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SCL Chapter 150: From Outlaws to Laborers
🕑 Added 2025-07-13 23:53:27 +0000 UTCWhen the indicator on the HUD inside Augustus’s power armor turned green, he started sprinting across the blood-red sands of Mar Sara. The servo system, wired through a network of cables and precision sensors, gave him an explosive burst of power. He covered the 800 meters to the riverbed with barely any effort, then jumped down.
The corner of the riverbed housing the Pegasus Brotherhood’s outpost was still shrouded in darkness. The gang members appeared to be fast asleep.
It quickly became clear that Augustus had overestimated the gang’s combat capabilities. He had treated every potential encounter as if he were up against elite Confederate troops or Kel-Morian mercenaries. In truth, these self-proclaimed Mar Sara 'cowboys', who normally swaggered around like they owned the world, woke up in a panic and mistook Augustus’s men for Confederate marines.
At that time, CMC power armor hadn’t yet been widely distributed to the Planetary Defense Forces or police departments of the frontier colonies—it was still a hallmark of the Confederate Marine Corps.
The gang figured they hadn’t done anything worth a death sentence or life imprisonment, and they didn’t want to get charged with attacking military personnel—so they surrendered on the spot.
Not only that, they even voluntarily handed over their weapons and crouched against the wall of the derelict station without being told.
“Move your asses, boys, or I’ll plant my boot square in them,” Tychus barked, not bothering with any pleasantries. He shoved a few Brotherhood members into a corner and immediately started searching for loot.
“I’m Captain Caesar of the 321st Regiment, Confederate Marine Corps. You have five minutes to give up the locations of your organization’s other outposts,” Augustus said calmly. “Otherwise, we have ways to make you talk. And if your buddies give us more than you do…”
Before he even finished the threat, the Brotherhood members were already scrambling over each other to sell out their own comrades. Corporal Faraday recorded each location and relayed them back to the Revolutionary Army base camp, where dozens of squads were already standing by, fully geared and ready to mobilize.
“Honestly, this isn’t the kind of work we should be doing,” Raynor said to Augustus as they waited for the armored transport vehicles to arrive. “And what do we do with these people—hand them over to the local sheriff?”
“This isn’t like you, Jim,” Augustus replied, scanning the area. “Once we’ve cleared out this scum, the locals might actually have a shot at a better life.”
He glanced at the structures the Pegasus Brotherhood had built—solid stonework reinforced with poured concrete and slag.
Just like on the Kel-Morian planet Meinhoff, Mar Sara’s economy was primarily built on mining and quarrying. And with that came a relatively well-developed service sector catering to the fortune-seekers arriving from Chau Sara and other worlds within the Confederacy.
"Maybe with fewer bad guys around, the good folks will have it a little easier,” Raynor said, nodding. “But that can’t be the only reason. You’ve got something else in mind, don’t you?”
“We’re short on labor at the site. For now,” Augustus replied, a glint flickering in his cold gray eyes. “It’s a hell of a lot nicer than a Mar Sara prison cell.”
“Let’s hope they use this time to turn things around—and maybe become decent, law-abiding citizens of the Confederacy.”
The Revolutionary Army’s mining site was nestled deep within a fog-choked valley, flanked on both sides by sheer, smooth cliffs. Even during daylight hours, sunlight barely reached the valley floor, and most of the day was shrouded in darkness. Millennia ago, this place had been a tributary of a great river, its base once carved out by torrents of water.
Hiram Feek, a former Heaven’s Devils power armor mechanic, was driving a CSX-410 harvester mech through the dense Mar Sara night. The towering, coffee-brown machine stood 3.6 meters tall. Feek sat high above the ground in an open-air cockpit, shielded only by a windshield that kept the howling wind at bay. Two beams of white light cut through the blackness ahead of the mech, illuminating thorny underbrush and jagged rock formations.
The CSX-410 model was commonly seen on agrarian worlds throughout the Terran Confederacy. It featured a dual cutter system at the front and carried a tall threshing drum on its back. The mech moved on servo-powered bipedal legs, typically used in mountainous or deeply-ravined terrain where giant harvesters couldn’t operate—ideal for black rye harvesting.
