Debauchery Worlds 46

Commissioned by Southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 46

-VB-

Heather Budenburg

Cylene II, Draconis Combine

2981.12.27

It took a single day for them to bring down a whole planet. 

The thought still left her awed and confused. She didn’t know what kind of world Cylene was, but it made no sense to her that the Marris Mercenaries, her included, were able to wipe the floor with the garrison and reserves on the planet.

But even as she said that, her mind provided her with numerous examples of her own fights where she and her company overwhelmed the enemies with sheer numbers. 

Sure, some of the Dropper mechs did get downed by lucky shots or against amassed enemies, but even then, no one on their side actually died. 

How could they die when Dropper ultralight mechs never had pilots in them? 

As for the larger mechs, there were some that went down, but even the pilots for those - actual core members of the mercenary company - were rescued easily.

And from what she heard among the grapevine was that a few of the fleet’s ships also left Cylene toward other Combine worlds. 

This was the kind of campaign that she never expected to be part of, and it was causing … well, she felt exhilaration. She was part of history! How many living mechwarriors (which she counted as!) could say that they took a Combine world stocked to the brim with militia and reserves in a day? 

Even in her mind, she couldn’t help but feel giddy about her own progress. 

… Well, that wasn’t true.

She wasn’t dumb enough to think that it was totally because of her and her skills. She wasn’t the best among the green mechwarrior recruits at all, and she knew for a fact that the Dropper mechs were, despite being ultralight tonnage mech, struck well above its weight class. 

Hell, she’s already heard about squads who took down assault mechs on their own! 

There was something special about the Dropper mechs. If she could, then she would use all of her pay from this battle and future ones to secure one for herself. 

“Hey, did you hear?”

She looked over her shoulder at a group of other mechwarriors in the mess hall of their … mothership? She wasn’t sure what to call this ship. 

“Hear what?” she asked them, and they turned to look at her. 

“Apparently, the boss is attacking Skat and Markab at the same time!” the man said, showing off his missing teeth.

She didn’t know what those worlds were. “Are they close?”

“It is. Less than five lightyears, I think,” the mechwarrior hummed. “I think it has like … half a billion people? Cylene, on the other hand, has only like a few million.”

Her eyes widened. “That has to be a much more heavily defended world, then, right?”

“Yup,” he hummed. “... But the ships the commander sent were all of those big gun ships.”

Heather took a sip of her orange juice. “Guess the commander’s not feeling merciful toward the snakes. I would say God have mercy on them, but everyone knows God hates snakes.”

“Too true!” the mechwarrior grinned. “Anyways, what do you think the commander is gonna do here? He did all of that talk, but he’s probably just gonna rob this place, huh?” The other mechwarriors in his group seemed to agree. 

Heather wasn’t so sure. If this was supposed to be just a raid, then there would have been extra dropships to carry the loot but there wasn’t. She knew that the mercenary company had spare dropships for just that but they hadn’t brought any or prepare them to jump in after the fleet. . 

She believed Commander Marris when he said he was here to do some intense reorganization. 

“... uh, holy shit.”

They all turned to look at another mechwarrior in the mess hall, who sat away from the rest while looking at a small noteputer’s holo news. 

“What?” she asked. 

Wordlessly, he turned up the volume for his noteputer. 

“... and so with no other authority present on Cylene to offer us surrender and with almost all of the enemy forces either wiped out or in hiding, I am unilaterally declaring that the Marris Mercenary’s conquest of Cylene has concluded in a victory for me and my company,” Commander Marris’s voice crackled out from the noteputer’s speakers. 

“Holy shit,” she repeated as she realized where this was going. 

“As such, I hereby declare to the rest of the Inner Sphere that a new nation is born! Here on Cylene, I raise the first flag of the Coreward Principality!”

And the holo showed a very simple flag. A red background, a white circle in the center, and a red tear in the middle of the circle. 

-VB-

Andrew Davion

New Avalon, Federated Suns

2982.01.06

Being the First Prince often involved a lot of meetings to grasp the events happening in and around the Federated Suns. 

Most of the times, these meetings were routine things that involved taxation, population census, and the like. They were important because budget, of all things, determined how effective his forces were often times. 

But sometimes, he got news that superceded such meetings in favor of more strategic meetings. 

And before him in a royal meeting room for his privy council.

To his right was Duchess Matilda Davion*, his cousin and the new commander of the Davion Brigade of Guards. To her right was the current Prince’s Champion Daniel Duponte**. To Andrew’s left was the Marshal of the Armies Jonathan Le’Malonne**. 

Currently, these three were the only ones who was available for … a not so emergency meeting. 

Andrew watched their reactions as they each put down the papers with the news that would soon hit the papers and holos. 

“One day?” Le’Malonne asked incredulously. “Cylene isn’t exactly Benjamin, but that is still ridiculous.”

“Considering that it’s ComStar that verified this, we have no choice but to accept it,” Matilda muttered. 

“Indeed,” Andrew spoke up when a pause set in. “And this presents a conundrum for us.”

The “Coreward Principality,” as Commander Marris chose to call his new domain, was situated right on the border of the Federated Suns and possessed a military base as well. 

“Could we not use this as a legitimate cause for seizure of their military assets on David?” Duponte, who was unaware of the situation on the ground there, asked as he looked around. 

“That will result in a lot of our mechwarriors dead and dropships destroyed,” Andrew countered immediately. “They are a devastating force capable of exacting ten times more casualty than they would suffer. This is also ignoring the fact that they have defensive emplacements that can take down ships in orbit or the fact that they possess defensive construction technology that allowed them to survive a nuclear bomb. So unless you are suggesting that we drop nukes on our own world…?”

“Of course not, my prince,” Daniel shook his head. “But the fact that David II now hosts a foreign military base is …”

“It is unpalatable, yes,” he hummed. 

But one that he couldn’t do much about because he knew the true strength of the Marris Mercenaries, unlike the rest of his present privy council.

“Then how will we react?”

“React?” he asked. “No, we won’t react. As far as I am concerned, we now have a mercenary company turned a minor state attacking the Draconis Combine without us paying them to do it. This is a great win for us. The only thing we will do is talk with Commander Alan Marris and make it very clear we will not tolerate any of his military incursions into our border worlds. In fact, we should see if they are open to taking loans. It can’t be cheap taking on the Draconis Combine.” 

-VB-

A/N: 

*: Yvonne Davion’s mom.

**: random OCs to fill in the positions.