Collection 4 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 4

-VB-

Armas Arlaoskas

Lesnovo System

3001 April

From his seat in front of the sensor suite console in the bridge, Armas wondered about … a lot of things. 

Between working to radically change Edward’s dropship at his direction who also did most of the work that didn’t involve lifting something, he had taken some time to learn how to work with all of the sensor stuff. When he showed his brother that he was adequate in keeping an eye out, his brother “promoted” him to become a sensor officer and gave him a very official sounding “Second Lieutenant” rank, too.

Which came with a pay increase.

He didn’t know he was getting paid. Or at least getting paid anything worth calling it that. But then Ed came by and showed him a software program connected to the ship’s computer and accessible from any authorized devices approved by the captain (Ed). He didn’t know why or when but Ed built an ATM machine specifically for the crew. 

So yeah… Ed scolded him for not paying attention to all of the lessons and lectures he gave him, which included how much he was getting paid for what. Regardless, Amy was more than happy to hear that he got a pay raise and a promotion, and the enthusiastic rides in bed that night showed him that he should be going for more of those. 

But he was also fully aware of the fact that he was not comparable to his brother, who’s been showing off a genius that no one in the family had suspected. When did he become a mechanic? When did he know how to dismantle dropships and recreate them into a wholly new design? How did he even learn to design spaceships in the first place? 

It was learning how to understand the intricacies of the deep space and local sensors that he understood how much he needed to do to catch up to his brother. Or rather how deep the gap between him and his brother was. The time it took for him to understand a single spaceship system was enough time for Edward to make a new dropship. Now, he might not know much about dropships in general, but when the Lesnovo Militia who visited often remarked how Edward was making a ship that no one knew the design of … 

And when it proved flightworthy with how easily it moved in and out of the atmosphere in the few flight tests Ed did…

Yeah.

Oh, and he didn’t know before but apparently having simulated gravity while not at acceleration was impossible? But he and Amy certainly didn’t notice the difference from it and regular planetary gravity? Did that mean Ed also made something that was utterly impossible? 

… Yeah.

There was so much he didn’t know about his brother. He wondered often if Ed really was Ed. 

But then someone would say something stupid about politics in the Kitchen and he would burst out in his usual outrageous rants, and Armas knew Ed was Ed, because even among Kendall’s natives, it was hard to find someone who disapproved of the League’s entire system as his brother. 

“Hey, Arm.”

He looked down from where he had his head in the pillow and saw Amy looking up at him. Naked as she was with her large boobs pressed against his equally naked chest, he still couldn’t believe that this girl loved him. 

“What is it?” he asked her.

“... I think you should study how to pilot a spaceship,” she suggested coyly as she pulled herself up so that she was pressing her head against his chin.

He raised an eyebrow as he leaned back and ran his hand in her hair. He could kind of guess why she recommended that, partially because he had been thinking about it, too. “... Is it because Ed’s definitely going to get his hands on more dropships?”

“Yeah,” she humed. “And maybe even a jumpship, and if you have that… we can have a big family, you know.”

He stiffened for a second before he relaxed. 

Amy … Amy had always been the one who wanted a big family. When he first promised to be her husband and she in turn his wife, one of the first things she talked about was not sex, love, or anything else but money and family. She wanted a big family, and more than willing to ride him every night to make it happen. 

Their adventure with Ed kind of threw that into the loop because a life on the move had been exactly what he might need to keep her from wanting that big of a family. He had been a little scared about becoming a dad because he didn’t think he could. It wasn’t like he had a good job before this! 

But then now he did. 

And he rather liked the idea of becoming a dad if it meant he got to keep his dick inside Amy’s squeezing, tight pussy for more often and for longer.

She was a seductress like that. 

Without answering, he just flipped her around, making her squeal in surprise, and made her moan with his finger before … he plunged himself into her without a condom.

And the gasp and moans she made only urged him on more. 

Ed’s genius can suck it; he had a girl while Ed didn’t. 

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Lesnovo System

3001 April

“So why are we out here, Ed?” Armas asked him, and I glared at him from the corner of my eyes. He just gave me a smug grin and I glared harder. 

The bastard and his bitch kept me up the entire night last night, and I was very tempted to soundproof their room. 

Similarly, the rest of the crew in the bridge right now, who were equally curious about our purpose here, also glared at him and Amy.

“We’re out here,” I drawled. “Because I am testing a new jump drive.”

It took a second for my words to register with them, and they all snapped to me as I calibrated the jump drive-sepcific computer by loading in the information for the jump ahead of us.

“What do you mean a new jump drive?” Miguel asked me with clearly high levels of alarm in his voice. 

“One that’s not a KF Drive,” I hummed. At this point, I trusted all of the original staff I hired on at Kendall. If any of them had been a plant or something else, then they would have already ratted me out to their employer in the months long stay at Lesnovo. But no one had and I got no surprise visits from nations, agencies, or corporations seeking to buy my service or tech. So I felt good enough about them to explain a few things. “See, I got an inspiration.” Not a lie. “When I was working on figuring out how KF drives worked, I figured out something that … well, it isn’t as far reaching as KF drive could per joule I pumped into it, but it could still go FTL.”

