"Praise the Governor!"
"Praise the Governor!"
Among the proclamations of the mechanical heralds, the Governor smiled in conceited pride, waving his arm tirelessly. From either side of the street, he saw the citizens responding fervently. They leaped, their hands raised high, chanting praises that seemed to swell and thrum against the Governor's skin.
There was but one thing amiss—their faces bore no expression, resembling nothing more than cold, mechanical puppets...but to the Governor, this was typical. His people, these despicable low-born creatures, were good for little else.
"My lord..." A female slave with a collar hurried from the rear of the procession to his side, submitting a parchment in both hands after passing the guards' scrutiny.
Though the Governor was abruptly interrupted, he felt no anger. He knew this slave knew him well enough to only disturb him when there was an urgent matter.
Holding the parchment in his left hand, he continued waving to his people with his right, listening to the ceaseless praise, his eyes riveted on the message.
The letter contained one clear request: A Governor by the name of Od requested, at the soonest opportunity, to purchase Tylon's armaments and powered armor. Payment was to be made not in Thrones or credits, but in population, resources, and tangible treasures.
The Governor recalled Tylon's prior military aid, remembering how the so-called "Lord of Tylon," that low-born wretch, had sent an order of conscription. In its wake, shipments arrived with weapons to train the planet's forces—las-rifles, officer-grade power armor, vast amounts of ammunition...
"Of course, naturally," the Governor murmured as he tucked the parchment away, already plotting to load the weapons for Governor Od's domain. But a more pressing matter demanded his attention.
"Praise me!" he shouted to the crowd, his bellow instantly swallowed by their resounding adulation.
As the procession advanced into the plaza at the city center, towering statues of each preceding governor stood on display in gilded splendor. People filled every inch of the square and surrounding terraces, while immense holo-displays cast the Governor's image for all to see.
Watching from atop the clock tower, Gray coldly observed the Governor's procession as it entered the plaza's heart. Then he dropped from forty meters, without igniting his jetpack, without engaging the cushioning system of his guard's power armor, and even without activating the bio-processor in his mind to buffer the impact. He hit the ground with a violent jolt and rose to his full height.
Drawing a double-headed eagle scepter from his back, he planted it firmly on the ground—a replica of the scepter once wielded by Qin Mo, one each guard possessed as a symbol.
Gray's sudden appearance instantly captured the Governor's and his guards' attention, as well as that of the thousands of planetary defense soldiers nearby. The guards encircled the Governor while the soldiers formed a human barricade a hundred meters away, las-rifles at the ready.
Gray said nothing, his gaze fixed on the Governor as he hacked into the plaza's systems through his bio-processor. Every holo-display began to show the image of an armored guard rather than that of the Governor.
Such a bold action immediately alerted anyone familiar with Tylon that this figure was a Guard—either the Governor's protector or envoy. Above all, he represented the Governor of Tylon.
"Governor of Industrial World Three in System Fifteen, I hereby declare your crimes."
"You have disregarded the mobilization order from the Lord of Tylon, selling the military aid provided by Tylon for personal gain. By the authority of the Lord of Tylon, I sentence you to death."
"In light of the Lord's boundless mercy, you are permitted last words, which I will record and ensure their broadcast throughout the system."
Gray's voice echoed across the plaza as the mechanical heralds amplified it, while he withdrew a recorder and prepared to document the condemned man's final words.
Rendered speechless, the Governor's mouth opened and closed, his thoughts swirling too frantically to coalesce into a coherent statement. Why should Tylon's governor have any say in other systems? A mere mobilization order could not command all governors as equals—by what right did Tylon claim authority over them?
He finally spluttered a single question. "Isn't this your mistake? You gave military aid here knowing full well this system was outside your control—how is this not tantamount to giving it to me outright?"
Beneath his helmet, Gray smiled—a smile unseen by others. Even the rifle-makers on Tylon could have foreseen that such weapons might be misused. Yet the shipments had been sent, for there were those who needed a muzzle they could not ignore.
"Final words recorded." Gray discarded the recorder.
The soldiers fired in unison. Gray activated bullet time, raising the scepter and directing it toward the front line of opponents.
The scepter, augmented with a miniature gravity generator, created a thirty-meter-wide zone of intense gravity, reducing the soldiers within to crushed remains. Still in bullet time, Gray darted through the breach and reached the Governor's guards. With a single blow, he collapsed the skull of the nearest guard into his chest cavity just as bullet time ended.
The planetary defense soldiers sensed a figure darting past, only realizing moments later that one among them had been ground to a pulp.
The Governor's guards recovered quickly, firing at Gray, but were dispatched by pinpoint blasts from Gray's shoulder-mounted lasers.
"No…please…" The Governor cowered on the platform, crawling backward.
Gray seized the Governor by the leg, yanking him forward as he raised the scepter and brought it down in a series of relentless, bone-crushing strikes.
As the public execution drew to its grisly close, the holograms displayed the twisted, mangled remains of the Governor for all to see.
Gray scanned the Governor's body, extracting a letter from his garments, glancing over it to read the sender's name aloud:
"Governor Od."