TitoVillar
patreon
SCL Chapter 149: We Are Justice
🕑 Added 2025-07-12 22:26:04 +0000 UTCWhile Augustus and Kerrigan spoke, barely ten minutes passed before Faraday’s armored vehicle returned—three local cowboys in tow, disarmed and standing at his side.
The three of them were remarkably composed. It seemed they were convinced that Augustus and his men weren’t slavers or organ traffickers.
“Sir, we were just planning to spend the night there. We hadn’t had time to pitch our tent yet. The sheriff in this part of Mar Sara is well known for his fairness—he knows we’re some of the most honest, law-abiding folks around.”
The leader of the group had a full beard and deep-set eyes. Two Revolutionary soldiers held his arms firmly.
“I believe you understand that detaining a law-abiding Confederate citizen—regardless of whether they consent—is illegal.”
“I’m not going to harm you,” Augustus replied. Despite his rugged, hardened face—disguised to conceal his identity—he offered a warm expression, like that of a gentle, refined interstellar trader or an ordinary mine owner.
“Our vehicle broke down on the road to New Maine. We’re cold and hungry. If you could get us to the nearest town—just past Deadwater Base—we’d be grateful. Even just a piece of bread would mean a lot to us.”
The cowboy brightened, hope rising in his face.
“They’re lying,” Kerrigan said flatly. “They’re members of a local gang involved in child trafficking and contraband drug smuggling. The operation’s backing comes from Gustav Pharmaceuticals—a transstellar corporation listed on the Tarsonis Exchange.”
“The gang’s main area of activity on Mar Sara is in the large towns surrounding Deadwater Base.”
Augustus stepped up beside the cowboy. “Sounds like you’re not just thugs—you’re unforgivable criminals.”
“This lovely lady just gave you a chance to come clean. So tell me—why were you watching this road?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard anything.”
The cowboy gave a casual shrug and a faint smile.
“You think I’m someone easy to deal with?” Augustus’s face turned cold. “I ought to sell you to the slavers.”
“I’ve heard that the nobles on Tarsonis have taken to replacing their house staff with ‘resocialized servants,’ and the factories are swapping out workers for resocialized laborers. The slave trade—long thought dead since the early days of colonization—is making a quiet comeback,” he continued.
“Even military camps are short on personnel.”
“Maybe you’ve heard the term ‘resocialization.’ What it really means is, they’ll tinker with your brain—turn you into a drooling idiot.”
“That doesn’t scare me. Confederates are all bastards anyway.”
The cowboy spat on the ground in defiance.
“That just saved your life,” Augustus said, turning to Corporal Faraday, who stood beside him with a Gauss rifle slung over his shoulder. “Send them to the mines. We could use a few cheap laborers.”
Augustus had no further interest in speaking with them. He walked back toward his armored vehicle while Corporal Faraday and his men gagged the Mar Sara cowboys and shoved them onto a larger transport vehicle.
“They had their eyes on the high-value equipment and mineral reserves,” Kerrigan explained, “but more than anything, they were wary of outsiders.”
“Corporal Faraday, rally my entire security detail,” Augustus ordered. “Get Raynor and Tychus here. We’re going to pay our neighbors a little evening visit.”
“Right now?”
Corporal Faraday stepped forward, entirely unfazed by Augustus’ swift decisiveness.
“I just probed their minds more thoroughly,” Kerrigan added, her pale green eyes settling on Faraday. “I know exactly where the gang’s base is. It’s not far from Deadwater Base—but it’s outside the town limits.”
“Going rogue on rogues?” Faraday grinned. He was, after all, still a young man who liked to joke.
“Wrong,” Augustus said, waving a hand dismissively.
“We are justice.”
...
“Oh—Mar Sara, the outhouse of Hell, and we’re just the stinkbugs crawling in the shitter.”
Tychus Findlay suited up in his custom-tailored CMC power armor, deep crimson in color, plastered with a mess of random decals and emblems: pin-up girls, cigar brands, beer logos—you name it. The old bastard had a weakness for gambling too, so the shoulder plates of his armor bore painted dice.
Behind Tychus stood a few columns of Revolutionary Army troops. The insignias of the Styrling Wolfhunters and the Korhal Revolutionary Army had been scrubbed off their armor and repainted in rust-red.
