 

“This is her husband, my brother, and second-in-command, Armas.”

“A pleasure,” Thomas grunted as he gave my brother a handshake as well. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Armas said as he gave his best smile. I doubted that he was actually feeling it, though. Even if we had gotten used to meeting important people, Armas still didn’t like doing it. ‘Makes me feel weird,’ he had said. 

Mom and Dad opted to not meet the Calderons right off the bat, stating that they didn’t want to give off the wrong impression. 

“Would you like some delicacies from Coromodir?” I asked as I led them all to our designated meeting place. 

“I would like some if you have fresh fruits,” Protector Calderon hummed. “I have a preference for oranges.”

“We’ve got plenty of oranges. It’s my ma’s favorite!” I grinned. 

She chuckled along.

As we walked across the rustic corridors of metal plates and bright lights, the protector spoke up.

“Someone like you would have been given a lot of power within the Inner Sphere for even a tenth of what you can do,” she said with a hum. “But you’re out here, claiming that all of this is to piss off ComStar.”

“... been talking to the High Lord, have you?” I asked her. 

“But of course. How else was I supposed to get a gauge of you?” 

“Fair, fair,” I hummed as I heard the other three start to follow us with a conversation of their own. “So what do you think?”

“You want to build us a shipyard.”

“If you want, yes. I’ll even leave a Star League memory core so that you can finally be able to piss on the League’s grave.”

“... You’d think that someone from the Free Worlds League would have a higher opinion about the Star League.”

“Ha!” I laughed. “You’re right. A Leaguer should. But you know something? The Star League is just a larger Free Worlds League, and if you haven’t noticed, us Leaguers don’t really like each other.”

“I see.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that because I didn’t say anything of substance. 

Sure, a Leaguer can hate the League but what did that have to do with me? It could be a clue but it wasn’t.

“ComStar alone can’t be it.”

“You’re right about that,” I smiled. “I assume you’ve done your research about my past?”

“I have. A normal kid until you got kicked out of your university after a freak accident. You then somehow got your hands on a dropship and became a mercenary captain… who took on five jobs at most. You traveled along the League’s rimward periphery before returning home with a fleet of ships of unknown design, make, and technology. My analysts told me that your so-called Glimmers had armor that didn’t match anything they had in their library. The video clearly showed your dropships getting struck by autocannons and lasers but the damage was … just scorch marks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “They managed to do that much analysis from a single video?”

“You made quite the high definition video.”

“Huh. Well, what next?”

“After that is all recent history. As recent as someone like you can be with your four year career. But that one incident with ComStar can’t be the cause behind your animosity towards ComStar.”

“It isn’t,” I agreed with a nod. “But that was probably not the first time ComStar came for me.”

“So there’s history.”

“Some but, like you said, not enough to explain it all.”

“Then what would explain it?” she asked as we arrived at the room. 

“Knowledge of what they did over the years since the First Succession War,” I replied as the double doors opened silently without any gesture from me and showed a room with a large oval table inside a shiny granite and marble checkered room. “Including who was behind the Vandenburg White Wings.”

She froze. “... That was ComStar?”

“Indeed. I have a lot of stories for you, including the kind of shit they pull on schools, universities, and research institutes. By the end of my tale, I’ll be surprised if you don’t hate them more than I do.” I paused. “Of course, you’ll have to listen without any evidence from my side. If there’s something ComStar is good at, it’s hiding evidence. At least until I came around.”

---

Thomas Calderon

Thomas listened to the tale spun by the fleetmaster and …

If even a quarter of what he said was true, then ComStar was an existential threat to the Taurian Concordat. However, it was an existential threat that already had the Concordat in its grasp through its HPG network. 

The Taurian Defense Force can and will storm and raid any HPG compound and be successful. However, they cannot fight against the entirety of ComStar itself. 

Not when ComStar retained this supposed “SLDF master code” to all HPG stations, which allowed them to shut down any HPG from Terra itself. 

If not that, then the ComStar loyalists can and will sabotage their own HPGs.

This was a shitty situation all around, and Thomas hated it. 

This was even worse than the Federated Suns. At least with the Suns, he knew that they were the eventual enemy because they were the closest Inner Sphere nation. It didn’t matter who won within the Inner Sphere; once the Succession Wars came to an end, the Inner Sphere states would push outward as easily accessible resource deposits diminished within it. 

This may be a hundred years from now. A thousand years from now. 

It didn’t matter. It’ll happen.

But if the Taurians couldn’t even control their own communication, then could they put up a fight against the Inner Sphere? 

No. 

