System Supervillain, Chapter 121

Chapter 121 – Planning

King William V was a rather unremarkable-looking man. Not in a bad way, but take him out of the fancy formal outfits and all that, and just put him in a suit and tie? He’d look like your typical corporate executive, especially with the security detail around him. If he went somewhere that his face wasn’t literally on the money, he’d stand a good chance of not being recognized. Most people didn’t care about other countries’ monarchs enough to recognize them by sight, after all, unless they were up to heinous shit that kept them in the global news.

The King and the General in charge of this camp looked up as we entered, the conference room they’d taken over as a command center, and his guards stiffened when they saw me. Well, not that I blamed them. Even without my activities over the last couple weeks, I was fairly infamous for my abilities, and they had to know that they didn’t stand much of a chance against me now that I was already in striking distance.

“Your Majesty,” the Green Knight bowed, before nodding to the General in charge. “General Ellis. Apologies for intruding, but Iceblade and his team, Devastation, have just arrived, and they have information about the portal in London.”

The King straightened in his chair, and nodded. “Very good. What do you have? Is there anything on the people trapped behind the shield? We’ve only been able to get landline communications, and even then, the numbers have been steadily decreasing.”

I took a step forward, to center all eyes on me, and said, “While I was removing the Gel-nak presence from Earth orbit, one of my pets, Web Mistress, was breaking into their networks and finding what information she could about the Gel-nak Empire, and the worlds the portals are connected to.”

I paused, and said, “To answer your question about the people, they are being rounded up and taken through the portals, as slaves, while more and more troops are being brought through the portal to reinforce their position here. The same is happening in the other cities, as well. As for your people, they are being taken to a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, ten and a half light-years away. And, unfortunately, there really isn’t anything you can do for them.”

“You’re saying that We should abandon Our people?” The King said, crossly.

“I’m saying that, unless you have the strength to send an army through the shield, and take the portal before someone gets the idea to simply turn it off or break it, then you should focus on those who you can still save. Yes, there are almost one and a half million people trapped behind that shield, or already taken through the portal to the other side. However, you still have sixty-seven million people to think about, not counting the whole ‘Commonwealth’ stuff. And you have an opportunity to hit the Gel-nak, and make it hurt.”

General Ellis leaned forward, his eyes alight. “How?”

“The Gel-nak Emperor is unhappy with the slow progress of his forces. According to what Web Mistress has uncovered, his version of the Admiralty has already seen some ‘posthumous resignations’, thanks to the debacle of the Uprising Controls being so widely advertised. The fact that ground troops have been forced back or wiped out in seven of the ten cities targeted is making him focus on the remaining bridgeheads. Right now, he is personally on a ‘morale inspection’ in Epsilon Eridani.”

General Ellis nodded slowly. “So, a decapitation strike? Even if you weren’t successful, even getting close enough to make the attempt would shake their confidence somewhat. But can you do it? The Emperor will most likely have plenty of guards, and I doubt you’ll be able to simply waltz through them. To say nothing of the fact that the literal armies on either side of the portal.”

“I can make it through to the other side, with my team. As for killing the Emperor himself? I won’t know until I actually face him, but the System is rather adverse to making anyone simply immune to getting killed, so it should be possible. However, I want a few things to help ensure success, instead of making this a one-way trip.”

King William took a breath, and said, “What do you want from us?”

“Two things. First, a general offensive on the shield and the army inside while I make my attack, to draw attention away from the Emperor’s position. Second, I would like to ‘borrow’ the warhead from one of your Trident II missiles.”

The atmosphere in the room suddenly got so cold that one might have thought I used my powers. For a few moments, no one spoke. Then, the King broke the silence, and his tone was incredulous. To his credit, he didn’t start laughing or take offense at the admittedly outrageous suggestion. “You are asking me to give you, a supervillain, a nuclear weapon?”

I shrugged, unaffected by his tone. After all, I wasn’t unaware of how insane that would sound, under normal circumstances. “Yes, actually. My plan, such as it is, works like this. I use my team’s abilities to infiltrate the Gel-nak base on the other side of the portal, while your troops and the different capes you’ve assembled here make a push on the shield, to draw attention away from the Emperor’s location. I will take that opportunity to strike.

“Killing the Emperor outright is merely one of the goals of the operation. It is the flashiest of the goals, and the one that will do the most to break the Gel-nak’s will, but it is not the only thing I have planned. The second act will be to use an ability that the System has opened for me, thanks to how my powers are structured. I will plunge the world that the Gel-nak are staging from into an ice age. And then, just before my team and I escape back through the portal and turn it off, I want to give the Gel-nak a nuke as a ‘going away’ present, further crippling their operations on the planet.”

