Debauchery Worlds 15 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

-VB-

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 15

-VB-

2U

2981.01.02 Inner Sphere / 2006.??.?? Falmart-GateEarth

Another portal opened, and we watched with abated breath as we finally got the necessary equipment to not just fight off the Sanderan Empire but keep the JSDF at bay.

Over a hundred clone soldiers came through with two dozen Cutlass-like troop transports.

Now, how did we expect to keep the JSDF at bay with only troop transports?

It was simple.

Our troop transports, unlike their jets and helicopters, were equipped with laser turrets that shot a constant beam, not plasma bolts. On top of that, our troop transports had energy shields.

Oh, and they were our troop transports, not our main fighting force. No, those were still the lance of mechs we already had stationed at our base.

Now with two companies of one hundred troops, we were ready to act.

The first act we intended to take was to conquer the gateway between the eastern and western halves of the empire: Italica.

-VB-

Princess Pina Co Lada

Italica, Sanderan Empire, Falmart

Pina gritted her teeth as she pulled at the semi-clean cloth now wrapped around the arm of one of the wounded militiamen.

“Don’t move that arm unless you have no choice. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the commoner soldier grinned weakly.

She smiled for his sake as she stood up but both of them knew that he wasn’t going to last the night if the bandit army comes to attack the city again. Even if they don’t, he already lost a lot of blood. He might not make it anyway.

His situation was the situation of two dozen other wounded men here and a hundred more deeper inside the city.

The bandit army was whittling them down, and Pina knew that she and the city could not hold out forever.

‘When are the reinforcements coming…?’

Koom.

Her ears perked as she found a distant rumble. She looked up and around but couldn't see anything from where she was at ground level. She hurried up the stairs to the battlements and looked around again.

Koom.

There it was. There was something out there making those noises.

Koom.

And it was getting louder.

Koom. Koom. Koom. Koom!

Her head snapped to face the … west?

And she saw it in the distance as they crested over a hill.

Giants. Armored giants taller than any living thing she had seen before. Then she saw flying wyverns circling the armored giants before they flew toward the bandit camp between them.

A quiet “tatatatatatata” rang out and she watched as the bandits began to flee from wherever the wyverns passed by.

And then the giants grew closer and closer…

And she realized that they were not giants at all.

Her eyes widened as she watched one of them shoot out a ray of blue light that carved into the bandit army camp and set everything ablaze. Then they fired great balls of light that moved too quickly for her eyes to track well, and everything exploded where they landed. The wyverns weren't wyverns but metal boxes with armored soldiers inside.

Was… was this an army of the other worlders? She had heard about iron elephants and the like but nothing like this!

---

“What the hell…?” Itami muttered as he watched giant mechs marching on an army camp that they knew were the deserters-turned-bandits. He watched real life lasers and science fiction troop transports as they took to the battlefield!

And he recognized the color scheme. It matched that of the mercenaries he met and the ones who had declared that they were going to conquer this world.

Just as they said they would, they were on the move and had no mercy for their technologically inferior foes.

“Lieutenant, what do we do?”

Itami gritted his teeth. Barging in there right now was suicide, and he was sure that at least one of those mechs were hitting low one hundred kilometers per hour.

“Report this in and wait for further instructions,” he called out as he sagged into his seat. He watched with his binoculars as the biggest mech fired off a pair of shells that exploded and sent dirt, bodies, and fire in everything direction. “They're gonna be done within ten minutes, tops.”

This was… not something they could fight and win. Sure, the jets would trounce their troop transports and smaller mechs, but those lasers negated any speed advantage jets had. One bad graze would end a jet's service permanently.

“Lieutenant?” the sergeant major called. “it's the general.”

He took the radio.

“Lieutenant Itami reporting, over.”

“Lieutenant, tell me everything you are seeing, over.”

That was a tall order…

“Yes, general. The mercenaries have brought four mechs like Gundam onto the field, general. The tallest one seems to be somewhere between ten and fourteen meters in height while the shortest mech is around eight meters. All mechs are carrying at least laser weaponry, and larger mechs carry heavier ordinance on par with either tank or artillery piece. They are also heavily armored…”

As he continued to tell the situation on the ground, he could feel just how badly the situation could develop.

Because once information about a high tech mercenary band taking on the Sanderan Empire was known back on Earth, there was going to be political chaos from people wanting to disconnect completely or take advantage of the situation to take as much of this world as they could.

