The New Era Chapter 3

IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
"Yesterday, as most of you know, Sulla successfully completed his mission, after a minor delay, to cripple Marram. I suspect by this time you all know about Hans. He has a noble heart and I am saddened that he choose not to join us, but he has made that choice nevertheless. The next thing for us to decide is, which nation shall rule Fabulae. As I told you yesterday, Livius and I talked about this choice to some extant. Once Marram was eliminated, the choice became very hard. I better let him tell you about that, since he could tell it much better than I could."
Livius jumped right into his speech. "As Jistap said, the choice was a hard one. No clear cut solution was obvious. In the end, we decided to choose Calet. Calet had many years ago conquered more then three fourths of Fabulae, spreading its language, and culture everywhere. Under Calet's domination, Fabulae became closer to world peace then it ever has before or since. For this reason, we think it would be fitting if Calet was the nation to conquer Fabulae." Several approvals were heard around the room.
"Unfortunately, Calet is currently in a period of civil war. On one side is Polad. He is obviously unsuited for the thrown. In addition to his many other abominations, he has recently betrayed his own people in a battle with Marram, causing massive losses to Calet in what would otherwise have been a victory. He has assassinated the kings son so that he could obtain the rule, and he has been receiving support from Marram.
"His rival, Miktesh, is little better. Like Polad, Miktesh has a long history of putting his own ambitions above the good of the country. Interestingly though, he appears to be changing. He recently gained possession of Agricola, the storehouse of Calet's grain. However, he compromised his advantage significantly by giving food to his enemies, and so saving civilians from the horrors of starvation."
Livius hesitated before continuing, and looked at Jistap for a single. Jistap nodded his head, and Livius proceeded. "Perez, probably the greatest military genius Fabulae has ever seen, and who served Calet for many years, has defected to Dishon, a small country located North of Calet. If we could somehow convince him to rejoin Calet, our task would be much easier. Their are many other interesting details about Calet's civil war. Dabine, Polad's right hand man, is secretly working for Miktesh, frequently sending him updates on plans Polad thinks are top secret. He also allowed both Miktesh and Perez to escape from Polad's clutches. One of Miktesh' advisors, Jole, tried to defect to Polad's side, giving Polad top secret information, but Dabine foiled his plan. Dabine himself went to pick up the information from Jole, and then destroyed it, giving Polad phoney plans. Dabine also had one of his men disguise himself as a guard to Miktesh' camp, and then kill Jole. Miktesh doesn't know any of this happened, and is still trying to figure out how Jole was killed."
Jistap, beginning to feel sorry he had given permission for this pointless excursion, cut into the conversation. "The point is, neither Miktesh or Polad is fit to rule Calet. We need to find someone in Calet who is truly worthy of that honor. Now Livius has narrowed down the options to-"
"Excuse me, sir?"
Jistap, irritated at being interrupted, answered in a exasperated tone, "Yes Gaius, what is it?"
"Sir, why not place one of us on the thrown?"
"That's ridiculous Gaius. In the first place, who would want to leave the comfort of the city for the primitive conditions of Calet?"
"I would sir."
Jistap opened his mouth to ask why, but suddenly he realized the answer. He saw in Gaius an ambition he had often seen in himself. Gaius wanted power, and he would endure any hardship to get it. Jistap realized Gaius was dangerous, the question was what to do with him. Jistap thought for a moment, and decided that he didn't want Gaius to stay in the city. Let Gaius have his little command of Calet, just as long as he remembered who was in charge. "The command of Calet is yours, Gaius. Now, in order to establish you in control, I will send a messenger to Polad and Miktesh. The messenger will tell them both that they must surrender to you, or die."
"If its all the same to you sir, could we just kill them both right off the bat. I mean, they're bound to try and get power for themselves anyway they can, and I just assume not deal with keeping them from fighting each other. Besides which-"
Jistap waved his hand, and Gaius stopped talking. "Alright Gaius, you want them killed? I'll have them killed. Whatever makes you a more effective ruler of Calet I'll do."
"Excuse me," Pericula interjected, "excuse me, but we're talking about actual lives here. You can't just kill them because it's convenient."
Jistap shook his head. "Look, Pericula, I'm really getting tired of telling you this. Fabulae can not continue on its present course any longer. The new world order will take a lot of blood but it must come about. Between taking over the city, and crippling Marram, we've killed thousands already. Two more lives aren't going to make a difference."
Pericula was silent, and Jistap continued. "Sulla, Gaius, Livius,take a ship and go to Calet. Kill Miktesh and Polad, and inform both of their officers about the new change. Sulla, you'll take command of Polad's forces. Gaius, you'll take command of Miktesh' forces. Livius, you pilot the ship back to the city. Once Sulla and Gaius have both taken all their soldiers back to Calet's capital, Caletia, I'll send Livius out in a ship to take Sulla back to the city. Gaius will remain at Caletia and await further instructions from me while he establishes his rule there. Now get moving." Gaius, Livius, and Sulla rushed out.


