99 runabouts flying in perfect formation, with the guards on watch flanking and Jake in the lead as they navigated themselves down to Australia. Jake flew as fast as the little runabout could go without any brakes until the group got to the economic zone of China, when a group of five runabouts that looked a lot like his old one shot up from the ground. But as they came into visual sight, the differences could be seen; the little runabouts only had one engine and their weapon loadout only had two old pre-integration air-to-air missiles. Jake waved at the lead ship and pointed towards Australia. But the reply was not what Jake wanted, as the pilot gestured for the group to follow them. Jake simply shook his head, pointed to Australia again, then turned to pass outside of China's zone and down and away from China. Moments later, Jake was further disappointed as the five copies followed the group from behind. Jake pushed the radio and told the group to continue towards Australia as he pulled up and split his throttles, spinning the runabout, then hitting full throttle and blasting back towards the five ships. A moment later, ten missiles were launched, and Jake was flipping through the missiles as he broke out the other side. Jake fired his weapon system, blowing all five ships out of the sky before they knew what had happened to them.
After some time, Jake caught back up to the group and continued towards Jake's territory. The moment Jake got into Australia's economic zone, he was greeted again by a group of runabouts, but this time the group was not attacked; instead, they were escorted in what seemed like a corridor, flying over the Northern Territory, then crossing into South Australia and into Victoria. Once in Victoria, the escorting runabouts left, leaving Jake's group to fly alone all the way to his territory. Jake and his group landed at the outskirts of the settlement, which had now grown to the size of a city, pushing right to the boundary of the shield and back into the bushland.
As Jake's group walked up to the gated zone outside of the shield, a group of soldiers stopped them.
“Halt, identify yourself and your business here?”
“Jake Everval, also known as the Demon of the Past, and my business is alternately none of your business.” Jake went to take a step forward when the soldiers raised their weapons. “Please, sir, don't move; we need to get confirmation of your identity before we can let you pass.”
“Well, how long will that take? I'm kind of getting irritated here.”
“Lady Ann should be here soon.”
“Ann? Jayne, why does that name sound familiar?”
Jayne changed forms and said without any hesitation, “She is the bitch that we met over in Europe. I believe she was the one that told Eric you were not a member of the mercenary group, and as for her coming to identify us, I can only see things going badly, so we might as well just knock these fools out and enter the settlement.”
Seeing an angry lady heading their way, she was shouting that Jake and his group were lying and that they should be executed, but she never got to finish what she was saying as the Welsh appeared beside her, picking her up off the ground before throwing her down to the ground, her foot on her neck and a rifle in her hand. “You should take another look at who you are trying to kill. Fucking idiot,” the Welsh said, as Ann's face was slowly changing colour.
“Get off my teammate, or I will kill you all—” Eric never got to finish, as Jake teleported in front of the man. “Hello, little pup. I see you haven't fixed your attitude since we last met, which makes me wonder.” As Jake was saying this, Jayne arrived beside him. “Eric, what have you done? You let her control you and now she even tried to kill us. Just what exactly is your plan? Maybe I can help you, but I can't help her. She is at the mercy of Jake now.”
Jake turned to look at the woman before he teleported over to her. “Let her breathe.”
Ann simply stared daggers at Jake beforespitting in his face. Jake just let out a long and tired sigh. “I only have one question for you, and that is why?”
“You fucking know what you did!” Ann screamed at Jake.
Jake was even more confused now. “Well, let's say I don't know what you're talking about; could you tell me?” Jake asked in as sincere a tone as possible. But all he got back was screaming and curses.
“Hold her here,” Jake said before walking over to Eric.
“What the fuck is she talking about?”
“She blames you for everything that has gone wrong; she even thinks you made the system happen. I'm sorry; I tried to change her mind but her mind keeps going back to the dungeon, and it has only gotten worse since you defeated it.”
“Well, I can't fix that, so tell me, should I kill her?”
“Please, sir, let her live.”
“If I do, what will you both do? I clearly can't have someone like her within my territory, now can I?”
“I... I don't know,” Eric said.
“How about this: I will give you enough resources to make it to anywhere you wish to go, and as long as I don't see her again, I won't harm her.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Thank you, sir, but I can't go to any other territory; as I'm a beastman, the moment I'm not protected by you, I will be captured and sold as a slave.”
“I can send you so far away that the issues ofthis small planet will seem meaningless, and maybe someone might be able to help her out there.”
“I can't leave you, sir; I owe you so much.”
“You don't owe me anything, Eric. You have been a great friend to me,” Jake said before giving the man a hug and saying, “I will miss having you around.”
Eric's eyes went blank before he said under his
breath, “I'm sorry, Ann.” That was the only reply Eric gave before he dashed over to Ann and, in a flash, slit her throat.
“Jayne, can you deal with this mess?” Jake said before leaving the chaos that was occurring behind him.
