Many people from Ranma's old stomping grounds (AKA the Nerima ward of Tokyo) would be surprised that Ranma Saotome, of all people, learned the value of patience and planning.
The half-man/half-machine conqueror had had years, decades even, to change his past ways. His life didn't revolve around martial arts contests anymore. This was War and by all means, he was going to win it!
From what he had gathered from the 'old' reality, the Dark Kingdom had attacked the Moon by surprise with overwhelming strength. It had been a phyrric victory at best at the time and in the long term, a complete defeat. No, as long as Queen Serenity had the Ginzuishou and Sailor Pluto stood guard at the Time Gates, a direct assault would be... ill advised.
"Revenge is a dish best served cold...," whispered Ranma, gazing at the idyllic scenery of Earth's moon, "I can wait a little more. Failure is not an option. In the end, I will prevail!"
While Ranma mused about his opening move, the computer spoke again "My lord, do you have new orders?"
Ranma's smirk became predatory "Actually, yes... I need more information on the Solar System, its inhabitants, its society, its defences, everything. I want infiltrator units prepared for insertion as soon as possible"
"By your command!"
*****
Ranma had learned to appreciate espionage early on in his military campaigns. The more you knew about your enemy, the more prepared you could be to fight him... Sun Tzu had been drilled into his head by his father, long ago, and he was using his teachings as they had meant to be.
For you see, the sailor senshi's insistence at enforcing their subjects' loyalty through brainwashing (Purification was a disgusting euphemism) worked for his favor. Since everyone had been 'purified' and made loyal beyond reproach, betrayal of any kind was impossible, right?
Through the years, the machines serving Ranma had designed several lines of androids dedicated to the infiltration of human societies. They were pretty much undetectable and immune to magical mind control. They could switch identities at will and copy/impersonate anyone to near absolute perfection.
And since it was Ranma here, each infiltrator unit was also a deadly hand-to-hand fighter, wise in the ways of Ninjutsu.
A lone ship left the fortress at the heart of the Chaos Nebula. Once it was far enough from the artificial astronomical phenomenon, it opened a jump point and vanished into hyperspace.
*****
The ship reemerged a short time later outside the solar system, where the jump point couldn't be spotted by anyone from the Moon Kingdom. It activated its cloaking device and disappeared from sight. Just to be sure, it also began broadcasting tachyons to scramble any kind of temporal scans.
It waited for a while then entered the Solar System at sub-light speed. Once again, a machine sent by Ranma went undetected because the Moon Kingdom's defences watched out only for mystical menaces.
Cloaked capsules were launched toward all inhabited planets, Earth included. Each of them contained a self-sufficient infiltrator android programmed to integrate themselves into society and report back to the Master.
In time, they could also lay the groundwork for the coming invasion, recruiting opponents to the current regime to form a Fifth Column and preparing sabotages and/or key people assassinations.
It had worked on countless worlds before so Ranma was pretty sure it would do so again. In the meantime, while his androids were busy with phase 1, he would turn back his attention to other targets.
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(Posted Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:46)
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