“Which is why, alongside a shipyard that will produce mini-jumpships, I want to leave behind a blueprint for a new method of FTL communications. I call them Comm Relays. Instead of using a modified KF Drive to generate, well, a KF Drive jump to transmit messages, these relays directly interact with hyperspace and send and receive information through them.” A pause. “However, because hyperspace itself is a hostile environment, the region of space around a relay also becomes damaging to normal life as they receive and send hyperwaves. As such, a relay has to be far away from life-bearing planets. Perhaps in a far orbit of the planet in question?” Fleetmaster Arlaoskas rattled on about the advanced technology he wanted to give out. 

Because as Thomas came to learn, Fleetmaster Edward Arlaoskas possessed a desire for freedom that was not unlike a Taurian, but also possessed a vengeful streak that ran deep and long. 

No one, in their right mind, would go to the lengths that he did just to flip the bird at their enemy. Even the Liaos knew when to back off against an enemy. 

But Arlaoskas? 

He broke every norm and convention by doing this, building shipyards and distributing knowledge on how to construct alternative FTL communication. And with a warship that carried dropships and fighters alike that didn’t need pilots, he could probably take the fight to anyone he wanted. 

No, what Arlaoskas wanted was a fundamental change to how human civilization functioned.

Because he refused to believe that the fleetmaster did not have any plans.

---

Edward Arlaoskas

“What do you hope to achieve with all of this, son?”

I looked up.

The first meeting came to an end with an understanding of each other. Nothing significant was discussed, though most people might disagree, but ultimately, the first meeting between the “executives” of the Arlaoskas Fleet and the Taurian Concordat ended with this:

“We’re chill, we’re cool, and we ain’t gonna cause each other any problem.”

Dad was looking at me.

“Didn’t I already explain?” I asked him.

“You’ve explained how you’re responding to ComStar’s … intervention, as it were,” he said as he sat down next to me in one of the decorative corridors for outer space viewing. Both of us stared out of the tinted plastiglass, and the New Vandenberg star greeted us with a fiery glow that the tinted plastiglass kept dim. “So, no, you haven’t explained yourself.”

“Is fighting against cloak and dagger plots that seek to keep everyone down something I need to explain?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow. 

I paused as I got another point. That was … fast. But then again, points did come faster the more I put them into low level skills and knowledge. I invested this point into Medical Technology, and I briefly marveled at how easily I knew how to mass manufacture some of the more mundane medicines like acetaminophen, clozapine, and more thanks to Mass Manufacturing. 

I hummed. 

Perhaps I could also make that part of the deal? Blueprints or even recipes and flow charts of medications that are hard to find out here in the Periphery? Or anywhere in general? People always appreciated medical help, so it can be used to sweeten the pot, so to speak.

And hasten my plot to bring ComStar down.

“... You’re doing that weird pausing thing again.”

“Ah. Sorry.”

“So?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t answer.”

I let out a sigh. “Fine.” I took a deep breath in. “I don’t feel safe.”

“... safe?” Dad asked me incredulously. 

I waved my hand. “I went out expecting to have an adventurous time. To fight pirates, rescue hot girls, and get filthy rich in the process. I did all of that except the hot girl part, but I also brought trouble onto myself.”

“ComStar.”

“... It’s always about them.”

“I mean I already told you most of what you need to know about them.”

“You did.”

“They make me feel unsafe.”

“...”

I waved my hand around the ship. “This is my home now, Dad. The moment I stay anywhere stationary or not heavily defended, ComStar will do everything in their power to end me. That was true before Kendall and it’s true now. I do all this not because I just hate ComStar. I’m doing all of this because taking the fight directly to ComStar will also end human civilization as we know it. The end of the HPG network. And the end of Terra.”

“... What do you mean?”

“Do you honestly think that ComStar won’t adapt? Whether it is new technology or tactics, they will adapt. They’re humans just like us. But if they adapt, then they can kill me eventually. So I’ll have to strike first and strike hard.” I paused and looked at him. “Even if that means burning Terra.”

He stopped and stared at him. “Couldn’t you … leave?”

“I could,” I nodded. “But I’m not a saint, Dad. Or even patient like you. I refuse to be a refugee simply because I want to make my life better, and ComStar, being made out of zealots worshipping a normal man, won’t stop because I will eventually become the very thing that erodes their authority and existence.” I snorted. “Except by attacking me constantly over the years, they did exactly that. I would’ve been just roaming around with a fleet, doing things for shits and giggles. Eventually, I’ll have kids and those kids will get my tech and everything, and then the tech will disperse and end ComStar. But now, ComStar brought my attention to them just as I brought their attention unto myself. Their desire to control and end me in order to maintain their status became a self-fulfilling prophecy, whether or not they approached it like a prophecy.”

“... And you can’t negotiate with them?”

