Earth
His ancestors were from the very planet he was looking at. A version of it from one of the countless ones that existed but from Earth nonetheless.
He checked the active viewer count.
Four point six billion devices.
Destroying the fleet and driving the ground troops crazy had doubled the numbers.
He had decided his next target would be the homeworld of humanity in this dimension. Wrecking the capital of the entire empire and taking out the emperor was the best action to throw a wrench into everything.
"Admiral, the rifle is ready for testing. Your men will have to come to the lab for the security briefing first."
"Very well, Doctor. I'll send the Vermillion Team as soon as we dock," Admiral Hardass said.
He had deceived the current fleet he was riding with into believing nothing had gone wrong on that alien planet. They were kind enough to give him a ride to Earth. He was in the Admiral's personal room, listening to her conversations.
No sense of humor, a permanent frown on her face, hair grayer than the empire's future—she was a bundle of joy.
What he cared about was the weapon. The file didn't show anything about the specs, only that it was expensive and for special forces only. It wouldn't do if he didn't steal such a shiny toy. He phased through the floor, going for the hangar.
—
The Vermillion team consisted of four psychopaths.
Within the first five minutes of the shuttle leaving for Earth, it became clear why they were chosen. The four of them talked about killing like it was a sport. Each one had their preferred way of hunting the blue aliens, the Raxans.
Booby traps, wounding a civilian or a soldier to draw more out of hiding, bringing down entire building blocks with explosives, and more.
He had enough of their laughter.
He pulled a plasma grenade out of the little inventory his brother had given him. The shuttle was about to land any second now.
"Get ready, boys; we are landing," the pilot said. He primed the grenade, counting down and dropping it. Just as it hit the floor of the shuttle, it phased into real space. The sound of metal on metal alerted the soldiers.
"What the?" one of them said, but it was too late. Kael let himself fall back, going through the floor. He was barely below the shuttle when the grenade went off, expanding into a white sphere. Half molten pieces of shrapnel shot through him, covering the landing pad.
He made the superhero landing.
The flaming wreckage fell on him. He walked through the flames and only appeared in real space in the middle of the fire, emerging completely unharmed.
Firefighter crews and armed security swarmed the pad. They stopped at the sight of him, tense. "You! On the ground now!" one of them ordered, a lieutenant by the insignia on his shoulder.
He tilted his head to the side, a lopsided grin showing his teeth.
He burst into motion, charging forward, not even bothering to lower his center of gravity to be a smaller target. He was too fast for them to properly aim. The shots were close enough but still missed.
His punch slammed through the visor of the lieutenant, breaking the glass and bending the edges of the metal frame inward. Another punch lifted the armored man into the air, and a spinning kick sent him flying to another soldier.
He blinked out of his spot, appearing over a soldier, bringing both feet down on his head. The soldier's head met the ground, bouncing once before he went still. He appeared behind the third one, phasing him through the ground.
One by one, the soldiers began to sink, too powerless to do anything.
By the time more surged out to greet him, he was gone, diving deeper into the base to search for this mysterious rifle.
—
"What the hell is going on out there?!" Doctor Merdon said, turning a soldier running for the exit around.
"There is an attack. Get back in your laboratory and wait for further orders, doctor," the soldier replied, joining the remaining forces.
"Damn it," he cursed, doing as he was told. "Lock the rifle and upload all research data to offsite servers," he ordered his research team.
"Ooooh, what does this do?" a child-like voice said, startling him. Merdon yelped, causing the intruder to scream in return, his eyeballs literally popping out like a cartoon character. His yelp turned into a scream at the sudden impossibility. The intruder screamed louder in response, his head growing in size.
He turned around, running before he hit the glass door.
Kael bent over, laughing.
"Intruder in the A wing, primary research lab. Send security now," another researcher said to the intercom tied around his wrist. "Dude, why are you speaking to that snake?" he asked, watching the man look down.
The researcher let out an extremely feminine shriek, trying to swat the illusion of a small snake around his wrist, jumping around like a headless chicken as he did so.
