Chapter 27
It took Jenna about a few days to organize the banquet, going by Void time. Lilly was not happy, but she agreed that morale was very important for a battle. I had been monitoring her very closely, and my first hint of trouble came when, on the day of the banquet, she shot me a look that looked like hate and rage combined into one emotion. It was fleeting, but there was no doubt about it. She knew who I was. But for once, she didn’t try to shoot first and ask questions later.
I grinned a little in her direction, and changed directions to the kitchen. The wonderful aroma of cooking meat assaulted me, but my somber mood remained the same. The head chef, a plump man in a white uniform, shuffled over to me. “Commander Jinx! What can I do for you?”
“I need something that will put someone out. Nothing fatal, but I don’t want them waking up for a long time.”
The chef looked surprised, but nodded slowly. “I have what you need. I will not ask you why you need it.”
He shuffled around in the back of his cabinet for a while and finally emerged with a small vial of clear liquid. He handed it to me, and immediately turned away and went back to cooking. “Oh, I hear your designers have developed a new uniform that they’re handing out now. You might want to check that out, Commander.”
A sad grin crossed my face. “Oh, I know all about it. I was just about to head over and get mine.”
I exited the kitchen and walked towards the largest crowd of soldiers. I pushed through and walked up to the man giving out the uniforms.
“Hello. I heard you’ve made me uniforms. I appreciate your work. I hope you’ve made my specialized one as well?”
He looked baffled. “Well, yes sir. I didn’t realize the word got out, but we did have a special one for you. It just has a little more armor, nothing special.”
I grinned. “Yes, that will do.”
The soldier turned around and ran off. A minute or so later he ran back with a heavier looking cloak in his arms. I plucked it from his hands and threw it over my shoulders. It had a definite weight to it, but nothing unbearable. I nodded to him appreciatively. “This is very good. I will see you all at the banquet.”
The hours flew by as I ran some last minute errands, and before I knew it, it was time for the banquet to start. Tables stretched past my sight and each seat had one of my soldiers in it. My two generals, Julius Caesar and George, sat next to me along with Jenna and Lilly. I raised my glass of wine. “A toast- to victory!” I cried.
My eyes locked with Lilly’s. Neither of us smiled. I threw back my wine, and everyone else drank theirs. A moment later, a thud broke the silence. Everyone turned to look at Lilly, whose face was in a plate as she snored away.
I heaved a sad sigh and stood up. “Men of my army! Today, someone I trusted attempted to assassinate me. Lilly here, she snuck into the kitchens and replaced my personal wine with a poison. It was tested on a small rat that managed to stow away in our food stocks. The rat died within the hour. To avoid a full out shootout at our party, I put a sleeping agent into her drink.”
Cries of alarm and rage rang out all around the tables. I held my hands up. After everyone had quieted, I spoke again. “There is much I must reveal. The first being that I am the Unknown Man. I have no wish to explain the entire thing, so just take my word for it. The Pisces Empire has had its tyranny for long enough. It is time for us to end it.”
I pulled the sun and moon mask from my cloak. I pressed it to my face. With a hiss, the mask attached itself firmly to me. “The Pisces Empire will fall!”
The silence was broken by a single cheer, which evolved into a massive cry of war. My masked gaze fell on the snoring Lilly. I grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and dragged her away from the feasting crowd of warriors. I pulled her laser gun from its holster and looked at it sadly. “In the end, Lilly, it looks like you were right. At least partially. Violence may not always be the solution, but there are times...”
I turned the setting to max. I sighted down the barrel. “When it is the only solution.”
If one listened closely, they could hear the roar of a laser gun and the death of a friend echo quietly through the void.
The banquet finished several hours later, and nobody asked me where Lilly was. Jenna once came up to me, but I waved her away. “Soon, we go to war. The Pisces Empire falls tomorrow. The previous Unknown Man has done his part in destroying their defenses. All that is left is to rip out their corrupt core.”
Jenna hugged me. “It’ll all be over tomorrow. Tomorrow.” I stifled a sob.
I stood at the Cube, my army in formation behind me. I cleared my throat. “Prepare for battle. Listen to your generals carefully. This all ends today.”
I activated the Leap, and we stood before the massive land of the Pisces Empire. Personally, I had never seen the massive walls of the empire from the outside. I had always been within an office. I could tell that the shattered and smoldering walls had once been grand pillars of white metal. Now, rubble littered the ground. Houses and corporate buildings lay scattered and destroyed. Far off in the distance, I could see the mighty spires of the capital rising to the sun, their tops far beyond the ceiling of the clouds.
