EMPIRE: Resistance

by Richard F. Weyand

  Burke and Ardmore walked down the hallway to where Claire and her husband were standing by the dining room.

  “It’s so nice to be able to have you back again,” she said. “It’s like things are getting back to normal at last.”

  “It’s nice to be back, Claire,” Burke said.

  They went on into the dining room where the staff had the sideboard laid out with all the standard brunch fare. They filled their plates and ate mostly in silence. There was no talking business during the meal lest the ghost of Suzanne Saaret come back to haunt them.

  After brunch, with the coffee served and everyone out on the balcony on this beautiful morning, the discussion of recent events got under way.

  “How did the imposition of the tax caps go?” Ardmore asked Diener.

  “So far, so good. Once von Hesse came out so strongly in support of the Throne, all the other sector governors fell into line. The provincial governors took their lead from their bosses.”

  “What about the planetary governors, Paul?” Burke asked.

  “They’re happy with their five percent.”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, yes,” Diener said. “The excess taxes were all being spent at the province and sector level. Most planetary governors saw none of that, but they took a lot of grief over high taxes because they were the collectors. Now the taxes – and the complaints thereto appertaining – have gone way down, and most of the planetary governors haven’t lost anything.”

  “That I didn’t expect,” Ardmore said.

  “Me neither,” Burke said.

  “Yeah, the planetary governors love it,” Diener said. “That will put a lot of pressure on the provincial and sector governors to stay in line. And the planetary governors are the ones who actually collect the taxes. It’s their job to enforce that the legal tax is collected, and no more than the legal tax is collected, so there’s going to be no way for a provincial or sector governor not to comply.”

  “So we have an assassination attempt, and our big policy change sails through,” Ardmore said. “How weird is that?”

  “Well, for the next big policy change, the assassination attempt is yours, Jimmy,” Burke said. “I didn’t enjoy the last one much.”

  “I didn’t either, Love,” Ardmore said.

  He picked up her hand from the table, kissed it, and put it back.

  “Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Diener said. “What’s next? Tariffs and import bans?”

  “I don’t think we can really do that until we reassert control over the military. Right now the chain of command goes through the sector governors. And the military can be used to enforce tariffs and import bans whether we strike them down or not.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Diener said. “I think reasserting control over the military is easy.”

  “That’s interesting,” Ardmore said. “How so, Paul?”

  “OK, let’s say you’re a three- or four- or five-star general or admiral on a sector posting. What’s your major goal in life?” Diener asked.

  Burke shrugged.

  “The next star,” she said.

  “Right,” Diener said. “And who approves all promotions within the general staff?”

  “The Throne,” Burke said. “Of course!”

  “Correct,” Diener said. “And people who don’t follow orders when the chain of command is changed don’t get promoted, they get retired. That doesn’t have to happen very often before people get the message.”

  “Can we do that, though?” Ardmore asked. “Force their retirement? What if the sector governor says No and keeps them in place?”

  “Their paycheck comes from the Imperial Treasury,” Diener said. “When the sector governors inserted themselves in the command chain, they didn’t want to take on the payroll. So the officers stop getting paid. And if they don’t put in for their retirement benefits within ninety days, they lose them.”

  Ardmore looked to Burke, and she was nodding.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “So the sector governor’s control of the military is a phantasm.”

  “Correct,” Diener said. “The Throne controls the military, and always has. Still does. Because the Throne is where the money comes from.”

  “We can do that anytime we want, then,” Ardmore said. “So the question becomes, When do we smash the tariffs and import bans?”

  “Three months,” Diener said.

  “Three months?” Ardmore asked.

  “Yes. That’s when the impact of the tax caps will have been felt and fully appreciated by everyone. When people start seeing real differences in their lives from them. But it’s not long enough it’s become ‘the way things are’ yet. It’s still new. Then you drop another thing that’s new.”

  “And people will take it as yet another way the Throne is working to improve their lives,” Burke said.

  “Hopefully, yes,” Diener said.

  “That strikes me as right,” Ardmore said. “So is that our timeframe then?”

  Ardmore looked to Burke.

  “Sure, Jimmy. Works for me,” she said.

  Claire had watched this conversation in silence, but spoke up now.

  “I love this,” she said. “These conversations. It’s been seven years now, and I never get tired of them. I’m just afraid I can’t help much.”

  “Yes, you can, Claire,” Burke said. “None of the rest of us can just go out and go shopping or out to lunch or whatever in town. You can. You hear the scuttlebutt we don’t. How do people feel about the tax caps, for instance?”

  “The storeowners were initially enthusiastic, but they just had a bad week, because everyone was putting off purchases last week, waiting for the caps to kick in. So I think it was a good idea not to put it further out in the future.”

  “And now?” Burke asked.

  “I haven’t been out and about since Friday, but they were happy it was only a week, and looking forward to this coming week to see what would happen. They were optimistic business would pick up in a big way this week, better than it was before the caps were announced.”