Then I pressed activate.

They all saw me press it.

“You’ve doomed us all…” Armas moaned as he buried his face into his hands. 

It was a sentiment the rest of the crew shared… before their eyes snapped toward the only reinforced glass window that showed the outside world from within the ship. 

They watched in awe as a nearly translucent bubble of energy formed around the ship… and then catapulted us into the void. They all grabbed on tightly in anticipation… but nothing happened. At least they didn’t feel anything because what I had activated was not a KF Drive but a New Eden Warp Drive that I made using New Eden Warp Fundamentals IV. 

I watched from my captain’s seat as my ship’s reserve of energy began to run dry very quickly and then, right before it dropped below 5%, the warp drive disengaged.

Everyone on the bridge turned to me.

“We’re not at our destination of Campoleone. We’re still … 18 lightyears out.”

The oldest of us and the most experienced - again, Miguel - stared at me.

“You … you made some kind of junk KF drive?” he asked me, both aghast and awed. 

I half-heartedly glared at him. “I’d like to call it warp drive. It doesn’t ‘jump’ from one place to another. It warps the space around the ship and carries them forward faster than light because it moves the bubble of space, not the ship, and space can move faster than light.”

He blinked at me before throwing his hands up. “Just tell me when we get there,” he grumbled loudly as he walked out of the bridge. 

I giggled a little, and Armas gave me a disgusted look. “What?”

“A giant, muscular man giggled in front of me. It sounded and looked wrong.”

“... I’ll show what sounds and looks wrong when I make you scream like a girl,” I growled playfully as I rose out of my chair. Armas immediately ran away. 

Good. It was going to take around forty minutes before the ship’s fusion reactor recharged its batteries, and that’s how long it’ll take for me to catch and teach him the lesson that as long as there was muscle, it was manly. 

“Get over here!” 

---

When I woke up the next day at around halfway point between Lesnovo and Campoleone (because no one wanted to play with the warp drive function at all and so our travel speed was less than optimal), I decided that I had enough levels in mechanical knowledge side of things.

And I wanted to know if I could make some more fictional powers to life. 

I mentally asked Inspired Inventor if copying a parahuman power from Worm was possible. I got no response for over an hour, so I asked if I could get chakra. 

Chakra I.

That answered that question. 

I shivered in place when I felt something just come into existence within me. As if it had been there all along. It felt … tingly. 

I also had a feeling that this would be the only skill Inspired Inventor would give me for some time. How long would that be? I didn’t know. I would just have to make do with this as best as I can.

Shrugging, I got out of bed and headed to the Kitchen.

-VB-

Miguel Nohara

Campoleone System, Rim Commonality, Free Worlds League

3001 April

It took them full three days to cross the void between Lesnovo and Campoleone, but it was also the fastest travel time recorded in Inner Sphere’s history and performed in the smallest “jumpship” ever conceived. 

There was no doubt about it; he was working for someone who might become the future McKenna or Cameron. Or at least someone who will have just as an important of a mark in history as any of the lords of the Great Houses. 

But it also meant that he might be able to get something more than just a job out of this. 

“Hey, boss, can I talk to you for a bit?” Miguel asked and the much younger man looked up from where he had been doing some … programming. Miguel glanced at it and didn’t understand anything that was written there. 

“Sure,” Edward replied as he turned away from the computer console in front of the captain’s seat and faced him fully, showing Miguel that he had his full attention. “Is something bothering you, Miguel?”

Miguel almost didn’t ask. It felt … like he was groveling.

But at the same time, he had a bigger regret pushing him forward. 

He gulped. “Boss, you know how you have a few mechs in the bay, right?”

“Oh, you mean the Phoenix Hawk and Spider?” he asked casually as if he wasn’t owning enough firepower to get himself a noble house for himself. In fact, he could go back to Kendall right now and proudly claim that he had done all manner of good for the Free Worlds League. Destroying pirates and gaining mechs for the defense of Kendall definitely would have been that. 

Edward had sold off the majority of the mechs that he managed to salvage from the wrecks of the destroyed dropships and from the intact Union that he captured. The only two mechs he kept were the ones currently inside Solo Killing’s cargo hold and not in a mech bay.

“I would like to become mechwarrior for the Phoenix Hawk.”

“...” Edward stared at him for a while before he facepalmed. “Um, yeah, sure, Miguel. But, uh, there’s a problem with what you might want.”

“Yes…?”

“I don’t ever intend to field battlemechs as part of my mercenary composition. I’m just gonna go around in my ship.”

“... Excuse me?” he asked. “But you have …”

“I know,” I replied. “And I also know that we have to defend our ship on the ground sometimes. So, yes, I can make you a mechwarrior again, but it won’t be to fight someone out in the field. Can you accept that, Miguel?”

The younger man stared at him. Miguel realized that this was the best he was going to get. Edward didn’t care for battlemechs. All he cared about was this ship and maybe more ships in the future.

And considering the naval battle he’d been part of three months ago…

He nodded. 

Better a guard than dispossessed. “I accept. And thank you.”

“Your welcome.”