Debauchery Worlds 34 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 34

-VB-

John Kageruwa

David II, Federated Suns

2981.06.25

A lot of things happened in a span of a year. His world which had been under the Coordinator and the Draconis Combine switched hands. He lost his eldest son to cancer. He got two more grandchildren. His neighbor purchased more land.

And then Polis, the planetary capital, got nuked. 

Everyone tensed. He still remembered how a month ago, he, his cousins and siblings, his children and their grandchildren, and his neighbors all tensed up and evacuated to his hidden log cabin in the woods and away from the farms. They didn’t trust the emergency radio stations that talked about the raid that was stopped before they even landed.

It wasn’t until a week ago that they came back out after the emergency radio stations stopped broadcasting. Thankfully, no one had touched any of their farms, but the weeks of negligence had ruined a lot of the crops.

So despite being sixty, he spent the last six hours of the day working in the field along with the rest of the family. Now, he was the first to rest among the men. He just wasn’t in the same shape as he had been in his prime.

“So the mercenaries survived while the FedSuns died in droves?” he asked his friend, Tomura, in . The man was his elder by five years but, well, the two of them went on a lot of adventures together. 

“Yes. The Feddies haven’t come back yet, so the mercs are the ones in charge.”

“Shit. Ain’t that bad?”

“Well, apparently, they’re decent for mercs. Except they super hate people who speak or act Japanese.”

“Eh? They’re racists?”

“Or something.”

“... Do they go around doing shit?” he asked quietly. 

Tomura shook his head. “No, they don’t. That’s the thing. They have all of that official documents and whatnot from the Feddies that let’s them rule the place until they send someone over. But since the capital got nuked and the HPG with it, I don’t think they’ll send one any time soon.”

“Shit. That’s bad. They left racists in charge…?!” 

“Yeah, but they have a good reason to hate anything Combine.”

“What? Bigotry?”

“The…” Tomura looked around before he leaned in. John leaned in to his friend, too. “The ISF apparently nuked them.”

John jumped away from his friend almost like he got burned. “Nuke? Wait, the nuke that went off was …?”

“Apparently. It certainly wouldn’t be the mercs or the Feddies who would nuke themselves.” 

John grimaced. He … supposed that being nuked might make someone very angry. Angry enough to be blatantly racist.

“So how bad is it?”

“They don’t trust anyone who even looks Japanese, but they don’t deny them service or telling someone to fuck off.”

John blinked. “Wait, what? That’s it?”

“Supposedly. It’s what I heard from Jamie. I ain’t going anywhere near the mercs. You saw their fighters patrolling the skies.”

Jamie was Tomura’s youngest daughter. She was a businesswoman who liked to sell her wares between the countryside and the cities. With most of the capital city gone, the mercs were the only ones still there.

John frowned. “Wait a minute. If the mercs got nuked, then how did they survive? Were they somewhere else?” he asked. 

“Probably,” Tomura shrugged. “What do I care? As long as they don’t come out here and ‘tax’ me out of the ordinary.”

---

Later that night, John woke up with a snap when gunshots rang out in the distance. 

He sat up on the bed, which made Maria wake up.

And then she heard the gunshots, too.

“Get to the basement, Maria,” he told her as he quickly got out of the bed and rushed to the only gun in the house. “And warn the kids, too.”

Maria, bless her, didn’t tell him to stop or scream. Despite just waking up and no doubt fearing for his life, she quickly ran off to do as he asked. 

He gulped as he grabbed his Wakazashi C-4 Shotgun, quickly pulled out the magazine, checked if the magazine was full, and then shoved the magazine back in until it clicked. He took a deep breath in as he set the shotgun down and put on the basic sleeveless body armor that all militia members had. Then he stepped into the living room and put himself behind the kitchen wall.

And waited.

The gunshots grew closer and closer -.

BOOM!

He jolted.

That … that wasn’t a gunshot. That was a bomb (or worse). 

Then he froze when he heard a rumble. The rumble quickly turned into a sharp whistle that drowned out all other sound as it sailed above his house.

Even more bombs went off. Were they dropping bombs on his field?!

He winced as he heard debris falling all around and on his house. 

Then there was a crash. It was a smaller and quieter crash compared to all of the bombs outside, but this one made his heart jump up to his throat and his hands tremble because it came from his front door. 

“Fuck fuck fuck -!” he heard someone hiss as they dragged themselves into his living room. “Fuck, how did they even find - fuck!” 

He didn’t hesitate.

He whirled out from behind the wall, aimed his shotgun, and shot.

The gun buckled in his hands, and he flinched in pain and the sudden explosion of briefly lived light that lit up the dark room.

There was a splat and a thump that followed afterward, and John tried to blink the lights out of his eyes. 

And then he heard thumping boots outside and tried to hide. Flashlights swished by the front of his house and briefly lighted him up, too.

Then a megaphone screeched outside briefly before someone spoke up from outside. “This is the Marris Police Operations! Gunman in the house, come out with your hands behind your head!” 

… John never heard of them before. 

“I just killed the guy who came into my house!” he shouted back. 

“... Are you the home owner?”

“Yes!” 

“We are the Marris Mercenaries currently acting as police. Please get down on the ground where we can see you with your hands behind your head and weapon on the ground.”

John was about to tell them to fuck off until he felt a rumble and then a screech of heavy cars coming to a stop.

Yeah, there was no way he was getting out of this. 

“... Fine!” he set his gun down and put his hands behind his head and walked out. 

The moment he turned around and came out from behind the kitchen wall, he squinted because he got a face full of suppressive light. 

There were rapid thumps as heavily armored men, whose details he could not tell because he was still getting flashlighted. They quickly spread out, and then one of them knelt down next to the bastard who broke his front door down. The armored “police” flipped the guy around…

“Still alive,” he grunted before grabbing him by the leg and dragging him out. 

Then they quickly left as abruptly as they came except for one. The one who stayed behind turned to look at him. “You can stop now.”

John hesitated once before he put his hands down. “What the hell is this about?” he grumbled. 

“Would-be bandits,” the “policeman” replied. “After the news about the planetary capital getting nuked got out, bad actors began to raid and pillage their neighbors.” He sounded like he wanted to -.

BAM!

-kill the bastards himself. 

“... Is there anything else, officer?” he asked as politely as he could. He did just hear one of them execute someone outside his house.

“Yes. Thank you for cooperation.”

And then he left, leaving John alone in the house with a pool of blood and broken front door to fix. 

It wasn’t until the “police” drove away in their armored patrol cars that the rest of his family came rushing in.

John wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole event.