  “What about your friends?” Burke asked.

  “That’s interesting, too. They’ve put off purchases, but they haven’t put off shopping. Their talk over lunch is about all the things they saw shopping they plan to buy once the caps kick in. It’s like an upcoming sale or something. They want to take advantage of the discount. And a couple are talking about putting additions on the house or sprucing up the condo, since it’s tax-free now.”

  “A microcosm of the Empire right there, I suspect,” Ardmore said.

  Burke laughed.

  “I wonder if Franz Becker moved to take advantage,” she said.

  “I would be surprised if he hadn’t,” Ardmore said. “His family is always on top of it, in that way, at least.”

  Franz Becker was at that moment in the study of his country house for the weekend. He had been re-injected with VR nanites this past Thursday, once the search-and-destroy nanites were gone, and they hadn’t kicked in yet. He was still doing his financial analyses on the projector, and could not yet access his full three-dimensional displays. Most of his work today was thinking about what came next.

  Becker had read Ardmore’s book. He knew where Their Majesties were heading. The next thing on their schedule would likely be free trade. He expected they would wait a bit before doing that, but not past the general warm glow of their popularity from the coronation and the specific positive reaction as people started getting the full benefit from the tax caps.

  They would want to ride in on the back of that with their next policy move. No sooner than two months, certainly, but not as much as six. More likely three or four. Which was good, because Becker’s construction investments should still surge for a month or so after the tax caps kicked in and people could see the increase in construction-related sales.

  So what would be a good investment going into a free-trade policy? It had to be a premium item. For
as much interstellar trade as there was, it wasn’t much on the scale of planetary consumption. Most of a planet’s needs it met itself. The only things that shipped interstellar were high-value bulk items like hybrid seeds and luxury items like gourmet liquors and foods and luxury manufactured items.

  Becker looked at the current trade tariffs and embargoes. What did the laws cover now? These were the local markets that were being protected, probably for corruption money.

  Which meant that, when the tariffs and embargoes were lifted, the stocks in the protected companies would fall and those in the companies whose products were burdened would rise. Perhaps by a lot. Which things were protected most? Which things were banned most? In the most sectors?

  Becker made lists of items and companies, saving his notes. He wouldn’t make any trades now. It was too early to move funds to get the full bang for the buck out of his construction-related investments. But he had time before Their Majesties moved, he was sure.

  Becker whistled to himself as he saved his work. This was a game he had been playing since he was ten and finally figured out what his father and grandfather did. As much hobby as job, he enjoyed it, and he had spent an enjoyable afternoon.

  Departure

  On Sunday, David and Jennifer Geary and Michael and Connie Benton took their sons Travis and Nathan out to the Mandrake Spaceport. Mandrake was a provincial capital, and they lived in the western outskirts of the capital city of Mandragora, so it was a quick train trip east into the city center, then switch trains and a trip out to the spaceport on the southeast outskirts.

  Jennifer and Connie had talked during the week, and Jennifer had calmed down about Travis’s decision. She had come to take some measure of pride in her son’s sense of duty and service. This had done much to smooth over her initial disappointment he had changed his scholarship, and she was happy though concerned their youngest would be leaving home.

  Each of the young men had a small suitcase along. They weren’t taking many belongings with them. Clothing styles would be somewhat different in Imperial City, so they just needed clothes for the trip. It would be three weeks including the stop at the sector capital of Lacomia, but the business-class passage afforded to scholarship students included laundry service. Other than that and toiletries, there wasn’t much else to take. Books, videos, and pictures of family were all in VR, like so much else.

  Neither of them had been off-planet before, so it was the first trip into space for both Geary and Benton. Both were excited about it, but, in the manner of young men from time immemorial, they tried to be blasé about it.

  When they got off the subway train in the spaceport train station, they took the escalators up into the main lobby. Signs indicated the sign-in counters for each of the passenger lines serving Mandrake. Imperial Interstellar Lines was prominent among them. Travis and Nathan walked up to the counter.

  “Yes, may I help you, sir?”

  “Uh, yes. We should be on your passenger list,” Geary said.

  “For which destination, sir?”

  “Uh, Center. Well, I guess it would be Lacomia first.”

  “And your name, sir?”

  “Geary.”

  Benton nudged Geary with his elbow.

  “Oh. And Benton.”

  “Yes, I see. Travis Geary and Nathan Benton. We have you on the passenger manifest here, sir. You are booked together into a double accommodation. It gives you two rooms to share – a bedroom and a sitting room – rather than a single room each.”

  “That’s fine,” Geary said.

  “The scholarship program must have booked us together because of the recruitment thing,” Benton said.

  “Yes, sir. It’s not unusual. You actually have the choice today of double beds or bunk beds. The bunk beds accommodation results in a smaller bedroom, but then you have a larger sitting room.”

  Geary looked to Benton and raised an eyebrow. Benton nodded.

  “We’ll take the bunk beds, please.”

