The New Era Chapter 25

IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
The ship landed in the hanger bay, and its passengers wasted no time in getting out. After Uther had disappeared, Hans and Kyoko had told everyone else all about Uther and The Renegades. Everyone was frightened by the news, and determined to do everything they could to help.
"I'll go to the city square and start warning people," Akristh said.
"I'll go start replicating laser guns and handing them out," Livius said.
"I'll go to Daved park to warn people," Pericula said.
"I'll go to peoples doors and warn them," Kyoko said.
"I'll go talk to Bakes," Lauto volunteered.
"No, I'll talk to Bakes. We need to get a few things straight between us," Hans said. "You go warn people. Lets move." Each began to run off in his own direction.
Pericula turned to Kile and Drusus. "I'm sorry about this, really sorry, but we can't take you home now. It looks like your going to get caught in the middle of our war."
"I wouldn't leave now even if I could," Drusus said. "I would never turn my back on a friend in danger."
"That goes double for me," Kile said.
Pericula smiled, touched by their loyalty. "Alright, I'm glad you want to help. You'd better stick with me since you don't know your way around the city."


The satellite was down, so none of the monitors were able to show images of events that had happened since the satellite went dead, or that were happening presently. However, the teacher was still able to pinpoint where individuals were in the city, and to relay that information. Following the advice of the teacher, Hans made his way to location number seven, the meeting room for the team.
Rushing inside the room, Hans saw that Bakes, Ziet, Estaci, Eva, Ossar, and Aked were all there.
Everyone turned to the door when they heard it open. "Hans, good to see you," Bakes said, trying to conceal his surprise at seeing Hans alive.
At that moment, Hans desperately wanted to grab Bakes by the throat and shake him around, yelling at him, "shut up you son of a bitch, you tried to kill me!" But he didn't, he knew there wasn't time for his personal problems with Bakes, the whole city was in danger.
Hans was unsure what to do. He didn't know if Aked knew what Uther had told them, and therefore didn't want to say anything in front of Aked. Hans stole a glance at Aked, and saw Aked looking back at him with an expression that made Hans' heart skip a beat. "Your to late Hans, we're already here," Aked said, before he vanished.
Naturally, this was much to the surprise of the rest of the team, who all began talking at once. Hans held up his hands for silence, and soon got it. "Look, I know this is going to sound strange, and I don't have time to explain everything, but we're about to be invaded."
"Don't be ridiculous Hans," Ziet said. "Who could we possibly be invaded by?"
"Ziet, your a fool," Bakes responded. "It's obviously the Nathorites."
"No, no you don't understand. The Nathorites came here to warn us."
"Warn us?" Bakes interrupted. "Warn us? They wanted to destroy us."
"Look, I don't have time to explain. The invaders can transport themselves anywhere, instantly. They can shoot discs out of their hands that are razor sharp. We need to be ready. Aked was one of them, that's why he disappeared."
"He's telling the truth, listen to him." Everyone's head jerked to see Lauto entering the room.
"Lauto, what are you doing here?" Hans asked. "Your supposed to be warning others, I told you I would handle this."
"Fuck you Hans, you have no power over me, I'll do what I want." She turned to the rest of the team. "I know it sounds crazy but it's the truth. They'll be here any minute. Bakes, your the only one who has the authority over the computers to send a warning to every monitor in the city. You need to act now."
Bakes looked at the two skeptically. "If this is some kind of joke-"
"Bakes, you tried to kill me. The last thing I'd be doing now is joking with you!" Hans yelled.
Bakes got up from the round table and went to the computer in the corner of the room. He began punching keys, then he took a step back from the computer. "Alright Hans, it's all set up. Go up their and deliver your little warning, every monitor in the city will show it." Hans stepped up to the computer, and was about to begin, when Bakes yelled out, "Wait!"
"Something's wrong," Bakes explained as he pushed Hans out of the way. He began punching keys again, staring at the screen. "Oh no, oh no, fuck what else could go wrong?"
"The computers aren't working?" Hans asked.
Under the pressure, Bakes shot back a irritated reply. "Obviously they're working Hans, or the lights would be out, and the screen here wouldn't be able to display anything. Several systems are out though, among them communications. It will take me just a few minutes to figure out what's damaged."
Hans heard a yell, and looked behind him. At first, he wondered who that man was standing on the table, and how he had gotten here. That thought flashed through Hans' mind for about two seconds before he realized the man was a Veletti. The Veletti pointed his two arms in separate directions. One arm shot discs at Ossar, the other at Estaci. The first disc sliced through Ossar's neck, the second one followed less then a second later, and completed detaching his head from his body.
Estaci was a little quicker, and her quickness saved her life. She escaped the discs by diving under the table. The discs embedded themselves in the wall behind her. By this time Hans had leapt up onto the table and punched the Veletti in the face. As the Veletti fell backwards, he transported himself away.
The team looked glumly at the decapitated Ossar. "Looks like Aked was right," Hans said, as he stepped down from the table. "We are too late, they're already here."
"He was a good man," Eva said, indicating towards Ossar's body.
Bakes nodded, as he wiped off the blood that had splattered onto his hands. "It's too bad. I'd better get back on the computer and find out what's else is out."
"Are you crazy?" asked Ziet. "We've got to get out of here now, he could be back any second."
"We can't escape them Ziet, they can transport themselves anywhere," Lauto reminded him. "We're as safe here as we are anyplace else."
"They may be powerful, but they're just as mortal as we are," Hans said. "We need to replicate laser guns, pass them out. The next time they transport here, we'll blast them before they have a chance to do anything."
As Bakes pressed buttons, he kepted his face fixed on the screen as he said, "yeah, well unfortunately that's one of the things that's out."
"What?!" Hans head jerked towards the computer screen.
"The replicators aren't working, we can't replicate any more laser guns."
The whole team crowded around the screen, even though Bakes was the only one who knew what it meant. "That means we can't replicate any medicine balls either," Estaci noted with horror.
Bakes took a deep breath. "I'm afraid so. It looks like we're in trouble."
"Anything else wrong?" Hans asked.
Bakes continued pressing buttons, all the time keeping his eyes on the screen. "No, no everything else looks fine." Bakes had stopped punching keys and was about to turn away when something on the screen caught his eye. He peered closer at it, then began pressing buttons again. "Check that, something else is wrong. The prison securities are down, they've broken Gaius out."
"Weren't you going to execute him?" asked Lauto.
"His execution was scheduled tomorrow," Bakes responded.
"Gaius is on their side," Hans explained. "They probably broke him out so he could help them."
"What are we going to do?" Ziet wondered.
"One things for sure, we're not going to sit on our butts," Bakes said, as he got up and went to the city of the room. He knelt down on the floor, and, to the surprise of everyone else, removed a panel from it, revealing fourteen laser guns hidden beneath the floor. "Jistap was always a little paranoid," Bakes explained. "He hid these here in case the team ever came upon an emergency. I guess we need them after all."
"What about all the other Watchers?" Eva asked. "They don't have laser guns."
"Some of them do. Everyone who was a former member of Jistap's personal army was equipped with one," Bakes explained. "Also, many replicating laser guns to fight Jistap. Of course, they didn't work, but they still have them."
"The fact is, though, by far the majority of Watchers are unarmed," Hans pointed out. "We need to use these laser guns here to their defense."
"Exactly," Bakes said. "Everyone take two laser guns, and distribute one of them to an unarmed citizen you come across."
Everyone grabbed their weapons and headed out the door. "I'll take care of Gaius," Lauto said, as she was leaving.
"No," Bakes yelled. "Gaius is mine, he's defied me and I'll ruin him for it." As Hans ran off, he faintly heard Bakes say, "Gaius will pay for his evil!"