I paused for a moment, and said, “However, as I’m sure you’ve been informed, the capes have come to an informal ‘understanding’ between heroes and villains to temporarily suspend ‘normal business’ while the Gel-nak are here. Stealing nuclear weapons is a risky move, even during normal business, since people are understandably touchy about such things. Doing it now would be a stupid move on my part. So, I thought I would ask for one, instead. Of course, you have my word that I will not use it, or allow it to be used, anywhere on Earth or in its orbit.”

The Green Knight cleared his throat, to get eyes on him. “Sire, I must reluctantly point out that it is well known in the superhero community that Iceblade keeps to the letter of any agreement he makes. He may flagrantly void the spirit of an agreement at times, but he will never go back on the letter of it. If he says he will not use it on Earth, or allow anyone else to use it on Earth, then you can be assured that it is so.”

And this was why I made sure to cultivate a reputation for always going by the letter of an agreement, and being a reasonable sort of supervillain. If I had a reputation as a liar, or someone who could not be trusted to follow through on an agreement, then the Green Knight, with his own reputation for honor and honesty, would never have vouched for me in this way. If I’d gotten a reputation as a psychopath, then they wouldn’t have even trusted me in the same room as the King, even if ‘normal business’ was off the table.

Not that I had ever envisioned a situation like this happening, of course. I’d just built my reputation on the idea that it opened more opportunities for me than it cut off. Same with how I tried to limit collateral damage in my attacks, even when I was doing contract assassinations, and I didn’t go around trying to kill heroes, as a rule. Which meant that, when I did kill someone, there was a message to it, that everyone understood.

The King looked at the general. “General Ellis, your thoughts?”

“With respect, your Majesty, I understand your hesitation to trust a supervillain with nuclear weapons. Under any other circumstances, I would advise against it. With things as they are? The Gel-nak warriors have armor that is far superior to the standard armor our soldiers wear, and their weapons are beyond anything our normal soldiers carry. Some of our special forces are outfitted with basic power armor that would make them comparable, but they would be severely outnumbered. The other cities where the portals were not activated show that, with the various supers helping an assault, we can win out in time. However, that is only if they are cut off from reinforcement and resupply. If they can replenish their numbers, and possibly bring in whatever their version of tanks or fighters are, and establish a true foothold on Earth? Things get much worse.”

The King took a moment to think. I hadn’t done much work in Britain, but the super community talked. There had always been whispered ‘questions’ about the way his father and his new wife had died on the anniversary of his mother’s death, leaving him free to take the throne when his grandmother, the reigning queen, finally died a few years ago. Since taking the throne, he’d earned a reputation for pragmatism, but there were also dark rumors about the Scapa Flow Undersea Penitentiary, which was where the UK kept their super-criminals that got caught. Funny enough, no matter how long a person’s sentence was, they were rarely seen again after getting sent to Scapa Flow.

Finally, he spoke. “If we do this, if we give you the opening and the weapons you need, can you do it? Can you kill the Emperor of the Gel-nak?”

“If I can’t, with Devastation at my side, then there isn’t anyone on Earth that can. Unless he has some contingency plan to run away and escape. While it would be considered rank cowardice by the Gel-nak to have something like an emergency teleporter, I’ve found that leaders who talk the most about courage and honor are the ones who are the quickest to cover their ass and run from any trouble that might threaten them. The ones who, instead of hiding in a bunker or their palace, but come out and see what needs to be done are more likely to stand their ground if things to a fight.”

The King nodded. “General, how soon can we get a warhead here?”

The general frowned, and said, “I believe that HMS Vendetta is in Devonport. However, unloading a missile and disassembling it to transport the warhead? That is not a quick process, by design, and there are safeguards in place to thwart the use of powers to speed that up. If you gave the order now, I wouldn’t count on them having the warhead removed before tomorrow at the earliest, and then it would still be four hours to transport it securely here.”

“Very well,” he said. “Get me a secure line to the base, then, so we can get things started. Green Knight, as King, I request you find a group of supers to join the convoy protecting the weapon as it travels.” The general and the Green Knight both saluted, and the King turned his attention my way. “Please do not take this as a slight against you, but while I trust you will do as you say with this weapon, I am not about to let you or yours into anywhere with other nuclear weapons.”

“Your Majesty, I would be offended if you did otherwise,” I said, chuckling. “If you so readily trusted any supervillain inside your secure nuclear facilities or on board nuclear-armed warships, then that would mean that either you believe that you have some means of controlling them, now or in the future, or that you were categorically unfit to rule. And your reputation does not suggest you are unfit for your crown.”

The King just smiled. “You are not the only one who believes in the power of a good reputation, you know.”