Jake found himself once again lost in his own settlement. He had been walking around for over an hour before he finally gave up and said, “Alric, help me out here. Where the hell am I going?”
Not even a second later, Alric was standing beside Jake and guiding him to where the council members were, but as he talked with the man, Jake realised he had no reason to actually talk to them, as Alric had already arranged everything and had also made quite the deal with the Australian government, which now made sense of why they had that escort right up to the border of Jake's territory. The governmental decrees encompass the whole state of Victoria and Tasmania and the waters surrounding them. What Jake gave up in return was any holdings outside that territory on Earth, the blueprints to the runabout, and a licence to produce as many as they wanted for the domestic market. As for the Americans, they made a deal to get the same thing; only in return, Jake would receive resources equal to the value of every unit produced by the USA and any contractors, which includes their allies. Now that one was good, as shipments were now coming in daily, and now that Australia has started producing, the USA has to pay for them as well.
This is making the crack down on the Australian government as they try to limit the production to only the government and its enforcers but not the civilians, leaving the market open for Jake within Australia. Jake then asked about how the Chinese acquired his plans, but Alric was unaware of this, which made Jake think if the USA didn't get the plans from the fighter in the dungeon, then maybe he gave them to China, but then why would they make them so poor, not even giving the pilots a way to eject?
“Maybe it was done as a cost-cutting measure, so they can produce them faster and cheaper,” Alric said.
Then Jake asked about getting a crew together for his ship, but Alric cut him off and said he had already assigned people to that job, and the crew size had reached one hundred people by now. Jake just looked at the man before saying, “I was just thinking maybe twenty or so, not one hundred.”
“Most of them are technically not needed, but when I heard about what happened on the shakedown cruise, I added more people in fields that would help if that kind of thing happened again.”
“So, scientists and the like?”
“Yes and no.”
“Alright, one last thing. I still have item upgrade tokens. Can I use them on territory tokens?”
“How many do you have?” Alric asked with a little smile.
Jake replied with, “×4 item upgrade tokens.”
“So you can use four to upgrade a planetary token to a solar system token, or use three to upgrade one large territory token to a planetary token, or you can use two tokens to upgrade the small tokens to medium. That being said, in the long run, upgrading the planetary token would be best, as you can use the two large tokens as they are to claim the territory you were given by simply using one in this settlement and one down in Tasmania. Then I will modify its shape to provide coverage for both. As for the small tokens, just hold onto them; who knows, you might be able to get your hands on more upgrade tokens.”
So Jake decided in the end to follow Alric’s advice, and he upgraded the planetary token. Then he used one large territory token before jumping into his runabout and blasting off to Tasmania to use the other one. Only after two days did Jake return, landing his runabout directly on the roof of the meeting hall before getting out and asking the sky if it worked. A second later, Alric appeared. “Yes, your territories are now under your command, and I am now beginning to open up citizenship to all those within your territory.”
Jake looked out for a couple of minutes, then asked how far away he was from being able to make teleporters. But Alric only replied, “a long time,” leaving Jake a little disappointed. Before Alric then said, “Once your planet opens up to the universe fully, you will be able to zip between as many locations as you like; it will just take time.” After thinking it over for a while, Jake asked if anyone had been monitoring the fleet’s actions, makeup, position, and if it looked like they were ready to attack.
“They seem to be spread throughout the system, and so far, we have only seen ships ranging from gunships to destroyers. As for their main base of operations, that would be one of the moons of Jupiter; I believe your people call it Ganymede. They set up a transportation base there; it’s where they are sending all the slaves they have acquired from Earth.”
“Thank you for your help. There is another task I don't know; you might have already done it, but the people…”
“If you’re talking about the people you brought back, I have set them up in the appropriate areas so they can make the most benefits to the current goal.” Alric went quiet for a second, then asked, “What will you be doing now?”
“I plan on making a splash out there, hopefully destroying some ships before they’re ready for it.”
“Are you going to be using your ship or something else? I'm just asking because if you're not, I think leaving it here to help with training would be a good second choice.”
“Do you have a replacement ship I could use?”
“There actually is. If you would like, I can show you. We have three, and they're fitted with fixed cannons and a point defence system.” Jake walked with Alric for fifteen minutes until they reached a large hangar. As they approached, the gigantic doors slid open, revealing three ships with a similar makeup to a cargo ship, but Jake could see straight off the bat these ships were more than that.
“Okay, I will take all three. Do they have a crew?” As Jake said this, nine people, all female, walked out from a side room but stopped when they saw Alric. “Sir Alric, have you got a new mission for us?”
“Yes, you will be going out to kill the enemy, but this time you will be accompanied by this man, and he will be dictating the mission's parameters.”
“But sir, we like to work alone, and we definitely don't need a man on our ships.”
“Well, stiff shit, you're stuck with me. As for why I get to call the shots, well that's simple: this is my fucken territory.”
Everyone went stone cold quiet.