“Yes, he was dispatched rather spectacularly. And King Peter. And Gustav Adolph. Along with perhaps a hundred million of their subjects.”
“Including all the major and minor bureaucracy and all the court hangers-on and sycophants.”
“Yes, it was rather a clean sweep,” Bowdoin said. “Much quicker than we’re able to accomplish, I’m afraid.”
“I wonder if there isn’t a lesson there, though. In Garland, the capital sector was run out of a different city. That’s what Schmitt-deVries is using to build his new government around. Maybe what we ought to do is simply fire everyone at the kingdom level and rebuild from the sector administration.”
“That would certainly put an end to all the power-grabbing and clawing at each other.”
“It sure would,” Rottenburg said. “Right now it’s like a million angry ferrets playing musical chairs.”
Bowdoin laughed at the imagery.
“Well, it’s certainly worth thinking about.”
“As I say, though, you were right. So I wondered what you saw happening next in your crystal ball,” Rottenburg said.
“I don’t think anyone is going to attack Sintar again. It’s clear that, as brutal as the first attacks were, the Emperor was holding back. If he wanted to, he could just wipe out anyone. Anywhere. With impunity. Who’s going to fight that?”
“So you think the attacks against Sintar are over? Really?”
“Yes. Among the Alliance nations, anyway,” Bowdoin said. “What the Democracy of Planets thinks about having such a powerful Sintar – where the Emperor can attack anyone, anywhere, with impunity – is a different matter.”
“You think the DP will attack Sintar?”
“The prime minister may not have a choice. The opposition party is moving toward a no-confidence vote. It may be the only way to stave off the opposition and retain his position.”
“At the cost of hundreds of millions or even billions of lives?” Rottenburg asked.
“Of course. The leaders seldom suffer when they wage war. The Emperor’s attacks on Annalia, Berinia, and Garland were pleasantly exceptional in that regard. Hopefully it’s a trend.”
It was almost a week after the Operation Hadrian attacks that Benjamin Wheeler, Vice Sector Governor of Pannia Sector, received another cryptic message from his Garland correspondent. He immediately contacted Sector Governor Howard Walthers, and the message was forwarded on to Emperor Trajan on Sintar.
Dunham, Peters, and Saaret met in Dunham’s office to discuss the message.
“It’s characteristically cryptic, Your Majesty” Saaret said, looking at the message.
BW: I seek an audience with His Majesty. FSdVR
“What’s the R about, Mr. Saaret?” Peters asked.
“Rex, Milady,” Saaret said. “Latin for king. Like putting Imp after Trajan. Imp is short for Imperator. Emperor in Latin.”
“So he’s unchallenged then?” Peters asked, looking back and forth between Dunham and Saaret.
“Appears to be, Milady,” Saaret said.
“The question is, What’s his game? What does he want?” Dunham asked.
“Hard to say, Your Majesty,” Saaret said. “He’s not that well-known other than in his role as foreign minister, but for that his policies were necessarily James’s. We’ve rustled up some bio on him, and people are looking at that now. You’re involved in that, aren’t you, Milady?”
“Yes, Mr. Saaret,” Peters said absently.
Her mind was running through what she had read and seen about King Francis, including the just-released human-interest news video of him having been rescued from a farmhouse where he had been hiding out from King James with some service families even as the attack on Estvia went forward. She looked at the note again, and it jumped out at her.
“He wants annexation,” she said.
“What? Are you sure, Milady?” Saaret asked.
Dunham looked at Peters, and a small smile touched his face. Here she goes again. Peters looked at him and grinned back.
“Look. He was hiding from King James at a farmhouse in the country. Some navy families, the spouses and children of service members who had managed to survive the war so far. Talk about having your nose rubbed in it. And they took him in. One of the richest people in the whole kingdom, and in his need he’s taken in by a simple farm family, and lives with them for weeks.”
Peters turned to Saaret.
“Do you know what the VR penetration in Garland is, Mr. Saaret?” she asked in apparent non-sequitur. “It’s a publicly available number.”
