Collection 62 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 62

-VB-

Fleetmaster Edward Arlaoskas

Victoria Fortress Station

3006 June 4

I yawned as I looked at the local star from within my throne room inside Victoria Fortress Station. And I’ve been here since I returned from my vacation. 

And I never left Victoria. 

That was the thing that probably scared everyone the most, if they knew about it. I knew the Federated Suns knew about it, but the rest probably didn’t, especially since I just ended ComStar and their constant leaky habits. 

I never left Victoria and conquered all of ComStar’s hidden worlds and their home. Earth was free of ComStar, and my people left after ending that threat, much to the relief of all Earth’s still remaining nations. They kept their mouths shut as I left.

The rest of the Inner Sphere was less amicable. 

In fact, despite the fact that I hadn’t touched them and even helped them by releasing ComStar’s information, including how to make and operate HPG stations, all of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery nations began to panic over what I could do. 

I ignored it all, and as if to taunt them, went out of my way to make components, equipment, and outright infrastructure assembly kits and began to sell them over the FTL comm buoy adverts. 

Oh, do you need fifteen metric tons worth of gas filters? Sure, I’ll make them for you and even deliver it on one of my Mule-class jumpships. 

Did your planet’s most critical water refinery break down? Don’t worry, I already sent a Mule ahead with all of the components you need. 

Pirates are attacking you? That’s fine, mate; I’ll sell you guys artillery, mechs, tanks, armored vehicles, small arms, infantry gears, and even aerospace fighters on the cheap. Would you get in trouble for buying them? Oh no no, those are all patented proprietary designs of mine and my AIs! 

Eh, you need jumpships to invade your neighbors? I must have misheard you. It wasn’t “I need jumpships without collars to trade with my neighbors?” Oh, I wasn’t mishearing things, Archon Alessandro Steiner? I’m not interested in selling. In fact, don’t contact me again. 

Everything I just stated was what I did for roughly five months after I put an end to ComStar. 

And in those five months, everyone has been holding onto what they still had in their possession in fear of my invasion.

And invasion that will never happen if they don’t attack me, which they weren’t trying to.

While the Inner Sphere and the Periphery scurried around me, I had my people push themselves out into the Capellan Marches, the empty gap in space between the Aurigan Coalition and the Magistracy of Canopus. 

Partially, this was because of resources. Building all of those warships, drones, and everything else had marginally depleted some of the mineral resources within the Union that I could legally touch without paying. Like… 0.1% depletion. Building all of those fortress stations, more than the fleets, needed a lot of resources. And I didn’t want to run out of resources and need to suddenly get my hands on them. 

That would probably lead to war, and there were only so many unclaimed stars with exploitable moons and worlds in and around the Union. Already, I had surveyors, both human and AI, exploring everywhere from Zhaomoan and Linhauiguan to McEvans’ Sacrifice and Fronc. 

There were a few worlds between those two ends of the Capellan Marches like Herotitus, Detroit, Spencer, Rockwellawan, Lyreton, and Achtur that were already their own little polities or former Capellan worlds. Considering that most of those weren’t agriworlds but mining worlds without a supply line to the Capellan Confederation, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince them to either abandon their mining efforts or join the Union. 

Even if those worlds didn’t join, there were enough uninhabited and unclaimed stars between them that I would establish my corridor out of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery and into the Deep Periphery. 

And from there, I would be “home free,” so to speak. Even if I establish two dozen systems out there, I would have enough resource income to drown out the rest of the Inner Sphere. 

Ping.

I paused. 

Oh.

It’s been… some time since I got another point for my Inspired Thinker. 

… Now that I had some room to experiment, why don’t I get something else? I already had a bunch of spaceship related things from Starsector, Stargate, and EVE Online. But I only had Gundam and Battletech for my mech-related techs. 

Why don’t I add to that? It was just one point but one point into Lancer’s Paracausal Technology…? Yeah… why don’t I try that? 

So I did. 

I looked through what I got and …

Huh. 

EVE tech can explain some of them but not all of them. Interesting, interesting… 

But with just one level in Paracausality, I can do some funky things. Like EWAR that forces my mech’s targets to forcefully eject their ammunition or shut down their reactor. 

Oh, this was going to be fun.

-VB-

Baroness Countess Anna deSalvatore

Egress II, Egress System

3006 July 13

She stared across the table at the diplomat that the Free Worlds League had sent. 

The woman on the other side of that table was … beautiful.

So beautiful that it made Anna feel insecure.

At the same time, she felt great knowing that Edward didn’t look at this woman and only looked at her, and she knew at the same time that her inability to seduce Edward was slowly pissing off the Leaguer diplomat. 

“All I am asking,” Diplomat Catherine Yukkovik repeated slowly. “That I be allowed to meet and greet the Fleetmaster in person.”

“And I’m saying that you are asking the wrong person,” she replied with a smile. 

Except it was. 

Because between now and Edward’s decapitation of ComStar, she renounced her Federated Suns citizenship for the Union’s. Maybe it was because he loved her or because he saw the lengths she went to be with him, she gave her an entire world and made her the chief foreign minister of the Arlaoskas Union (to be supervised by his artificial intelligence androids and machines, sure, but still the chief foreign minister). 

And right now? 

The standing policy set by the Arlaoskas Clan, because they were now more than just a family, was that Edward couldn’t be trusted with more women around him. 

Anna was happy to go along with that idea. 

And what’s worse for this Leaguer diplomat was the bias of Edward’s parents. They thought this Leaguer diplomat to be a “Atreus bred and born snob,” which she was because one of the first things she said was, and Anna was quoting this, “A member of the Free Worlds League knows better about what a Leaguer wants.”

“Even if you could meet the Fleetmaster at this moment, he is currently busy with a new project.”

That got a stiff freeze out of the diplomat.

Because why wouldn’t she? 

Something new that the Fleetmaster himself was getting involved in? That was a terrifying statement for anyone outside the Union. 

The last few times he went all in, he created warships, autonomous battle drones, artificial intelligence, and alternative Faster-than-Light travel and communication. ‘What the hell was he making now?’ was the only thought that would be going through everyone’s mind once the diplomat in front of Anna reported back to Atreus. 

Anna had a sudden urge to ask if Catherine knew that the “murder drones” that destroyed ComStar were mining assistance drones, not even the proper mining drones used by the many autonomous mining ships Edward sends out by the hundreds each hour…

… Probably not. Those drones were the stuff of nightmares to the rest of the Inner Sphere. The very idea of “machines gone wrong.” The idea that they weren’t even half as efficient as the Union could build them…? People would go crazy with fear. 

“Then what can I do to meet the Fleetmaster?” the Leaguer insisted. 

Anna smiled. “You will simply have to wait.”

Because she was here first, and she wasn’t interested in letting anyone else get close.