"All right, what did you come here for, a fight?" Sailor Uranus asked, more than willing to get these games over and get to the real battle.
"Hardly," replied the governor, somehow managing to put enough sarcasm in that single word to stop Uranus' charge. "Look. Sailor Mercury. Can you scan this device before I activate it?"
Sailor Mercury looked at the device with her visor. "It's some kind of multi-phasic barrier generator."
"I'm disappointed," said the governor. "I was hoping your visor would tell you it was an anti-eavesdropping device."
"So you didn't come here to fight?" Uranus asked, wondering if a "World Shaking" to take out one of the Dark Generals would particularly get anyone upset with her.
"No," said Governor Kemp, activating the device. "Now we can't be overheard, viewed through binoculars and lipread, and a number of other eavesdropping methods are going to be foiled."
"So, this means you're turning against your own side and surrendering to us?" hazarded Venus.
"...no..." Governor Kemp indicated. "Look. I came to tell you about some things without anyone listening in. Do you mind? I've got a country to run and bring into the 23rd Century. Just getting the usual 'hand out' mentality kicked out of some quarters is going to be a pain."
"Oh," said Venus, who had been hoping that this guy would actually turn out to be some handsome prince in disguise who had fallen deeply in love with her and was changing sides as a result.
"First off. There's a few nations that feel you aren't really fit to represent them and have sent assassins to track you down and put all sorts of nasty little holes in you." The Governor of Australia shrugged. "Hey, I was talking to the Governor of Germany and we agreed that if it was us, we'd want to be told about it."
"There's assassins after us?!" Sailor Moon's pigtails were trying to stick out in alarm. They only made loops so maybe she was only half-alarmed.
"How do we know you're telling us the truth?" demanded Uranus.
"Yeesh. Remind me not to send you a Christmas present. You'd probably blast it into next week." The ersatz Dark General looked heavenwards as if pleading for someone more sane to take over the post. "That's one thing. We also suspect some cheating."
"AH HAH!" Uranus pounced on this. "He cheated in the mud wrestling competition and the volleyball!"
"No. He's handicapping himself, nit," said the Governor with some exasperation. "We think it's some alien sense of sportsmanship or something. The mud wrestling should have been no contest at all. Amalthea should have beaten the fuku out of you in that race. We've come up with a few theories, but nothing definite. If he goes for an even number of wins and losses with you - he may throw the final fight."
"Deliberately lose after he's rebuilt large segments of Earth?" Mercury puzzled over that. "Why?"
"He's an ancient alien, it may be that this is part of that sheer alien-ness about 'im," said the Governor, making a waggling motion with his fingers. "Look 'ere - the other possibility is he's got some plan for gracefully leaving at the end and seeing if the human race can respond to the challenge of the tech and just the information of aliens. Sort of a final exam, is how we look at it. If humanity falls to fighting over the spoils of the high tech or turning its back on the future - or do we take the challenge and head out to the stars on our own?"
Uranus frowned. Sounded like the sort of sneaky thing some alien would do. THEN they'd come back and start eating brains or something!
"Well, that's it, I just wanted to let you know and maybe you could start looking out for snipers or such. The higher levels of the aristocracy in both of the alien's territories know your secret identities if we look up the right files. I don't know how much the Intel of various other governments might have. In any case, just try to take care, will you?"
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(Posted Sat, 02 Aug 2003 14:45)
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