Debauchery Worlds 42

Commissioned by Southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 42

-VB-

Andrew Davion 

New Avalon, Federated Suns

2981.12.18

Andrew looked up to the entire yellow and blue painted hull of the Bright Avalon, his first personal purchase from the Marris Mercenary Company. 

And, in his opinion, a very wise purchase with how well it performed both in space and in atmosphere. It was a far more manueverable vessel even compared to other aerodyne dropships within the Federated Suns’ dropship fleet. 

The most comparable dropship was the Achilles-class Assault Dropship, but that particular dropship lacked the raw firepower a Stomata-class “Patrol” Dropship can bring to the table with its MACs, the Magnetic Accelerator Cannons. On top of that, the Stomata was much more heavily armored despite being more manueverable. 

With it, New Avalon was that much safer. 

It was, however, an expensive purchase, and the mercenaries who designed and made the ship refused to sell him more. There were other models they also made, which they also refused to sell. 

He found those to be more of a danger than the Stomata itself. 

According to the reports submitted by General Rachael Jamakawa, they made a civilian asteroid mining dropship model to be a modular and for rapid refits. There was no other way that they could have refit more than twenty civilian unarmed dropships into heavily militarized dropships. 

That was very interesting, and Andrew’s subordinates in both the military and the civilian sectors have estimated that for each Stomata, the mercenaries were probably making a dozen of those modular dropships. 

They were, as one analyst put it, cost efficient. 

And then there was the new behemoth that the mercenaries made at both of their bases. 

Yes, while the entire Federated Suns struggled to make a hundred plus dropships per year, a single mercenary company that wasn’t even two years old was now making dozen-plus dropships per year by themselves at shipyards that weren’t even half a year old. 

And the new behemoths they were making, not the Behemoth-class dropship, but just behemoth in size, were some kind of carrier dropships that were as big as Behemoth-class dropships. 

And in the span of six months, they made five of those. 

No one outside of the mercenary company knew their specs. They refused to share it. 

This, of course, was making many among the AFFS high command antsy. What if the mercenaries turn on them? What if they use those ships against the Federated Suns? Nothing in their arsenal could fend off one Stomata, nevermind the new giants. 

Andrew wasn’t so sure about that. 

The mercenaries warned ahead of time that they would be acting “independently.” Now, he looked at those giants and the smaller but more agile and powerful dropships … and he couldn’t help but wonder if the commander in charge of the Marris Mercenary Company didn’t have higher aspirations than being just a mercenary company commander. 

Because that? 

That looked awfully like an invasion force in his eyes. 

… Did the Marris Mercenaries have a grudge with the Draconis Combine? That might explain why they looked like they were gearing up for war against the Dracs, but it didn’t explain why they were refusing to be paid for it. 

They couldn’t possibly be thinking about conquering planets for themselves, right? They’re only a mercenary company; they held no legitimacy or the staying power needed to keep a planet. 

… Or did they?

The secret report of the Battle of David II, both of them, spoke of a group of people with high tech and numbers needed to defend against a force that the Inner Sphere hasn’t seen in over one hundred years. 

And that invading forc - brought there by ComStar of all factions - was defeated by Marris’s fleet of militarized asteroid miners, which used to be the bulk of the dropships in his fleet but now made up only two-thirds of the enlarged fleet. 

The rest of his fleet was composed of Stomatas and five “Irotryoshka” carrier dropships. 

The detachment on David II reported at least two dozen Stomatas, which meant that, right now, the Marris Fleet was the strongest fleet within the entire Inner Sphere. 

Those MACs could punch through any dropship at a distance that no one could react from. 

If he was any lesser leader of a stellar nation, then he would have ordered his men to attack the mercenaries and seize all of the tech inside their compound. 

But Andrew wasn’t a smaller or lesser man. 

He could see beyond the immediate benefit and future perceived threat. The Federated Suns wasn’t even in the Marris commander’s sights, and was already the one receiving the benefit of “housing” the mercenary company. As long as nothing happened, this would remain the case. 

And if the Marris commander wanted to throw his men at the Combine, then that was fine by him. 

If they actually started conquering planets and became a thorn in the snake’s side…

Then that was even better. 

-VB-

Alan Marris

David II, Federated Suns

2981.12.18

The manufacturing efficiency for Irotryoshka-class Carrier Corvette improved every month, and now, we now had five of them at our disposal, three here on David II and two in orbit of Prosperina VI. 

The Federated Suns’ high command was also getting anxious about my ships since I didn’t bother to hide them.

Much like the Stomata patrol ship, the Irotryoshka was getting a lot of attention from the Federated Suns. However, while the Stomata continued to get an increase in attention since there were videos and reports of its live action performance against the Draconis Combine, many people were skeptical about my new carrier corvettes. 

That’s fine. 

I would soon learn.

Soon but not now. 

How is the mechwarrior training for the new recruits? I asked among my clones. 

Decent, one of them replied and I focused on the responding clone’s perspective. 

Standing somewhere else in the Marris Mercenary Compound, I saw rows upon rows of simulators, equipped with the best VR tech I could make from accessing half a dozen high tech universes, where men and women who signed up with us trained.

These people weren’t from David II, however. All of them were ambitious refugees who wanted to become some more in their life, and I gave them the opportunity to do so.

Good. Keep it up. We deploy in a week. 

Affirmative.

Then elsewhere on David II, I watched as my clones, under the guidance of a few Theramore mages, experimented with magic. 

And finally, in an underground lab underneath the compound, we experimented with newer tech as well. And our current focus was on the latest acquisition: the hover tech built into the Consolidated Outlands ship, the Nomad. This hover tech remained operational and active even when the ship powered down completely. 

We wanted that for our mechs and armored vehicles as well as our spaceships. 

The thought of an assault hovermech made all of us giddier than a kid in a candy store whose parents just told them that they bought the entire store. It wasn’t about enjoying the candy at that point; it was about taking that candy and bragging about it to the other kids. 

… Sadly, even with bullshit Tinkering at our fingertips, I wasn’t going to have hover tech ready for deployment in the currently planned operation. 

What would be deployed was the most easily mass manufactured remote operated drone-mechs. 

Ah… I wanted to see how the Combine mech jockeys react to them. All of their “glorious” and “honorable” combat … reduced to nothing but devastating losses not against warriors but peasant drones.

I couldn’t stop the sadistic smile from splitting my face. 

‘Proserpina was just the start,’ I thought to myself. ‘And when the Dracs have been reduced to a more manageable size, that’s when I’ll turn my sights on ComStar.’

Because the invasions and conquests I would carry out was a perfect cover for a tech that would supplement the technophiles.