Debauchery Worlds 11 (Patreon)

A/N: will now be omitting dashes from the clone names.
A/N 2: i apparently finished this at least two weeks ago? And didn't notice? Hmm.

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 11

-VB-

2U

2980.09.28 Inner Sphere / 2006.??.?? Falmart-GateEarth

Sadera. It was the capital city of the empire that derived its name from this city, the Saderan Empire. It was … I think it was comparable to Rome in function and appearance.

We chose not to sneak inside because we knew that we had a language barrier problem. Instead, we chose to find an abandoned hut at the edge of the slums surrounding the city and disguised ourselves to look like the locals.

If we hadn't rescued Tuka and learned Saderan from her, then none of this would be possible.

As it was, it was just a matter of spending a few silvers to make our way into the city proper. What we found was a slave market close to our entry gate.

2C and I looked around and saw the price tags hanging from the necks of each slave. It was obvious that young men and women were the most expensive. Older adults cost little, though what skills they possessed changed their price. Young children cost more than older adults but not much more.

And ultimately, if we understood the coinage and pricing correctly, the company had enough coin back at our home base in refined silver to buy out everyone. We could easily transport them all and free them at our compound.

Would we be participating in slavery? Yes. The unfortunate fact, however, was that even if we came in here guns blazing and razed the empire to the ground, we would only be making life worse, not better. We could probably force the empire to change its laws at gunpoint, but no one in power would truly enforce the laws where it was not obvious.

So I would alleviate suffering where we could. Would it rob us of a chance to get some bunny girl waifu? Maybe but ultimately, I think I, the other clones, and the original cared more for easing the suffering of the slaves than getting our dicks wet.

-VB-

Mari

2980.09.29

Mari watched from where she stood naked as oddly armored and armed men brought in boxes filled with silver and gold. Her master, the slave merchant, laughed gleefully at the sight.

It was the price of her and all of the other slaves.

She shuffled her feet as her new master and his soldiers led them out of the city square. And then out of the city.

She and the other slaves waited outside the city walls as even more slaves joined them. Some in chains, some with tattoos.

Master, a tall man standing heads above most and armored in white and red armors, gathered them all and led them away from the city.

His soldiers - because they couldn't be anything but soldiers - formed a loose circle around all of the slaves he bought. They too wore helmets and armors like the master, but theirs looked darker. More intimidating. More bloodthirsty.

None of the outer city residents approached them as they walked completely out of the city and into the plains surrounding Sadera.

There, he made them all stop… and made a portal appear.

She gasped.

Their master was a magician?

He made them go through the portal, and she found herself in a very alien place.

Buildings were tall, for one. Taller than even the Imperial palace she had seen in the distance while inside Sadera. Most of them were in some kind of variations of gray and white. The street was made out of the same material.

And then the portal closed behind them.

Her master took off his helmet, showing them all his face. He looked pretty handsome - or more handsome than the average human man - and well-built.

"Today," he spoke up. "You are free."

She stared at him.

What?

"You are free," he repeated as the soldiers went around unlocking cuffs and chains, breaking them when there was no key.

Mari looked around and saw that there were over a hundred slaves just in this group.

"You will have temporary housing at one of these buildings. I'll make sure to get you processed through the bureaucracy of this world, teach you what I can, and those who wish to leave can leave to find a better life out there. Those who can't or wish to remain in my service will help and work where they are best suited for. Any questions?"

And that's how she suddenly found herself free since her separation from her bunny warrior tribe and capture by the Saderans.

As the soldiers divided them into groups, she found herself in a group of five with one siren, two human children, and one elderly volralden matron.

"Name, please?" the soldier asked her. "Former occupation, species or race, and age."

She flinched before stuttering out her answer. "M-Mari. Warrior. Warrior bunny. Twenty-three."

"Thank you. Next."

Soon after everyone was identified, the soldier led them into one of the buildings that had glass doors and into a spacious housing unit with a warm floor and odd furniture.

"This is where you will be staying while you are being processed and learning about your new world. If you have questions, then find people like me, not anyone else. Understood?"

"Yes," she muttered out as she took in the living room, and then rubbed her neck and wrists.

No more cuffs and chains.

Was she really free…?

-VB-

Major Michael Anderson, AFFS

2980.10.15

He stared blankly at the long-eared blonde woman walking side by side with one of the fully armored mercenaries. Her smile was rather dazzling and her features exotic. Unfortunately for him, she looked rather happy being with that mercenary.

She was not, however, the only exotic individual in this deeper part of the Marris Compound. In order, since he entered this new inner compound, he saw a dwarf with a very magnificent beard, a voluptuous bunny-eared woman, and a werewolf.

Michael chose to ignore most of that because, for all he knew, this was one of many oddities that exuded from the Marris Mercenaries. Like the lostech. Or the fact that four infantrymen suddenly became a reinforced company of three mech lances and a company of power-armored infantry over the course of half a year.

He knew and everyone knew that MIIO and DMI wanted to crack open the mystery nut that was the Marris Mercenaries but the highest authority in the AFFS and the Federated Suns itself forbade them from any invasive investigation. The First Prince, Michael learned, did not want to lose the golden goose-laying naval gausses for the Federated Suns to buy.

Today, he was here once again to see what inventory the Marris Mercenaries were willing to sell off.

Soon, he found himself in the commander’s new office. Instead of the prefab construction office, they were now in a more proper office befitting a commander of Marris Mercenary’s current circumstance as a factory and landhold owner.

