Chapter Thirty-Five

Do you know the problem with hard workers? They’re never looking for a way to make life easier. If anything, they’ll actually deliberately do things the harder way on some obscure nonsensical perverse principle, even when the easier way gets the same result with no loss of any kind.

Never trust hard workers to create systems, only trust the lazy people, they’ll look for the easiest way to get things done. Now that Celia Norn was asleep and my impersonation of her was complete, I got out of there. Unlike Celia, I had an effective way of getting far from Earth, quickly. Well… to be more accurate, to get pretty much wherever, much faster. A series of coordinates that I could teleport my entire ship to. It was just a small craft, a single person shuttle, but I planned out everything meticulously so I could maximize my vacation time down to the hour. As long as my instruments on the scanner for those coordinates showed that I had an all clear, I could jump from place to place with ease.

“Celia Norn reporting in.” I said as I connected to the headquarters relay station.

“Celia, you’re back early, as expected of one of our hardest working painters.” The face came on screen, and I gave a polite nod.

“Naturally. However I did run into a problem, it seems,” I said as I fiddled with her display, “I don’t have my target information here.” I said and then raised my head again, “That’s very inefficient, I’d like to go ahead and get this one done, and if there’s no issue, I was actually enjoying Earth, there’s a lot more I’d like to do. Could you extend my vacation for another four years?”

“That much? It must be something for you to want an extension.” She let out a little wheezy whistle as if she could hardly believe what I said.

“Very much so. Plus it turns out that Kayobi is a really good host.” I said. Okay, maybe talking myself up a little wasn’t the best look but… why not? Just a little.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She said and after tapping on her console a few times she said, “You should have that information right away, and I’ll have that request submitted here before you get anywhere close to the target. Approval will be granted in a matter of hours. Enjoy your vacation.” She said, and then killed the connection.

She wasn’t wrong, a few minutes later I knew all the basics. Celia took middle tier worlds for the most part, honestly the sorts of things I didn’t really worry about. I took the most extreme of extremes because those paid the best and offered the highest perks. If I’m being honest, I think sometimes the only reason people put up with my lazy attitude is because I can deliver the goods when I need to.

I guided my ship over the middle tier planet. There was a primitive world, a gentle place, the opposite of a deathworld, really. I would even call it a paradise, if I didn’t like modern conveniences so much.

Its natives hadn’t invented war, or weapons, they had no slavery, and lived cooperatively, their technology was roughly bronze age, though in a few places the first iron had begun to be smelted. By contrast, their neighboring world in the same system had reached the atomic age.

They had rockets, no warp technology, but good enough to get ships from point A to point B within their own system. They did have war. They did have slavery. They did have all manner of exploitation, and they had pretty badly screwed up their planet.

I looked through the file, honestly it would have been a low tier world except for one unusual facet of the job. “Hmm, alright, so the planet has only around three hundred years before they collapse completely if nothing changes… How unfortunate…” I mumbled, they were a frog-like amphibious species that lived on water and land, and both were in bad shape. That wasn’t what made the instruction unusual.

In this instance, not only did the tyrant have to die, but so did his general staff and several important religious figures who were calling for an invasion of the neighboring world.

And what’s more, I had to make them afraid of going there.

They had zero chance of detecting my ship, so this would be child’s play. I listened to their broadcasts and began to track the locations of key figures.

I then morphed into the shape of one of the members of the species on that primitive world.

Then… after zooming my ship’s viewscreen on the first target’s location, I teleported. I was right next to the driver’s side window of their religious leader’s luxury vehicle. He had only one moment of confusion and disbelief in his wide set eyes before my fist shattered their mockery of ‘shatterproof glass’ and knocked him out completely.

I coughed a little, the air here was foul in the extreme, then opened the door, dragged him out of the vehicle, and threw him in the trunk. I then took his form and waited.

The religious figure was still clad in weird mossy robes that he’d worn during his broadcast, and he was accompanied by several bodyguards. “What happened to the window?!” He shouted as soon as he saw the damage.

“Bad luck, I’ll fix everything though, don’t worry, Pontiff.” I promised and let out a loud ribbity noise for emphasis.

He sighed, “Bad luck…” He coughed a little as the open window let the foul air in, “There’s a lot of that, lately.”

“You have no idea.” I said, and drove, this particular vehicle was guided by a single stick and a pedal, I doubted I could have handled it for long, but I didn’t need to. My god’s eye view showed me the perfect spot. I drove away from the station, but not toward the street. Instead I drove into an alley between two other buildings.

“Ghorl, what are you-” He didn’t get to finish the question. I vanished, appeared in the back seat, held out my arms, and shifted my arms into boney spines, with a few quick stabs, I’d slain all his bodyguards before he could even scream.

He did get his mouth open. But before the bulge in his throat could expel any noise, the pointy weapons I morphed into being, pierced the bulge and killed his ability to communicate anything. I felt his soft brain split, and the skull behind it… and he went still. I grabbed all of them in a big bearhug, and vanished back onto my ship.

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I then dropped the corpses and searched for the next signal…

The leader’s phone was easy enough to identify.

This sort of thing is very iffy, you normally don’t want to teleport anywhere you don’t have eyes on, just like at the hospital. But whoever had done the research for Celia on this before leaving the rest of the scouting to her, had clearly done his homework.

The file even included a picture of the office as well as a voice recording and key information about the others.

I knew, thanks to this, that the room was all but empty, as long as I didn’t appear ‘in’ the desk, I’d be fine.

So I adjusted the coordinates a little, and after taking the form of the neighboring aliens again, I teleported.

