Chasing the Jewelled Throne
Page 12
Chapter 12; The First Four Years
(from Aldo-to Rulo LXI)
The first years were pretty quiet. The General had many saboteurs already in place throughout the Empire. The damage that they were able to accomplish kept any attempts to consolidate the revolt to a minimum. Almost weekly, all communications throughout the Empire would be totally cut off by an explosion of unknown origin. Motors would cease to function and power would cease to flow to some section of Arth.
The worst damage was that all the control computers for the Jump Tube System were periodically given a nervous breakdown. People would wind up on the other side of the galaxy from where they had expected to be. In a short while, the tubes sat idle. People refused to trust them. All transportation was done by ship, setting the Empire back two hundred years and slowing all the business almost to a stand still.
Life on Base Two was pleasant enough. There was plenty of food and shelter. Morale was kept up by the incoming reports of the trouble Keeth was having keeping his new Empire running. Every one at Base Two delighted in the reports of no power. They heard about delayed broad casts. Lea, who had done most of the work of creating the jump system, delighted in the stories about people getting in to a jump tube to go some where and ending up clear at the other end of the galaxy.
At Base Three, half a galaxy away, almost three million Loyalist guard and naval troops were assembling. The biggest problem was a lack of naval vessels. Troops could be moved by beaming, but it was so slow and the men got so sick if they went very far. The lack of modern naval vessels was critical. To make matters worse, after the tube system was sabotaged, even the Royals couldn’t use it.
As usual, General Z’s biggest problem came from Aldo. His constant complaining was more than the General could stand sometimes. It got so that Lea created a hologram of the General nodding and pretending to listen to the daily transmissions from the two bases. General Z credits this hologram with extending Aldo’s life past this period.
Aldo never understood that this revolution was as much his fault as the Admiralty’s. The way the Empire had been run had been as big of a crime as the revolution. Both he and his father had bled the Empire dry trying to find the newest of sensual experiences and leaving in their wakes more and more people who simply became disgusted with their antics.
This had accounted for the increase in the number of outer providences trying to become independent. People of the fringes were an independent lot anyway and they could see no value in remaining part of an Empire that had abandoned them. It was this decay in the bonds between Emperor and subject and the ambitions of a powerful Chief Admiral that had directly led to the fix they were all in now.
Keeth was not immune to these pressures either. One by one, these dis satisfied outer providences overthrew their old government connections and opted for independence. So, increasingly, he was forced to pull more ships off the search and face down these rebel warlords. General Z was glad for the assistance, but he knew these men would have to be faced by his people also once they had regained the Jeweled Throne.
Basically, though, Z’s plan was to disrupt the Admiralty’s efforts to forge a new Empire as much as possible. Then, after their quick attacks, his troops would lay low. So far, this seemed to keep Keeth’s troops busy to give the Royal side time to get organized. This was his vision for a galactic strategy that would appeal to his besotted son-in-law. That was becoming increasingly difficult. It was all the entire Royal Family could do to keep Aldo from leading ill prepared and poorly equipped troops into a quixotic frontal assaults on Arth that first year.
On New Year’s, he went to see his family and to check conditions at Base Three. The troops were reviewed in a professional manner. Each heir was given a warrion to command and sector to be responsible for. The troops were then shipped into position and Base Three was abandoned except for maintenance crews. The temporary Palace was then shifted to Base Two.
The real reason for moving the Emperor was not told. Aldo’s health was failing. His life of dissipation was beginning to take its toll. No one thought that he would make it much longer. Two weeks after the consolidation, he passed on. He was buried in the three blue sons of Loraz where all the Emperors for the last three hundred years were buried.
The ceremony was broadcast over official channels. It had been taped and delivered to an operative within the Sundown Report System. He edited the tape and ran it before anyone could shut off the machinery, which somehow had been glued into position.
A Security Captain blasted the console to try to stop the broadcast. He was executed the next day charged with responsibility for shutting the system down for two days for repair. This went into the morale report circulated throughout the Loyalist forces and generally was responsible for helping them get through the loss of their leader.
Rulo became the 61st Menzi to hold the scepter. He took it very reluctantly. He saw himself as a fighting man, not an Administrator. During his childhood, Rulo had never suspected that he would ever be Emperor. His Grand father was still alive. His brother was strong and willing to serve. Rulo loved the freedom and adventure of space. To that end, as soon as they would let him, he had gone to the Naval Academy. He had studied hard and had done well there. His long term plan had always been as head of his brother’s Admiralty.
He had been blooded in many battles against pirates and rogue break away units. He had shown a good head for creating strategy. He had shown a stout heart in hand to hand fighting. At the time of the coup, he held the rank of Rear Admiral. He commanded a Warrion in an outer sector. His area had been pacified. He chafed at the Administrative role that his being called to the throne. He assigned as many of the Administrative tasks to his brothers and sisters.
And now, to the great dismay of General Z, Rulo insisted on leading the first engagement of his portion of the war. He wanted the troops to think of him as a fighting emperor. He wanted the whole empire to know that he was not afraid to fight for them so that they would fight for him. The General’s concern was that the Royal side was not ready for a serious push to begin.
Rulo was a different kind of Menzi then his grand father had served in a long while. He was no bonbon stuffed dandy. He was also not a dutiful son-in-law facing the wrath of wife and children. He had earned his stars on his own merit. “Sir, I honor your service to my family. Hell, you are part of this family.” He looked sternly at his Grand father, “Do I need to remind you that you serve at MY discretion.”
The general was immediately chastened. He knew he had gone too far, “No, Sire.”
“Fine. You have my permission to retire or prepare for the campaign I have detailed to begin immediately.”
Foolish or not, the good general knew he must stay at the head of the Guardians to protect his two daughters and their research in the Tech-Body. He knew research was the key to defending against a vastly superior force. “By your command, Sire. I will obey.”
Sadly, the General was right. Rulo, as he had predicted, led his troops into a no win situation. Rulo died at the battle of Pterogon III in the second month of his reign. He had gathered his troops at a temporary base on an uninhabited M3 planet in the Pterogon system. On the day before he planned to attack, Keeth surprised him there. One hundred seventy thousand men, women and children died there that day. They fought bravely.
Admiral Keeth was happy at last to be fighting with someone of substance. He had personally placed the stars on Rulo’s collar. The battle lasted nearly a week. It was an inch by inch turf war that ravaged the lush green planet. By the time it was over, Keeth had lost several hundred thousand of his own troops as well. This time, he did find the Emperor. He was so glad to see his dead body in the wreckage of the head quarters building complex that he didn’t respond correctly to his own losses for nearly a day. He knew that, with Rulo out of the picture, the Royals had lost their best tactician.
In a fit of rage the next morning over the serious losses amongst his own troops, Keeth ord
ered the slaughter of everyone still at base camp number four as an example for anyone wishing to join the Royal cause. He ordered that their bones should lay unburied, exposed to the beetle scavengers of that planet. The battle site was guarded by the Third Fleet for nearly a year until all traces of the Emperor and his Royal First Warrion were erased from the surface and dragged below to be fed to the Pterogonian slug babies.