And that would be in Japan. What would the superpowers of the world do when they also hear about it? In fact, these mercenaries were capable of “jumping” between worlds. What if … What if they could access their world? What would America do to gain that kind of access? What would China and Russia do for that kind of access?

Hell, the USA might muscle themselves in, using every single possible political leverage available to them.

“... The bandit army is gone, general. I don’t think any of them are alive anymore. Over.”

Only silence greeted him from the radio and around him.

Almost a thousand lives snuffed out in the span of five minutes.

“G-General!” he radioed again when the mercenary’s warband began to move again. “They’re moving toward the city!”

Itami realized as he said those words that he was watching the old order of the world collapse around him.

---

What could she do?

Pina looked at the giant gods of war shake the earth with each step as they and their flying honor guards approach the city.

Five minutes for eight hundred lives.

She didn’t know what to do.

What could she even offer?

The city -.

“Princess!”

She jolted in place and stiffly turned to look at the person who’d called her. It was Grey. Her balding knight looked frantic and sweaty.

“Princess, we must leave the city!” he shouted at her as he grabbed her arm.

“B-But the city -. The people -” she stuttered out as she was dragged away by her most veteran Rose. “Grey, the people -.”

“You are more important than them, princess,” he said with a hiss, but she saw the pained grit of his jaws and the shake in his hands. “I will stay and defend the city if I must but you cannot stay!” he shouted amidst people shouting.

“I-.”

Whatever words she intended to say disappeared into the violent winds that suddenly picked up around them. Her head snapped up and her face paled as one of the flying honor guards hovered over them.

Oh.

They were already here.

She looked back down at the giant gods of war, and realized that they had crossed a quarter of the distance between themselves and the city. That was … too fast. If she left now, could she even make it to the horizon before they ended her with their explosive balls of light or the red light spears?

“Princess… run!” Grey shouted as he pulled out his sword.

But then she looked back up and saw a dozen men in clean but high quality armors jumping out of the flying honor guard. They landed all around them, somehow surviving the fall of more than fifteen passus* without dying. One of them landed on the battlement right next to her.

She whirled around with wide eyes.

Grey pulled her back.

Her body lurched and she looked at Grey. Her Grey. The man who trained her Roses. The imperial knight who never left her side. He knew his blade and moved to strike at the enemy, the soldiers of the giant gods of war.

She heard someone screaming.

The enemy raised a narrow crossbow and -.

The world erupted around them in a staccato of deafening roars and explosions.

She watched helplessly as Grey’s right arm suddenly flew away in a splatter of blood and he fell. She felt herself reaching out, but she saw Hamilton’s hands reaching out from behind her, grab her arms, and pull her away.

Her sight of Grey disappeared as Hamilton pulled her down the stairway…

BANG.

She jerked and then she was at the bottom of the stairs with Hamilton, but her adjutant had stopped pulling.

Pina looked around shakily.

Ah.

She looked at the half a dozen enemy soldiers pointing their crossbows at her.

“Surrender. Now.”

---

They recognized who the princess was.

It was why two of their numbers had landed on the battlement.

In fact, they recognized all of the Order of Roses members in the city.

“Why… aren’t … you …?” Grey hissed as he leaned against the wall.

They had taken the princess and Hamilton hostage but not him. No, they did something to stem his bleeding right shoulder stump and left him there with only one of their number to watch him.

“Getting her to surrender the city and herself in an official capacity will be easier with you alive,” the soldier replied in Sanderan, making him jolt.

Grey felt himself grow slack.

“Who… Who sent … you?” he demanded despite the pain. “Was it … the men in green…?”

“Them? No. The Japanese have been warned to not get in our way. We operate by ourselves.”

“Then who are … you?”

The soldier turned to him, showing him the baleful red lenses on its white face-covered helmet.

“We are Marris. We came, we saw… and we conquered.” And then the soldier abruptly giggled like a little girl. “Always wanted to say that.”

Grey stared at the soldier tiredly and confusedly. Just what kind of people were these new threats to the empire? As he looked up, he saw one of those giant metal warriors waiting silently and motionlessly. It alone answered his question.

They were a bigger threat than even the men-in-green.

-VB-

A/N:

*passus: Roman equivalent of 1.48 m. Why 1.48? Don’t know. Ask the Romans.

*Marris Mercenary’s initial foray into extradimensional conquest here on Falmart will be another 1~3 chapters before Battletech takes over for a full arc.