His bodyguards were quick, but between surprise and my own expertise, they were too slow. Their heads were rolling before their dear leader could turn and run.

He managed to get a step away, before I pierced his spine.

This alien species of course, didn’t have these spines or pointy weapons or anything, but by the time I was done, nobody would dare go look. On the far wall there was a monitoring screen where his last speech could be heard.

“...We will bring them the benefit of our civilization, and the light of divine providence, is it not right that they should pay for such wonders as we would bring…?” I snorted as the replay went on. Dictators… a dime a dozen, always the same schtick.

This is why it’s easy to sleep at night after these jobs. I referenced the file again and began calling the numbers of various important staff members. If swapping out a body is child’s play, swapping out a voice is baby’s play.

“Get in my office, now! I can’t discuss it over even a secure line! It’s vital! We have to discuss this before it’s too late for me, you, us, everyone!” I used variations on that quite a bit, I had no doubt that a few of them would let slip what I said to ‘someone’.

It’s a persistent truism of the universe that two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.

I then drew out my sidearm, and as they showed up one by one and two by two, I grabbed them, dragged them into the office, and before they could object, shot them, green blood seeped into the soft floor of the opulent golden office that I was rapidly turning into a mass grave. It still took the better part of two hours to finish them all, none of them seemed to go in groups, and unsurprisingly, they weren’t allowed to bring their own armed guards into the private office of their dear leader.

Once I was done, I got to painting… after quickly returning to my ship and retrieving their religious leader. I didn’t really care for the gruesome aspect of ‘painting’ smearing innards on things and putting on a grotesque display, especially in large numbers.

But object lessons are important when it comes to these types. Killing their own people isn’t a deterrent, killing them is.

So for my last little hat trick, I cut apart their limbs and put them into a pattern that spelled out the order. “Stay off Gorbax II”

I then made one more call. To one member of the staff who had not endorsed their invasion plans, and ordered him to come to ‘my’ office with that same urgent message.

I still wore the shape of the alien species, and I waited.

He was late when he finally arrived, and when he knocked, I flung open the door, grabbed his throat bulge, and yanked him into the room.

I slammed the door behind me and spun to watch him stumble and fall into the bloody floor, he slid over the slick moss and rolled over onto his back where he could see me. I made myself into one of the big bucks of the aliens, a powerful, muscular figure, and I held tight onto my sidearm, which I pressed against his head.

He might not have recognized the weapon itself, but he recognized a weapon when he saw one. “You can inspect the dead when I am gone, but you will find that everyone from your pontiff to your dear leader are dead. We are not what you think we are and if you test us again, we will wipe out your next leaders, and your next, and your next, until somebody understands. Stay. Away. From our. Planet. You are going to live because you alone opposed invading us.” I then lowered my weapon, and shot him in the leg. He grabbed the injured area and hissed in pain.

The wound of my blaster would not be like any injury with which this species is familiar, so it would help him be believed later. But I didn’t envy him trying to explain the situation in the aftermath. That was his problem, though, my work was done.

“That however, is for not opposing it strongly enough. You’re stuck on your world, Croaker Ghar’madja. Remember that, and act accordingly, or in a few hundred years, we’ll start clean up of your ruined atmosphere and settle it ourselves on top of all your graves.”

I had no idea if he would listen to me, or what would happen to his planet. Would they pull themselves back from the brink? Or in a few hundred years would we be arranging for a resettlement of people from a dying world onto that one after a resettlement? Who could say?

“Activate transport. I’m done here.” I said, pretending like I was talking to somebody, then before his eyes, I teleported back onto the shuttle, and… out of sheer perversity, I chose to linger and listen in.

‘I’m telling you it was one of them! They’re not nearly as primitive as we think!’

‘The driver was found in the trunk of the car?! Did he see what hit him?!’

‘We need to rethink everything… we need new leadership, a new direction… get the deputy minister of production on the line…’

I didn’t continue listening after that, I’m sure he’d have some very hard questions to answer, but he would probably come out all right. Whether the rest of his people did or not, that was also ‘their problem’ not mine.

I shifted back to the shape of Celia Norn and quickly dispatched my report on what I’d done to fulfill the requirements of the mission, it proved quite easy, really. Most of my people would have spent a few days scouting things out at least, for the more cautious even for a middle tier world, weeks.

But I’d done this often enough that certain types of dictators and their security become very predictable. Especially this kind. The strongmen that rule through oligarchs and keep power centralized while drawing on the resources of the corrupt interests… The end result is always a sloppy system at the top.

“That was fast, it wasn’t even a full day.” The same administrator said offhandedly.

“Meh, these were sloppy, the world was probably appraised too highly. Everybody centralized, similar schedules, and always tied to their dear leader? I’m Celia Norn, not some raw recruit.” I chuckled.

“Well, Celia, your extension is approved, enjoy the next few years off.” She said, “See you when you get back. Or… I’m due for my own vacation eventually, maybe I’ll stop by Earth myself. Can you recommend a spot?”

“Talk to Kayobi about that, she’s the expert. But Shinjai is a nice place.” I said truthfully, “Bye for now!” I said, and killed the link just as my report finished transmitting.

I did one more thing before going back, I went to our cybernet datastream and pulled down all known medical information on being ‘stuck’ while having swapped forms.

Then I turned around and began to make the jumps back to Earth. If I timed it right, I’d get back before Celia got up and I could grab breakfast to go so nobody would have to cook anything… and by breakfast to go I mean I could ask Suki if she made extra. My mouth was already watering over the meal ahead, within seconds of having returned to my human form.