Debauchery Worlds 30 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

-VB-

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 30

-VB-

General Rachael Jamakawa

Proserpina IV

2981.04.11

It’s been four days since they successfully landed and began their operation on Prosperina IV. 

She already noted how powerful the Stomatas were.

But now, she found herself looking at reports of Marris mechwarriors rampaging through any and all opposition they found.

Case in point, she waited quietly as her senior commanders trickled into the meeting room. This wasn’t something she didn’t expect. She already saw how reliable and powerful their new, franken, and modified mechs were in the Second Battle for David II. No, she brought them to this meeting and wanted to show the footage to make sure they knew not to piss off the Marris mercenaries. Because, right now, sh was pissed. 

“Colonels,” she began. “Thank you for showing up. We’re going to watch a recovered footage of a Combine mechwarrior that went up against one of Marris’s melee mechs. Any questions before we continue?”

They shook their heads. 

She picked up her remote control, pointed it to the widescreen and started the video.

The Combine mechwarrior was obviously on high alert, quickly looking from left to right and back inside their Wasp. And then there was a loud crash to its left toward the pine forest, and the mech turned to face its enemy. 

And blazing out of the forest was a tread footed 

Rachael paused the video. “It’s an evolution of their landspinners,” she said out loud for the sake of the senior commanders who might not be closely following the technological marvels Marris churned out of his factories. Or did, if the report about the nuclear attack was any indication. 

“Landspinners? The battlemech attachments that we have been experimenting with?” Colonel Suiara Normandy-Weaver asked. The mousy woman was a “by the book” kind of commander of the 30th Elbar Cavalry Battalion. She had been who had been the most resistant to the battlemech pedal attachments.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’ve been purchasing as much as I could.”

“Those landspinners were great in the defense of David II,” Colonel Fredrick Tucker, who was in charge of 111st Ronbinson Battlemech Battalion, hummed. “They have also help with our scouting speed and allow us to flank the Combine units regularly.”

Rachael, seeing no one else speak up after Colonel Tucker, started the video again.

But it did have a shield wide and tall enough to cover most of its head, torso, and upper legs, and wielded a hammer that was as big as a tank. It sped up abruptly the moment it fully pushed itself out of the forest it was charging out of. The Marris mech with treaded feet also had landspinner, and together, they added speed to the “skating” Marris mech as it sped across the shrubbed clearing. 

The Combine Wasp quickly turned side to run while shooting back at the charging Marris mech. The back of the charging mech lit up with jump jet plumes. Except instead of pushing off into the air, it just sped up the mech.

The Wasp managed to dodge the Marris mech.

But then the Marris mech spun around while skidding on the ground - making the shrubbed grassy ground break and turn into mud under the grinding treads - and then the back jets roared with so much power that the plumes were longer than the mech was tall, and the mech that had to weigh at least 50 tons came to a stop in under 25 meters while going at at least 80 kilometers per hour just seconds ago, and then reversed that momentum and slammed into the Wasp that failed to dodge again this time.

The unnamed Marris mech slammed into the Wasp. They got a first person perspective of what being smashed by a mech shield and then how fast the hammer swing looked from the receiving end. So fast that the Combine mechwarrior didn’t have time to react, even to raise up their mech’s arms. The hammer came down and smashed into the camera. The video came to a stop.

“Six seconds,” she noted. “It took six seconds from the first noise they made on entry to ending a light mech. Marris mercenaries did this without receiving any notable damage. Their mech shield lost less than a single percent in weight of its ablative armor.”

It took a moment but Colonel Tucker spoke up. “That mech is impossible.”

She gestured for him to continue. 

“A medium mech going full tilt is at least forty tons of metal. It is the same weight of most large planetary airliners operating at empty. It is impossible for anything of that weight to come to that quick of a stop. The structural integrity and metallurgy needed to achieve that doesn’t exist in the Inner Sphere and never existed.”

She nodded calmly as the other commanders looked between her and the colonel. “And that is the truth and why the First Prince and I have been working very hard to ensure that the Marris Mercenaries remain firmly under the employ of the Federated Suns,” she stressed. “And that is the primary reason why I brought you here. Yesterday, I received a message from the Marris Mercenaries that one of my mechwarriors attempted to push for a trade that they did not want, thrusting forward their parent’s ducal titles in an attempt to sway the Marris merc. I have dealt with the perpetrator.” She paused for effect while also not elaborating on how she dealt with the idiot fourth son of some planetary duke from the Outlands. “Any questions?” 

“... Are they selling any?” Major Joseph Mante, in charge of the regiment’s logistics, asked.

“No, and don’t bother inquiring. They are extremely selective of what, how much, and when they sell. You saw how powerful their assault dropship is. They could demand upwards to fifty million C-Bills, and it would be worth it. But they have yet to sell any. And we all know that they make dropships as frequently as the Lyrans make assault mechs.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am working on getting us anything they are willing to sell. The landspinners are one such tech, and we’ve actually managed to get them to sell us some of their modified mechs.”

The officers all looked suitably greedy. They wanted one for themselves, if not their battalion. 

“Which is why you are now all under orders to maintain the best friendly relationship you can with the Marris Mercenaries. Anyone who can’t will be shipped elsewhere. Understood?”

“Yes, general!”

Good. Now, if she could figure out why Marris still played at being a mercenary with mechs like those… It wouldn’t be hard to fuck off to the periphery to set up his own kingdom. It wouldn’t even be a small kingdom, either.