“No idea, Milady.”
“Three percent. This family didn’t have it. Not even the navy people. And they were economically well-off by the standards of, say, the Emperor’s childhood. Very well off. But even at that, the Emperor had VR from the age of four. King Francis was foreign minister. He knows all that.
“And he couldn’t use his own VR while he was in hiding. It would be back-traced. According to reports, when he finally contacted the Garland navy, the Marines beat his cousin’s henchmen to his location by mere minutes. The point being, he knows now, as he hasn’t since he was a child, what it is to be without VR.
“But there’s a signal in his message, too. He doesn’t say he wants a meeting with the Emperor. He says he wants an audience. And not with Emperor Trajan. With ‘His Majesty.’ And he doesn’t sign it ‘King Francis II of Garland,’ which he has every right to do. He simply adds an R to his initials.
“Do you see? A subject asks for an audience. A foreign ruler asks for a meeting. A subject says His Majesty. A foreign ruler would say Emperor Trajan. And he minimizes his own position, with a simple R after his initials, rather than his full title and all.
“He’s asking to be subordinate to the Emperor. He’s asking for annexation.”
Peters sat back in her chair and looked back and forth between them. Dunham turned to Saaret.
“Well, Mr. Saaret?”
“Milady Empress’s logic is unassailable, Sire, as is her insight. I won’t say it’s one hundred percent, but I would estimate it at over eighty percent.”
“Agreed, Mr. Saaret,” Dunham said. “So what do I do with that? Do we agree to annex Garland?”
“Garland is, I think, seventy-five hundred planets and perhaps nine trillion people, Your Majesty.”
Saaret looked at Peters, and she nodded. He turned back to Dunham as he continued.
“In that case, it’s a pretty small additional burden after the annexations of Phalia and the Rim, which are two of the largest of the Alliance countries, together with Annalia and Cascade. And it doesn’t create any border issues, as Garland is contiguous to both us and Phalia. If King Francis seeks annexation, I think we should probably do it. We certainly don’t want him to seek annexation to the DP as an alternate. That would give the DP an outpost on our farside.”
“All right, Mr. Saaret. I think I agree with you. I’ll give it some thought, then we’ll set up a meeting.”
It was the end of yet another exhausting day as King Francis worked to get his kingdom’s new government organized. He sat in the penthouse suite of the hotel he had commandeered – from one of his own companies, as it turned out – and looked out over the lights of Blossom. He took a sip of his drink and sighed.
His contemplations were interrupted by a mail message in VR.
FSdVR: Audience granted. Details to follow. Trajan.
King Francis’s mood immediately lightened. It was a good day, after all.
A very good day.
The Future of Garland
Dunham was waiting in the VR meeting room when King Francis arrived on time. It was, as Dunham preferred when meeting with another ruler, a featureless room with two leather club chairs. King Francis’s avatar was wearing a simple, though expensive, business suit, as was Dunham’s.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Your Majesty,” King Francis said.
“It’s good to see you again, Your Highness. Let’s be seated
, shall we?” Dunham asked while waving toward the chairs.
They were seated before King Francis spoke again.
“Yes, we did meet previously, Your Majesty. I want to state up front the policies I represented then were not mine, but those of my predecessor.”
“As was required of you, Your Highness. I understand. But more recently you were of assistance in averting a major war crime against Sintaran citizens. That, by contrast, was your own policy, if you will.”
King Francis relaxed. Their first meeting was one possible cause of friction between the two men. Well, that and the war their countries had been fighting – and his had been losing – for almost a year. But that was an affair between nations. It was more susceptible to logic, less emotional, than relations between people.
“Your Majesty, may I ask you when you received your VR neural implants?” King Francis asked.
“When I was four, Your Highness.”
King Francis nodded.
“As did I. And yet you were born to the most meager of circumstances whereas I was born to the highest of privilege. May I ask you the penetration of VR in Sintar’s population?”