The first thing Kyoko had done when she left the hanger bay was to replicate a laser gun, just in case. Carrying this with her, she rushed to a nearby neighborhood to warn people. The neighborhood was covered with all sorts of plants, who flourished well under the artificial sky. The houses were spread out a good distance from each other, in fact the whole thing was not unlike one of our suburban neighborhoods. There were several neighborhoods close by, but Kyoko had chosen this one because it was the home of her sister, Katina. Katina was twenty, four years younger then Kyoko, and Kyoko wanted to make sure she would be ready.
Kyoko rang the doorbell, and Katina answered it. "Kyoko," she said, "it's good to see you. How long has it been, a month since we've seen each other?"
"Katina, grab a laser gun and help me warn others. We're about to be invaded."
"Are you crazy?"
Kyoko suddenly felt a little sickened as she realized she would have to convince every single person she warned of her sanity. "No, I'm serious. Move quickly."
"Kyoko, this isn't funny. I don't no what you think-" Katina stopped in mid sentence, staring past Kyoko. Kyoko turned to see what she was looking at, and saw a man dressed in a strange uniform, his arm pointing at them.
Kyoko pushed Katina out of the doorway, just as a disc sliced through the air where Katina was standing only one second before. Kyoko knew the next disc was coming for her, so she jumped backwards. The disc embedded itself in the doorway behind where she had been standing. Kyoko heard the sound of another disc being fired and dodged it by dropping to the ground. She fired her laser gun, and hit the Veletti square on. The Veletti was knocked backwards and skidded along the ground for a short distance before he came to a dead, motionless stop.
Katina cautiously peered out her doorway, shaking with fright. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Kyoko stood up, her eyes fixed on the dead Veletti. Since she had never killed anyone before, she was beginning to fell guilty, but she shook it off. There was work to be done. "I'm fine," she said. "We need to move quickly."