“Tear it to the ground!” I roared.
There was an eruption of fire that sounded like a symphony of mechanical animals crying out in rage. Red and yellow repainted the landscape of the empire, screams of alarm and death echoing out. Their counter attack came back as fast. Thousands of robotic meteors crashed into the ground before us, each unfolding into a huge mechanical war machine. Lasers roared through the air, each side taking losses.
I nodded to Julius and Patton. “I have my own mission. Crush them completely.”
After they both saluted to me, I ran off into a wormhole. I reappeared within the capitol, within the Council room.
“What is the meaning of this?” one Council member cried out.
A dark grin crossed my face. “The time of the Pisces Empire is over. Drake Jinx sends his regards.”
Before they could react, I opened a massive wormhole to the center of an active volcano, dropping the entire Council with their bodyguards into it. I stepped back into my wormhole. All that was left was to make sure that nothing remained of this atrocity of an Empire.
My army smashed through theirs quickly with relatively low losses. We avoided as many civilian casualties as we could after the initial barrage, but anyone who opposed us did not stand for long. We carved our way through the land, and eventually reached the gates of the capital. Good old Rusty the Cyborg was manning the gates. His hands gripped his rifle tightly, but he was shivering. I didn’t even know robots could do that.
“You’ll not take this land until we’re all dead!” he called down to us.
I smirked. Removing the mask, I looked at him. “Remember me? I want you to know this before I smash what remains of your disgusting empire. I, Drake Jinx, was what destroyed you. The one man that was always slacking off. The one that you all considered expendable and worthless. Your tyranny ends today. Your Council members are already dead, and your main army has been destroyed. Goodbye, Rusty. I’d say it was good knowing you, but that would be a lie.”
The artillery roared again, and the capitol begun to disappear. Years and years of work put into making the mightiest empire in the universe, the one with the most unbeatable army and the most powerful technology. Several hours later, the few survivors of what would come to be known as the massacre of the Pisces Empire stood alone and fearful. Fearful, but not sad. I chuckled quietly to myself.
“This has got to be the biggest blasted card house I’ve ever destroyed in my life.”
Epilogue
I looked at the seat that I had sat in when I was older and sighed to myself. All this time travel business was far too confusing, and my job wasn’t even close to done. Yes, the Pisces Empire had fallen that day. I had razed its army to the ground and toppled its Council. While I had spared the people of the empire, many of th
em no longer had anything to live for. To make matters worse, I had killed Lilly.
Sometimes, when I was alone, I could hear her voice on the nonexistent breeze within the void. It called out to me, asking me why I betrayed the Empire. For the most part, I could ignore it. Jenna’s presence certainly helped me a lot. No matter what anyone else thought of me, I knew she would always stand by my side.
No matter how much I just wanted to give up my role in the universe and retire to somewhere with some nice sandy beaches and drink alcohol from coconut shells, I knew there was still much to be done. I quickly made contact with the people of Iropolice and offered to assist them in their repairs. They accepted my help, but it just made me feel worse since I knew what would have to happen to them in my future, but their past.
But my course was already set. The lives of all the people my actions had eventually saved from the Pisces Empire were worth those lost from my actions in destroying it. They had to be. Because if they weren’t, there really wasn’t a point to any of this.
I sighed and pushed the philosophical thoughts out of my head. Those were best left to men who had the ability to speak and mindlessly waste time discussing problems while managing to never take a single step forwards in solving them.
It was time for me to get to work. A young engineer from the Pisces Empire was about to be recruited forcibly into going on what seemed to be a suicide mission. Arrangements had to be made at the planets he would visit, and I still had to figure out how I would get him his own Crucible.
But for now, I would wing it. I called a Ronsard soldier over to me.
“What can I do for you, commander? And when will we be returning home?” he asked.
“I need a uniform from you. One of the King’s guards. I also need some volunteers- people who would kill your Tyrant a second time. And as for going home, I wish I could say. I don’t know why the time in the Void is so skewed, but I fear that I may be the cause of it. However, for right now, I have an idealistic scientist and his psychopathic partner to save.”
Afterword
Thanks so much for reading my book! Without readers, writing a book is pointless. If you could take a few minutes to drop by the retailer you purchased this book from and leave a review for it, I would greatly appreciate it. A review for a small author is worth a hundred purchases. If you want to contact me, I’m always happy to answer any questions at
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Andy Nadir
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