Livius turned to Sulla. "Alright buddy, we're coming to Polad's camp now. Polad is in his tent, sleeping. You need to kill him and any others who oppose you. You'll need this." Livius thrust a laser gun into Sulla's hand. "This puppy can cut right through the army of anybody you meet. You should also take one of these." Livius handed Sulla a small object, only slightly larger then Sulla's palm. "This little device will allow you to access the computers in the city. You'll have all of their information at your fingertips."
Gaius could see that Sulla was nervous, so he gave him a fraternal pat on the back. "I'll go with you. You might need a little help."
A beep alerted Gaius that they were rapidly approaching the drop off point. "You two, stand on that X." Gaius and Sulla followed the orders, Gaius taking a laser gun with him. The ship down close to the ground, near Polad's tent. The floor gave way beneath Gaius and Sulla, and they dropped about three meters to the ground, rolling over several times when they landed due to their inertia. A confused crowd gathered around the two.
As soon as he could stand up, Gaius held down the trigger of his gun. One blast followed another, with only a fraction of a second in between. Gaius sprayed the crowd with the laser fire, then once the crowd starting fleeing, Gaius started targeting individuals. Sulla followed his lead. As soon as every one was either dead or had ran away, Gaius pointed at Polad's tent. He and Sulla bombarded it with their fire, until little more was left of it then ashes. The ship now returned, and Gaius boarded it waving good-bye to Sulla. The ship took off.
Sulla turned around nervously. His confidence had left him when Gaius left, but he tried to push his fear out of his mind. He noticed that some were cautiously returning. He fired gun rapidly into the air, then announcing, "I am Sulla. I am your new master. Anyone who does not follow me will be killed."


"Okay Gaius, you have all your equipment?" Gaius nodded as he walked onto the X."
"Would you mind creating a little diversion for me Livius? Perhaps using the ship to shoot up the opposite side of the camp I'm on?"
Livius nodded. "I'd be glad to if it helps you out."


Kile smiled. "You what?"
Drusus returned the smile. "That's what I said. The whole tent had to be replaced, not to mention his clothes."
Kile couldn't help laughing hard. "I'll bet he was mad."
"Not as mad as Spolkes was. You should have seen his face."
"Well how much trouble did you get in for that one?"
"It would have been a lot but-"
Drusus was cut off by a loud scream, followed by several shouts, and the booming sounds of explosions. Drusus looked at Kile, who returned his confused look.
"Deka! Look out!" Drusus couldn't tell who issued the warning, but he was thankful for it. Looking up in the sky he saw a some kind of creature. A huge creature, shouting energy bolts out of it's mouth. When the bolts hit the ground, they caused an explosion, throwing everything near it any which way, and igniting anything close to it. Drusus instinctively broke into a run.
The camp had become utter chaos. The men were running every which way, fire was everywhere, dead bodies were everywhere, and the shouting was only a background noise to the sound of explosion.
An energy bolt hit the ground only a couple meters from Drusus' feet. Drusus was thrown couple dekameters, and skidded along the ground. When he came to a stop, he lay still for a few seconds, trying to figure out what had happened to him. This was a mistake. Although the fleeing soldiers had at first vacated the area where the explosion took place, they soon returned to it. As Drusus curled into a ball to try and avoid the numerous feet, he realized he was in grave danger of being trampled to death. Fortunately, another explosion not too far away, cleared the crowd for just a couple of seconds, but long enough for Drusus to get to his feet.
Drusus allowed himself to be jostled by the crowd for a couple minutes while he considered what his next course of action should be. He decided that his duty was to protect Miktesh, and fought his way through the crowd, all the way to Miktesh' tent, on the other side of the camp. Once he got to the tent, the crowd had diminished greatly. In fact, Drusus could only see about ten people, one of which was Kile. Drusus recognized the badly burned body of what once was Miktesh. The silence was unblemished. A man stood by the body. "I am Gaius," the man announced. "I am your new leader."


"I've got another report on The Watcher situation sir."
"No need, I've been monitoring the situation quite closely myself. Most interesting plan indeed. Helping Calet conquer the world by aiding it against its enemies. Most interesting plan indeed."
The one to whom these words were spoken looked strangely at his commander. "Sir, doesn't that sound familiar to you?"
"What?"
"Jistap's plan. Doesn't it sound familiar?"
Absolute horror seized the commander. "Fuck, why didn't I realize this before? Fuck me, I should have known." Both men read in each others faces the danger they were in.