"No deal then!" Van shouted.
The Emperor laughed. "I like your loyalty, I really do. But I fear this has nothing to do with you. These resistance fighters have been plaguing us for far too long. You may say farewell if you would like."
Van glanced at the wounded dragon. He wanted to believe that there was something that he could do to save Jet, but he knew there wasn't. He sighed deeply and walked over to the dragon.
"So, I am to die, then?" Jet wheezed as he slowly moved his head to face him. The dragon's body was mangled, and he was in sore shape. Truthfully, without any healing, he was most likely going to die anyway.
"I'm sorry," Van whispered. "I can't stop him."
"I think you have figured out an adequate way," Jet replied. "You humans are savage and violent. He will regret his choice."
"Is there any way for you to disconnect?" Van asked.
"I knew this was a one-way trip," Jet replied. "When I volunteered to enter into this game, they told me I wouldn't be able to come back until the game was shut down." His voice lowered. "My consciousness is uploaded into the game itself. I cannot die, but I won't have a body. Once this game shuts down, hopefully I will awaken."
"Oh," Van whispered. "So, I guess that's good?"
"Or I will be formless for an eternity, denied the power to move on to the next life," Jet said simply. "I would prefer to die rather than for that to happen. But the path has been chosen. Good luck, Van. Thank you for teaching me such wise things about the proper application of violence. If you are successful in your mission, I will never see you again, and if you fail, likewise. So… farewell. And thank you."
Van opened his mouth to reply to the dragon, but was cut off as the Emperor lunged forward and grabbed Jet by the head.
"Wretched Xevovs, always trying to undermine me. How foolish is your race to think they even have a chance? You cowards could do nothing to save yourselves from me, and you resisted only after we seized control of your home world."
"What?" Van asked. That story was markedly different from what Jet had told him.
"Lies!" Jet winced as the Emperor reached his claws into Jet's mouth and began to pry his jaws further open.
"Lies! Lies!" the Emperor bellowed. "I would have been proud to call you a foe if you had been able to resist me with force and violence of your own, but you hide in the shadows and beg other races to save you! You are not fit for this existence, and I will remove you from it! Now go to hell, where cowards belong!" And with that, he tore Jet's jaws wide enough to utterly rip his head in half.
"Holy crap!" Van shouted as blood rained down on him. The Emperor laughed heartily.
"Now, that was pleasure. Pure pleasure. You have earned your right to stand beside me, Van. You have earned it because you chose to look me in the eye as you tried to kill me. You didn't trick others into doing your dirty work."
Van wasn't sure if the Emperor was trying to lie to him or not now. On one hand, it was possible that the Emperor was trying to sew seeds of distrust, but on the other, the Emperor's character was consistent enough that it was conceivable he'd despise people for any sign of cowardice.
"There, now that the deed is done, it is time for you to come to my ship," the Emperor said.
"Your ship?" Van asked. "I get to go up in your ship?"
The Emperor shook his head. "Not your body. The ship exists within the game, as well. That is where I normally operate out of. We shall go there and begin to prepare. You will need to move your corporeal body to one of our facilities. Tell your government of the plan we have concocted and order them to stand down from their actions."
"Yeah…" Van said. "Sure."
"You sound uncertain," the Emperor said. "Are you backing out now? Shall I give my team the order to activate the system and obliterate the world?"
"No, no, I just don't know what to tell them. The government, I mean."
"Bah, tell them whatever you'd like," the Emperor snorted as he stretched his wings out. His health immediately returned to 200 as he laughed. "You all thought you had a chance. Admirable." And with that, Van felt himself ejected from the game.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sang opened her eyes as the pod opened. "Oh, I thought we were so dead!" she shouted. "Van, you brilliant bastard! How did you do that?"
"I have no idea!" Van said as he climbed out of the pod. "I have no idea how that worked."
"What's going on?" Neil asked. "We've been locked out of the monitoring systems – did you guys win? Is earth safe?"
Neil and O'Hara were both leaning against a spare pod, and were passing a bottle of brandy back and forth. Sang recognized it as her brandy, of course.
"We're close," Sang said. "Van figured a way to get us a stay of execution."
"Explain," O'Hara said as she crossed her arms.
And so the two explained everything. They talked about how the battle had gone down, how the Emperor had been playing games with them, and how Van had figured out a way to get aboard the ship. By the end of it, Neil was shaking with rage.
"I knew you'd figure out some way to screw us over!" Neil shouted. "I knew it!"
"Screw us over? I bought us a crap-ton of time so we can figure out how to save this planet and the rest of the universe," Van replied.
"Sure, you did. And this solution conveniently involves you relocating to a secret Draco facility where we don't have the ability to beat you senseless for your inevitable betrayal," Neil replied.
"No, you don't understand," Sang said. "This Emperor is like a god in the game. He can do whatever he wants. He has ultimate power. We gave killing him our best shot, but we didn't stand a chance! There was no victory for us, but we managed to get a bargain."
"So what? We just ease off then and let Van go run off and frolic with a god while the rest of us wait around for armageddon?" O'Hara asked. "What's the plan here?"
"I don't know," Van said. "There's something about this Emperor, though. He's different from his race. He hates his own species. He's never had to deal with another person challenging him. I think I can manipulate him… I'm just not sure yet."
"Well, great," Neil said. "Just great. So we get to tell our superiors that the mission was a success then, and then hope that this Emperor doesn't decide to push the button just for fun."
"I've got a plan," Sang said.
Van turned to look at her. "Please, I am all ears. What do you have for me?"
"It's not gonna be an easy one, but I'm thinking that if you're going to have physical access to one of their facilities, they might have some tech that we don't have access to. I mean, Draco created these regular pods for non-professionals to buy, right? What do they use?"
"True," Van said, "he did mention to me that he has a kind of pod available that I can stay in 24/7."
"So if you can access one of those pods…" Sang said as she rubbed her hands together, "you could probably find some way to access its schematics."
"Oh, I get it!" Neil said.
"What?" Van asked. "I'm not following."
"If we can understand how the Draco pods work, we might be able to develop some kind of virus that would just kill them," Sang said. "It won't be easy, but it's possible. I’m going to need to figure out how to get into that facility, though."
"Oh, so you were invited, too?" O'Hara asked.
Sang shook her head. "Hell, no! I'm going to have to sneak in."