Feek’s machine, however, had been modified. Its two auxiliary arms were fitted with a T-60 heavy rotary machine gun and a synthetic resin shield. Behind the driver’s seat, two pressurized coolant tanks hissed with drifting white steam. These custom modifications—installed by Chief Engineer Rory Swann—made the mech clunkier and heavier, but successfully turned it into a brutal engine of war.
When not engaged in combat, this type of mech could also be equipped with power clamps and welding tools for repair and mining operations.
“New miners? I heard even the kindest among them once sold drugs to minors. That makes it a little easier on my conscience when ordering them around. Hopefully they'll head home soon and turn themselves in to the cops—want a donut, sweetheart?”
As Feek rounded a corner, the lights of the mining site finally pushed back the darkness around him, and the familiar voice of his good friend Rory Swann came through.
By the time Feek brought the harvester mech to a stop, he could see a massive drill tower occupying the center of the valley. Over the roar of the drill, dark soil was carried away continuously by conveyor belts—and even in this deep-earth sediment, faintly glowing, pale blue Ardeon crystals could still be seen glinting.
The crystal deposits beneath this enormous mining site were so vast that workers could dig up a crystal with a single swing of a pickaxe. Even a single cubic meter of crystal was enough to make an ordinary person rich overnight.
Unlike surface-level open-pit mines, these deep-earth deposits—buried several kilometers underground—were incredibly difficult to extract. Even surface crystals were too hard for small laser cutters to slice through.
“What’s going on, my friend? Where did the Marshal dig up these guys? They don’t look like ours.” Near a tent piled with green storage crates and worn-out drill bits, Feek finally found his friend Swann. The stocky, broad-framed Kel-Morian man wore a thick vest and amber goggles. His thick walrus mustache quivered—likely because he was busy wrestling a honey-glazed donut in his mouth.
“Oh, Boss Mengsk took down a local gang,” Swann said, grinning wide as soon as he saw Feek. Since first meeting on Norad II, the two had quickly become close friends thanks to their similar professions and shared interests. Swann was shorter than most of the Korhal Revolutionary Army troops—and Feek, barely 1.2 meters tall, was a true dwarf—so the two of them were often jokingly called the dwarf and hobbit under Augustus Mengsk’s command.
As for Augustus’s other trusted lieutenants, they each had their own nicknames—some flattering, some not, depending on how well-liked they were. For example, Raynor was known as the cowboy from Joeyray’s bar and Mr. Justice, while Tychus Findlay was called Augustus Mengsk’s mad dog.
It had to be said—these nicknames were rather fitting.
“These people can’t be trusted. They won’t follow military discipline like our Revolutionary Army soldiers. We’ll need extra personnel just to keep an eye on them.”
In many cases, the fringe colonies were synonymous with backwardness, poverty, and savagery—resources were scarce, and people had grown vicious, like beasts.
“Most of them aren’t hardened criminals,” Swann said. “To quote Tychus Findlay: ‘A few lashes and they’ll behave like mother hens sitting on eggs’—gods, that’s awful.” He shook his head. “Boss Mengsk seems to be planning to open more mines. He needs more miners, but our soldiers are too busy maintaining warships and training.”
“You’re too kind. We don’t need to be overly merciful to criminals,” Feek said with a grin.
“How many mines is he planning to build?”
“At this rate? A whole lot,” Swann replied. “All of Mar Sara is turning into his mining field.”
“How grand.” Feek couldn’t help but laugh. He clearly didn’t believe it. “Unless we hire every last person on Mar Sara, there’s no way we could extract that much.”
“Who knows?” Swann wasn’t convinced either. “It looks like he’s searching for some rare type of crystal, so he’s scanning the entire planet.”
“Alright, so what do we do with those bastards? Treat them like slaves?” Feek asked, pointing at a few local cowboys who stood around with blank expressions.
“In our mines, these scumbags will live on a strict schedule: early to bed, early to rise, three nutritious meals a day at fixed times. And before they’re dismissed for rest, they’ll have night classes.”
“Classes? What, are we teaching them to read?” Feek asked in disbelief.
“They’ll study art and philosophy, taught by political commissars from the Pan-Terran Party. I heard the curriculum includes revolutionary spirit, revolutionary tradition, and Revolutionary Army discipline—if you ask me, they’re never getting out of here.”
“The textbooks are Korhal and the Revolution by Mr. Angus, and Augustus and Angusism by Heinz. Each one is five inches thick.”