He pointed at the man, laughing like a child as he did.
Leaving the terrified researchers aside, he tiptoed to the glass display. There were two keyholes and a keyboard for a password. Whatever the rifle was, it was important; he could see that much.
His hands went through the protective glass, wrapping around the obsidian-colored weapon. Two sets of metal prongs were interlaced, creating a vertical maw, with a handle on top of the stock and the trigger beneath.
"So, Doc, what does this do?" he asked, playing with the weapon, letting the visor scan it.
The doctor was pressing himself to the glass door, as if he too could phase through solid objects. "Do not touch it. If you fire that thing here, you'll kill yourself too."
"Don't worry. I am bulletproof," he said, knocking on his head.
"It fires a ray that creates a field to break all molecules in it into individual electrons, protons, and neutrons. Being bulletproof won't protect you," the scientist shrieked out, mashing the buttons on the keylock. He was trembling so much he kept entering the password wrong multiple times.
"Hey, hey, doc," he called out again, pointing the weapon at the man. Merdon turned to him, eyes wide, sweating bullets. "Bang!" he said, jerking the weapon forward. The scientist's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he slid down the glass door, out cold.
He left the room with one last laugh, echoing long after he was gone.
—
The Imperial Palace
Washington, D.C.
"Holy moly," he said over the sound of the wind, riding on top of a shuttle sending reinforcements to the palace. It was large enough to have four Moonfall Palaces in a square formation. His birthplace was the largest single complex on the planet, standing at half a million square meters.
He turned to the camera. "I think we all can agree that Earth sucks if the emperor has all this place. I mean, what the heck are you supposed to do with all this land?"
He read the responses, which were compressed into single messages with a number showing how many people wrote something similar. Over a billion people wanted to know what he was going to do now.
"You know, make the emperor piss himself, maybe test this beauty on him," he said, patting the molecular disruptor.
Tens of thousands of messages offered him billions for the weapon.
"No can do, boys and girls. We have an entire treaty to ensure this kind of shit doesn't happen, and you guys want to break it? Shame on you," he admonished with a light tone, wagging a finger.
"Move, move, move!" a sergeant screamed as soon as the shuttle landed. The soldiers burst out of the ramp, following him towards the main building.
He glanced at his bracelet, waiting for Nax to locate the emperor. A 3D map flashed, invisible to the camera, displaying the building before him. A line went down several hundred meters into a small enclosed area.
An emergency bunker.
He jumped down.
—
Kaidan wiped the sweat on his forehead. The damn bunker had not been used in a long time. Full operational capacity would be slow to achieve.
"Who is attacking us?" he asked his Imperial Guards.
"Unknown. They will be dealt with," the captain of the guards responded, turning to ignore him once more.
"I don't know, Captain. Can you really deal with him?" a voice exactly like his asked.
Kaidan's head slowly turned to the right, eyes wide as saucers. A clone of him stood there, fixing his cuffs. The intruder winked at him, grinning.
He yelped, backing away. The guards were alerted, turning around with weapons raised. Kael latched on the emperor, spinning both of them in a circle, creating the illusion of a blur as he did.
"Quick, shoot him! He is the imposter," he ordered the captain, pointing at the real emperor. The emperor did the same, leaving the soldiers in a bind.
"Captain, what do we do?" one of the soldiers asked, aiming at Kael and the emperor.
The man in charge raised his weapon. "Doesn't matter; shoot them both. As long as the intruder is dead, it will be fine," he said, finger wrapping around the trigger.
Kael blinked, realizing the soldiers were actually going to shoot their emperor. He broke the illusion, phasing the emperor out of sight with a touch to his shoulder. The laser bolts converged on him from all sides.
He switched places with the captain of the guards. He backtracked, pulling his new weapon out. He pulled the trigger while bending the dimensions around the guards in a circle. They were launched forward, meeting in a heap in the middle.
The prongs slowly parted. Darkness massed inside, and he winked at the camera, turning it off for this part. Parted all the way, the prongs retracted, allowing him to pull the second section of the trigger, firing the dark mass.
