Debauchery Worlds 22 (Patreon)

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 22

-VB-

6A2 (Alan Marris clone)

In-Transit to Proserpina IV

2981.03.28

The worst part about having the tech but laying low in this universe was its slow travel time.

The original Catepillar heavy freighter we obtained and redesigned to our Crawdad mining ships was capable of near faster-than-light travel by itself, and would need less than an hour to cross most star systems with its Quantum Drives.

We also had Quantum Drives but we didn’t have them installed in any of our ships because we didn’t want that particular tech proliferating. The main reason for that was because the increase in intrasystem travel would mean that there would be an escalation of conflict that favored the attackers. That kind of dynamic shift wasn’t something Inner Sphere could handle, in our opinion, and so we weren’t going to make those changes unless something drastic happens to warrant it.

But.

This didn’t change the fact that sunlight travel sucked because it took so fucking long. Our allies needed days to move to the jump locations and even more days to charge up the jump drives. Even though we left David II on March 20th, we didn’t leave the system until March 27th.

And on March 27th, we disconnected from the jumpships that brought us to Proserpina system and sluggishly made our way over to Proserpina IV. Our three dropships flared its rear thrusters, and while they would have roared in atmosphere, in space, all of the thrust only made our dropships shake and release low rumbles.

Though it was needless to speak out loud, the clone piloting the Eve chimed in on the comms.

“{Achieved 1.3 Gs. Maintaining acceleration.}”

As much as we would have liked to go faster, the current tech - both normal and tinkertech - we possessed didn’t include any kinds of inertia dampener nor did any of the universes we have explored so far. This meant that even if our material and structural engineering tech allowed for our ships to withstand high G’s, we, the clones, could not be able to and get pulped as our organs and bones got crushed under the punishing and lethal gravitational changes.

This travel was obviously slower than the portal travel we were capable of conducting, but we weren’t showing the portals to anyone in this universe, now were we? We might have some energy shield generators hidden and making better tinkertech variations of them, but even then, we weren’t going to survive five dozen nukes.

… Wait, what the fuck is that?

---

Alan Marris

David II

I paused my hands as I watched the visual feed from my clones that were in the asteroid belts and another clone that was in talk with Colonel Lim-Reubahns, who was in charge of the remaining Davion military.

The clone asked the colonel if there was any scheduled jumpships en route to David II. He answered no.

The clones in the asteroid belts hailed the jumpships … and then the dropships that detached and burned hard towards David II.

When they released aerospace fighters, we knew that this was a raid.

Immediately, our mining ships consolidated to move all of our girls out and into one ships that would return while the rest would stay to fight. Even if the Crawdads were not armed to the teeth, they were still armed well enough that twenty of them would be more than enough to repel four dropships and their aerospace fighters.

---

David II

2981.03.29

The raiders were now in range for one-to-one communication but they refused our hail.

We finished getting all of the girls to get onboard our fastest Crawdad and burned toward David II. With a headstart, we will be able to get them to land safely on David II, even if they needed to deal with 1.5 G’s for a few days.

---

David II

2981.03.30

Twenty civilian and lightly armed dropships against four heavily armored dropships and their aerospace fighter escorts.

Well, lightly armored and armed in numbers, but almost all of our ship weapons were tinkertech or up-teched variation of the local’s weapons.

Our ships rumbled as our ships all fired AC/20’s while deploying flares and flak. We didn’t bother aiming at the ASF; all of our guns were aimed at the dropships.

The raider’s dropships and ASF fired back with missiles and dumb rockets.

And abruptly, four of our twenty dropships vaporized as a nuclear bloom took them out in one hit.

It was right then that we realized that they weren’t raiders. They were here to exterminate us.

And that … that changed our attitude.

We alerted Colonel Lim-Reubahns of the nuclear attack, and he frantically began to change his tactics. If the enemy was willing to use nuclear weapons, then letting them land in the first place would be a mistake. Immediately, all aerospace fighters the remaining Davion regiments had scrambled to take off and meet the enemies in space.

But we weren’t done yet.

Our tinkertech AC/20’s slammed into the raiders. The first barrage stripped their armor layers. The second barrage punctured their hull. The third barrage began to core them.

The enemy aerospace fighters immediately realized that we were far more powerful than they expected, and they fired more missiles and rockets. This time, we didn’t ignore them and shot all of the smaller weapons at them.

It didn’t save us.

Another nuclear explosion took out three more dropships.

It was a horrifying experience. Missiles and rockets that moved too fast for anyone but our computers to detect would appear in one second and then there would be a nuclear explosion in the next second.

But aside from two or three missiles, which weren’t all nuclear weapons, our computer-assisted weapons destroyed the rest of the missiles and rockets they fired. This caused at least two of their missiles to prematurely detonate between our two groups and nuclear blooms lit up.

And our eyes widened when we saw how those aerospace fighters that had been heading toward us lost control and spiraled out of control!

The nuclear explosions must have been too close to them and fried their own electronics!

Our guns did not stop firing, and this time, some of us aimed at the fighters.

Whoever the enemy CO was, they must have realized that there was no surviving our barrages. They had been at the peak of their transit velocity and were too close to us to reverse thrust without getting shredded even further.

But all of the dropships had been cored multiple times already. There was a very good chance they wouldn’t survive reentry.

So they sped up.

We had an inkling of what they wanted to do, and we weren’t going to let that happen. It was better that we clones died than allow the “raiders” to crash land on David II with whatever armaments they had.

Our own dropships fired up our thrusters and moved to bodily intercept them. Their lack of return fire told us just how much damage we must have done to them.

And then one of our dropships managed to block the vanguard dropship. The clone piloting Crawdad 17 looked directly out of the cockpit bridge as we flared up our thrusters and rammed ourselves into the enemy dropships that was moving too fast to alter course.

For a brief second, we saw the enemy dropship’s cockpit through the clone’s eyes before another nuclear explosion lit up space.

Nuclear explosion confirmed what they wanted to do.

They couldn’t exterminate us safely, so they were going to nuclear-kamikaze us.

Our guns did not stop firing. Even more ships moved to intercept. We clones couldn’t be revived but it was better that we died for the rest of the Legion.

More explosions lit up the dark deep space.

And then silence.