“What?” he asked incredulously.

Commander Alan smiled. “We are allies in this, are we not?”

“Yes, but what you are saying is…”

Ridiculous.

What had already happened was ridiculous.

Prior to his talk here and now, the Marris Mercenaries had obtained numerous rights and privileges most mercenaries would have to work decades to obtain. Yes, the mysterious acquisition of lostech from out of their ass and their willingness to trade away the likes of naval gauss cannons balanced much of the problems out of the way.

But this request?

“You have a fleet of dropships?”

“No,” the commander replied, and Michael almost let out an explosive sigh of relief. He would have started to get extremely anxious if they did. “But we will soon start building them.”

“... Huh?”

“The factory has finally completed the last renovation necessary for the high-speed modular manufacturing process,” he replied. “Though we intend to make an asteroid-mining dropship first. It seems that aside from that deposit, the general concentration of ores on David II is … poor, optimistically speaking.”

Michael knew that. Before that deposit was found, David II’s only importance was being a border world. Its average everything was bad! Its soil outside of specific valleys was horrible. Its ore quality was horrible. Its atmosphere was too dry or too humid and never in between. Famine was half a drought away every single year, if the planetary government’s Combine records were to be believed (and not, you know, general mismanagement the snakes were known for).

And then the mercenaries came in one day, praising the forethought and sneakiness of the Federated Suns in taking David II quickly (never mind the fact the speed of the conquest was due to their sudden involvement and not the AFFS’s prowess and planning).

Because there was a goddamn giant germanium deposit right next to Polis.

Making dropships translated smoothly into making jumpships once there was a steady influx of germanium.

The very idea that mercenaries knew how to make dropships was already ridiculous, and if that translated into making jumpships as well…

“... I would like to see your blueprints before I even relay that request up the chain of command.”

The commander nodded as if he expected this and pulled out his fancy noteputer, the one that had more fidelity and processing power than most low-cost PCs and definitely more than almost all civilian and military noteputers.

(These were hot items that he bought as they came out of the factory when he could.)

The white-trimmed, two-hand-sized noteputer lit up softly. Alan thumbed the “home” button at the bottom center of the screen, and the noteputer unlocked.

‘That thing may as well be lostech,’ Michael thought to himself as the commander opened up a file, and pushed the noteputer across the luxury black dacker tree desk, a new addition to the commander’s new office. He looked down and hesitantly touched the screen to zoom in and out of the blueprint image. It took him a while to understand what he was seeing but essentially…

“This is a very primitive method of stellar travel,” he pointed out. “And the method of travel…” He paused. “Is classified?”

“Yes,” the commander replied. “It is a nonstandard method of sublight travel. We want to keep it a secret for as long as possible, so we don’t intend to patent it or the like. It is not as if the other Successor States will recognize a patent made here in the Federated Suns.”

This was true, especially in the Free Worlds League.

“Very well, then. However, I will need to see this new thruster in action. A dropship without thrusters powerful enough to enter or leave the atmosphere is just an expensive garage, after all.”

“Of course. We already have a prototype ready for you, and the general, to come and see.”

---

General Rachael Jamakawa

And see it, they did. She came to visit the compound with half a dozen of her close advisors, military and civilian, to see this new thruster that the Marris Mercenaries made.

On the outside, it looked like a regular dropship thruster.

Except there was nothing attached to it.

Dropship thrusters expelled plasma through a shielded exhaust nozzle, and the plasma itself came from the fusion engine. If there was no fusion engine, then there was no material for thrust to be achieved.

“Is that it?” she asked, and the mercenary next to her nodded wordlessly. When in full gear and covered from head to toe, she personally found it impossible to tell one Marris mercenary from another. Even their voice was the same, suggesting that their helmets filtered their voices through a built-in voice modulator. This meant that each of the helmets cost at least twice as much as the average helmet. Of course, she made note of this - as she did with any detail gleamed from the Marrisians - and moved on.

As for the object of their visit, it sat some one kilometer away from them on top of flat concrete platform. Actually, the platform in question was just another dropship landing pad. They must have built it for testing purposes instead of testing this new thruster system inside their compound.

There was only a cylindrical object, though. “Where is the rest of the ship?”

“There is no ship. That is the thruster, general.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, general,” the mercenary escort replied. “If you want, then we can start right away.”

“Go ahead.”

There was a brief pause before the warning sirens rang out from an impromptu set-up around them.

The thruster fired up and lifted off relatively quickly. And then hovered.

"Internal gyroscope-connected computer software ensures that the thruster remains upright. It also has its own independent fusion engine to power it."

"You miniaturized a fusion engine small enough to fit into a thruster and also give an entire dropship lift?"

"Yes, general."

"... I see no reason to stop you from making these thrusters for your own use, then. However, if you want those citizenships for your dependents, then I want you to supply us with these for replacements for ten dropships. But I would still suggest you patent them if they truly are different from any existing systems. Just because someone else doesn’t follow a rule doesn’t mean you should also ignore it. Besides, ComStar can easily facilitate royalty fee transactions.”

The soldier hummed momentarily, no doubt waiting for his commander to answer. He nodded. “The commander agrees and will take you up on your advice.”

“Excellent!”

Rachael was just happy she didn’t have to worry about a bumpy ride once those awfully stable-looking thrusters were installed and the old thrusters would be “donated” to other units not on David II.

Oh no, whatever will she do? All she had to do for a smooth ride was sign a couple of documents!