Altogether, these Revolutionary soldiers numbered just over forty—about the size of a reorganized platoon. Right now, they were stationed silently in a dense thicket of towering brambles, all of them with their chest-mounted spotlights turned off and communications channels kept on strict radio silence.
“Oh, give it a rest, Tychus. To you, every planet outside of Korhal and Tarsonis is either a shithole or a pile of crap,” Jim Raynor said with a grin. He wore a deep red CMC-200 power suit.
“Sometimes they ain’t even a pile of crap. Even a puddle of my piss looks more pleasant than those dumps.”
Raynor and Tychus bantered casually as they waited for Augustus’s orders. About 800 meters ahead of them lay a sunken, dried-up riverbed that was hard to spot. According to Kerrigan, a local gang of around sixty known as the Pegasus Brotherhood was holed up in an abandoned frontier station and a few small shacks down in that ravine.
Members of this local gang came from all walks of life. Some were stick-up men, kleptomaniacs, or drifter cowboys from Mar Sara. Others were just regular townsfolk.
In a godforsaken fringe world this far from civilized space, things were rarely black and white. Even the most righteous judges and their deputies weren’t spotless saints with clean hands.
Most of the time, the Pegasus Brotherhood did dirty work for their shadowy patron, the Gustav Pharmaceuticals Group, carrying out shady business on behalf of the company’s local branch. Kidnapping, deception, trafficking minors for live experiments—you name it. Sometimes they’d run drugs smuggled from the off-world ports to clients stationed at the Deadwater Base in the Confederate military.
To support all this, the Brotherhood often set up relay outposts along smuggling routes for moving contraband. One such outpost was exactly what Augustus had uncovered.
But those juicy jobs weren’t always guaranteed. As the gang swelled over the years to a staggering 800 members, their ambition ballooned along with their power. Eventually, the Pegasus Brotherhood set their sights on the crystal mines around this region of Hyro.
Of course, the Pegasus Brotherhood had never intended to seize the mines outright from the Revolutionary Army. Their goal was simply to use a bit of muscle to extort some 'protection money'—a hefty cut of the mining profits without putting in any actual work.
Unfortunately for them, the so-called rebels, as the Terran Confederacy labeled them, were among the most ruthless and notorious terrorists in the entire Confederacy.
They didn’t even get a chance to knock on the door before that door came crashing down on their heads.
“If I charge in first and knock all those third-rate cowboys flat, the best loot's mine,” Tychus said, practically itching for action. He clearly didn’t think much of the enemy. These gangsters might’ve had some turf war experience, but that didn’t mean squat against power armor.
“Be careful, Tychus,” Augustus warned, standing between Raynor and Tychus. His deep crimson armor looked no different from anyone else’s. “Mar Sara folk aren’t easy to deal with.”
“This is the operation plan,” he said, flipping open his visor and addressing Raynor, Tychus, and Corporal Faraday beside him.
“We’ve already used drones to scout the terrain around the gang’s hideout. The riverbed isn’t very deep. Once you’re down there, aside from a few patches of shrubbery, there’s no cover and no bunkers. They’ve got two sentries, but Kerrigan will take care of them.”
“Same strategy as always—Raynor, take a squad around and hit them from the rear. We move out simultaneously and drop into the riverbed 900 meters apart.” Augustus concluded, “I’ll go in from the front with Tychus.”
“Not all of them may be bloodthirsty scum, but if anyone shoots back, turn them into a sieve.”
“Augustus is right,” Raynor told his squad before heading out. “Fast and clean—these Mar Sara thugs don’t have anything on them but some reindeer-hide coats for warmth. Their weapons are all over the place—P-20 pistols, revolvers, shotguns—but none of that junk can get through our armor.”
“Let’s move.” Augustus flexed his armored wrist, feeling a surge of anticipation. Ever since becoming the leader of the Korhal Revolutionary Army, chances to personally lead troops into battle had been rare.
He wore a standard-issue CMC-200. Confederate military tech had kept evolving rapidly even after the Koprulu War. Compared to the power armor he trained with at the Turaxis camp, this model had several new upgrades—like alloy boots with computerized stabilization and modular ammunition storage units.
The standard-issue CMC-200 and CMC-300 suits had been upgraded with thermal signature shielding—preventing enemies from tracking power-armored soldiers through heat-detection systems.