It was instantaneous.
He released the folded space back to its original state. The black mass struck the soldiers, expanding into a perfect sphere. Just as quickly, it was gone, leaving nothing visible behind.
He snapped his fingers, bringing the emperor back.
"Did I come at a bad time? A coup maybe? Or are you a fake? Because they seemed awfully willing to shoot you," he said, pulling the man up to his feet. He wasn't that old, maybe in his mid thirties, dressed in a red and black uniform.
Kaidan gulped, taking a couple of steps back. "They were going to shoot me because I am not the one in charge."
"Ooooh," his eyes literally shone like stars. "Is it a mystery cabal ruling everything from behind the scenes?" Back on Haven, there were enough movies and conspiracy theories about someone pulling the strings from the shadows that even he knew about them.
He did a double take, his brows furrowed. "What? No. The corporations. They control the media, the finance, the internet, basically everything. I am just a puppet, a scapegoat in case things go south."
His predecessor had taken his own life because of a military blunder.
His visor snapped on, scanning the man. "Huh, you are telling the truth."
"Here I thought getting rid of you might throw the empire into chaos," he muttered. A dystopian corporate-run world was as bad as a fascist empire.
"They'll have a replacement before my corpse cools down."
"How the heck did it happen?" he asked. How had the people let this happen?
"It was two hundred years ago. Corporations got richer in the twenty-first century. They began to buy the politicians, the media, the internet, and every other sector they needed to control the planet. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was too late." Kaidan shook his head, remembering the old news he had read, ones about certain people spouting nonsense about corporations taking over the world.
They were labeled as nutcases until it had become the truth.
"They fueled planetary conflicts first for profit. When FTL-capable ships were built, they created an elaborate, fake persona to unite the planet, the first emperor. After that, those bastards waged war against the galaxy. The Raxans aren't the first alien civilization they conquered. They won't be the last," he said. The Xuluzi, the Ichtaron, and the Komebi were already extinct. The Raxans wouldn't be far behind.
"What do they do with them?" he asked. Re-education camps didn't seem to fit their agenda of profit.
"The re-education camps?" he shuddered, images of those blasted places flashing in his mind. "Nothing but factories and mines for free labor. They'll make the prisoners work to death."
He rolled his neck, feeling the satisfying pops. "Seems I am going to have to destroy a lot more to stop this empire."
"Wait," Kaidan said before he could leave.
"I actually have a plan, but I am…" he swallowed. "I am too much of a coward to make it happen. If you really want to stop them, please, help me."
He scratched his chin, curious. What could he have planned to take down this empire? "What is this plan of yours?"
"The corporations have a central control system for their private robotic armies. The man that built it was deceived into doing it. If you can get him to the system, he could wipe most of them out at once."
"You seem to know awfully much for a puppet," he said. The existence of the system and its creator sounded like top-secret intelligence. Not something he should know.
"I was always a good listener and knew how to keep my mouth shut." Which was the reason he was chosen to be the emperor. A quiet, obedient boy who would do exactly as he was told.
"Where do I find this control system and its creator?" he asked. He saw no harm in at least hearing him. If it was a trap, it would be one he would enjoy springing.
"Last the corporate intelligence heard from the man, he was on the fringes of the empire, hiding on low-tech planets. The control system is deep inside the moon," he revealed.
Rare as it was, the corporate executives indulged themselves in alcohol in public gatherings. He, as the emperor, was naturally expected to be there. Being under their collective thumb made him appear unassuming.
Not that he was actually a danger in the first place.
"You are going to have to disappear. With them all dead and you left alive, they'll know something's wrong," he said, gesturing at the perfectly smooth crater left on the floor.
Kaidan shook his head. "Don't bother. Puppet or not, I am an accomplice in this. Better dead than having to live after this," he muttered, slowly sitting down, leaning on the wall.
"You can take the easy way out or you can start walking on the right path," Kael said, opening a portal to the surface.