  “Of course, sir. That will be through to Center. There’s no ship change at Lacomia. Just push your IDs to IIS Mandrake and I’ll push you your boarding passes.”

  They both pushed their VR addresses to IIS Mandrake, and received a message back almost immediately. The clerk nodded.

  “Very good. You’re all set, gentlemen. The shuttle will depart from gate twelve, just down this corridor here. That’ll be in about twenty minutes now.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sir. Good spacing.”

  “Take care of yourself, son. Study hard,” David Geary said.

  “I will, Dad.”

  “Make sure you eat properly. And let us know how things are going. Don’t disappear on us.”

  “I won’t, Mom.”

  Jennifer Geary gave her son a tearful hug.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  David Geary shook his son’s hand.

  “Good luck, son.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  The same scene was playing out with the Bentons, then business class was called and they got in line at the door for the shuttle.

  The shuttle itself was a lifting body with two engines mounted on each of four swiveling pylons on the four corners. One engine on the far side of the shuttle was at idle RPM. This unit would provide power to spin up the others for takeoff.

  The young men were in the main cabin of the shuttle. There was also a small separate cabin for first-class passengers. They took a pair of seats, then moved down one to close up the gap they had instinctively left as others got on and the shuttle filled. A lot of the passengers were near their age, heading to school or back to school on Lacomia or Center.

  “This is something, huh?” Geary asked.

  “Yeah. You ever flown before?”

  “No. Just trains.”

  “Well, it’s a lot like a train, except it goes up,” Benton said. “I’ve never been out of the atmosphere, though.”

  “How do they run the engines without atmosphere? That just occurred to me.”

  “They add oxidant to the fuel as they climb.”

  “Oh. OK. That makes sense,” Geary said.

  He was glad he was with Benton. Nothing like having an engineering student along for a trip like this.

  With all the passengers aboard and the door sealed, the pilots began spinning up the other seven engines. Then they sat idling on the pad, waiting for the on-board computer to synch up with the approach of the IIS Emperor Trajan as it overflew the planet. The Emperor Trajan would stay at one g of acceleration during its time in the Mandrake system so through passengers and crew would have continuous on-ship gravity during the stop.

  The engines, rotated to point straight down now, spun up and the shuttle lifted off, going straight up from the pad. It gained altitude to clear the spaceport, then the engines went to full thrust and rotated to thrust back and down. As the shuttle picked up forward speed and the body started to provide lift, the engines rotated more and more to the rear until the air over the shuttle body provided lift, gaining altitude all the while.

  Geary watched the takeoff in VR using the external cameras. He saw an external view of the shuttle taking off from the spaceport gate camera, then switched to the downward view camera on the shuttle. He watched first the spaceport, then Mandragora, shrink and fall behind the rising shuttle. He switched to the forward view as the sky grew darker and the stars started to appear, then to the side view of the horizon of Mandrake as they climbed ever higher.

  “This is really amazing,” Geary said.

  “Start looking for the Emperor Trajan,” Benton said. “She should be coming in from in front of us. Her engines will be toward us as she decelerates. I think, anyway. The computers have to match velocities while maintaining acceleration.”

  Geary started flipping through the outside cameras, looking for the brightest star, the one that wasn’t fixed with regard to the rest of the starscape. There she was.


  “She’s coming in from the left and in front of us,” Geary said.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s her. She should start rotating to build velocity in our direction.”

  The Emperor Trajan did in fact rotate to start building velocity in their direction, even as the shuttle turned about forty-five degrees to the right to match hers. She kept getting bigger and bigger in the camera view. Several times Geary thought they must collide, but he had no sense of scale of the big liner. She just kept getting bigger and bigger.

  “Holy shit,” Geary said.

  “Yeah, she’s one of the big ones. A lot of the liners that run through Center are pretty large. Still has to fit through the hypergate, but the regional and provincial hypergates keep getting upgraded with bigger ones.”

  The shuttle sidled closer to the big ship, and Geary could see a boom extended from the side of the big liner with a dolly on the end of it. The shuttle edged under the boom, then up against the dolly. There was a clanking as the dolly and the shuttle latched to each other, then the throttles were cut and the shuttle’s engines spooled down.

  “We still have gravity,” Geary said. “We’re being accelerated by the ship now?”

  “Yeah,” Benton said. “Can’t jostle the passengers. No zero-g or anything like that.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  The Emperor Trajan reeled in the dolly until the shuttle was up against the liner. Hatches found each other, sealed, and hatches opened. They queued out with the other passengers, passing the queue of outbound passengers waiting to board the shuttle for Mandrake.

  They were shown to their cabin by a porter. They had a small sitting room with two comfortable chairs, and a tiny bedroom with a set of bunk beds. There was a bath off to one side that included a shower.

  “Top or bottom bunk?” Benton said.

  “My brother and I had bunk beds. I always had the top, but either’s fine with me.”

  “You take the top, then?”

  “Sure,” Geary said.