“Dad. You know what they do right now against people who’ve done nothing wrong to them. I have a few ships. I’m not a House Lord. It’s either me… or them.” Then I smirked. “Unfortunately for them, even if they throw all of their warships and nukes at me, I’ll be fine.”

Dad blinked. “What?”

I cackled but didn’t explain anything to him.

After all, this mad scientist gotta have some secrets of his own.

-VB-

Zarantha Calderon, the Protector of the Taurian Concordat

Aboard The Maw, Jamestown System, Taurian Concordat

3004 May

The Maw was a monstrous creation. 

And it upset everything she knew about interstellar travel.

‘To need only hydrogen to jump across seven lightyears…!’ 

To her surprise, Fleetmaster Edward gave her a simplified explanation as to how his ship’s jump drive worked, of which he had three types. 

The first, he called the warp drive. This only used regular energy capable of being provided by fusion reactors to warp space around a ship and send it hurling forward. It couldn’t cross lightyears on its own, but it took a similar time nonetheless as regular KF Drive-equipped jumpships to cross a similar distance. 

The second was the regular KF Drive. It had one installed on this ship but it was far smaller than she expected it to be when he showed her. 

The third … the third was the method he used to awe her. To prove to her that he truly did have the means of creating things that no one else could.

Zarantha Calderon - the Protector of the Taurian Concordat, a veteran of the Taurian Defense Force, a seasoned politician in her own right even before her ascension, and an elderly woman who’s seen everything there was to see - let her jaw drop as she stared out of the bridge’s massive and wide windows at the colorful spectacle the fleetmaster called a cynosural field. 

It was beautiful. A flower of raw cascading energies forming a bubble around the ship. 

And then everything around them warped as it felt like she and everyone around her was getting pulled through. 

Her hands tightly gripped the arms of her chair as light flooded her vision.

And then it was over. 

She sat there, tense with a hammering heart, as she stared out at black space beyond the bridge’s glass windows. 

“... Jump complete,” Fleetmaster Edward hummed as he looked over his console with just a glance. “No damages and irregularities.”

“W-Where are we?” she asked cautiously as she straightened herself up. 

“Uncharted star system between New Vandenburg and Landmark. It’ll take another two jumps to get to Landmark and another few jumps to reach our target. Jamestown, right?”

“Yes,” Thomas, who had been with her on the bridge, said almost like a whisper. 

“Yes. It’ll take us … five hours.”

Five hours. 

And it took five hours just as he said. 

They traveled over forty lightyears … in five hours. 

And most of that had been for the ship’s reactors to cool down, recharge the ship’s batteries, and reload the new jump drive with fuel. 

And the reloading itself was an experience. 

“You mean… all of the people on this ship…?” Thomas asked with a pale face as he watched robotic workers - bipedal robotic workers - work with automated systems built into the ship to haul fuel blocks to where they were needed. 

“Yes,” Armas, the man who had been introduced as the fleetmaster’s second in command, hummed while overseeing the Artificial Intelligence crew. “Outside of our family right now, all of the workers you’ve seen, both wearing synthetic skin and modular body parts and the skinless and thin robotic workers, are all AI’s. You can tell who is who by the color. Red for AIs that have the same capabilities as humans, yellow for those that exceed it, and blue for those that are beyond human capabilities. Well, humans that aren’t my brother, that is.”

“Your brother is a gift to all of mankind, Comrade Armas!” one of the robotic workers with a red star and a red jewel on its chest buzzed. “It is through him that the proletariat -!” 

“Please ignore the AI who got too into philosophy and history without real world experience,” Armas droned over the AIs ramblings. 

“The workers must rise up -!” 

“Yeah, yeah, pinko,” an attractive woman with a yellow jewel embedded into her forehead grunted. “Your ‘comrade leader’ Fleetmaster wants this work done before the hour is up.”

Armas sighed. “It has a lot to do with ComStar poisoning every recruitment pool.”

Zarantha watched with a critical eye. 

This was … dangerous. Beyond dangerous. Yet all of these artificial intelligences were … stable. Cooperative. Or as the one programmer she had on her advisory board once spoke about AI’s, “aligned to human values.”

After all, a robot that screeched about communism was … almost human.

Comical, almost. 

‘Maybe that’s why it’s causing me shivers even more than a cruel and cold AI?’ she thought as she watched the said commie robot, which was no bigger than her son, carry fuel blocks above its head as if it weighed nothing. 

“So, Protector Calderon,” Fleetmaster Edward Arlaoskas, a man whose fleet carried thousands of minds yet only two dozen beating hearts, turned to her and smiled. It was a dangerous smile. He was probably one of the most dangerous men to ever sail the stars and he was solely focused on bringing down a pillar of human civilization. “Where would you like your shipyard?”