“It approaches one hundred percent, Your Highness. Some people refuse, for religious reasons. Especially on the planet Amana. But it’s one hundred percent of those who want them.”
“And in Garland, Your Majesty, it is about three percent. I had this impressed on me rather forcefully in the last month, as you might have heard.”
“I had, Your Highness.”
“Most of the remaining members of my own Navy do not in fact have VR implants. The flag staff all does, and some captains coming due for promotion, but most do not. The ones who did were all pulled into the warships we bought from the DP and which, well, we no longer have.
“That is just a small part of the failings of the government to which I am heir, Your Majesty. A symptom, if you will, of what has been a much larger disease. A kingdom run for its nobility, on the backs of its people.”
“And yet you are of the nobility, Your Highness.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. The fact of which my most recent experiences have left me ashamed.”
Dunham raised an eyebrow at that.
“That was not an overstatement, Your Majesty. Our system was not just inhumane, it was stupid. A gigantic waste of human potential. Our own nobility would have been better off – much better off – if we had done better by our people. A richer nation has more wealth for everyone. Sintar is a shining example of that. In comparison, we are, in aggregate, poor, and will remain so for a long time. We do not lack intelligence. We do not lack spirit, or industriousness, or skill. But it will take decades to undo what has been done, to work our way down a different path, to catch up to where we could have been, what we could have achieved.
“That is where I found myself after Your Majesty removed – and with good cause – the current government and its supporters and hangers on. Responsible for the lives and fortunes and futures of some nine trillion people. Good, solid folks who have been abused over centuries by a select few. The task I face is monumental, and there is the problem.
“I am not a young man, Your Majesty. I am nearly twenty years older than you are, and I do not have nearly the time left to carry through the changes that need to be made. And when I am gone, what will happen?”
“If history is any guide, Your Highness, the remaining nobility will reinstate their ancient privileges.”
“Reversing everything I could accomplish. Exactly, Your Majesty. That is the future Garland faces. I stared that bleak truth in the face, and could see no escape.
“Unless, maybe....
“I knew, of course, of Sintar’s annexation of Pannia and, more recently, Estvia. I am friends with Sector Vice Governor Wheeler in Pannia, and I watched the events there with interest. But then I saw news of your recent annexation of Phalia and the Rim. Unlike Pannia and Estvia, they were belligerents in the recent war – which I consider over now, by the way – and yet annexation was not out of the question. For you or for them. On an equal basis to the rest of the Empire at that. And I wondered.
“Your Majesty, would you – could you – see your way clear to annexing Garland, and give my people an escape from the stunted future you and I can both clearly see?”
“We have been considering this issue since receiving your note through Mr. Wheeler, Your Highness.”
“You anticipated my question, then, Your Majesty?”
“Your note signaled your intent, Your Highness, as I’m sure you intended.”
King Francis nodded. He had suspected the Emperor was much more subtle than some might conclude from the events of the war just concluded. He was gratified he had been correct.
“With the annexation of Phalia and the Rim, we have taken on a huge task, Your Highness. We are only beginning to appreciate just how huge a task it will be. Between them, Phalia and the Rim are five times the size of Estvia, more than ten times the size of Pannia. We are working on streamlining and refining our methods, but it will be a long effort.”
“I understand, Your Majesty. I ask no special treatment, but only that Garland can stand its place in line.”
“It would mean no titles of nobility, Your Highness. A reversion to what you might call commoner status for yourself and the rest of the nobility. And submission to a rule of law that sets all equal before the courts. No favoritism. No patronage. No special status.”
“I understand, Your Majesty. For the way the nobility has ruled Garland in the past, it deserves no exalted status.”
“Under those conditions, Your Highness, yes, I am prepared to annex Garland, and to give your subjects equal status as citizens of Sintar.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The two men stood and shook hands, binding each to the agreement, as men of honor will.
The full might of the Sintaran economy was now being brought to bear on the annexed territories. Money flowed into Estvia, Phalia, and the Rim – and would soon start flowing into Garland as well – as investors saw the potential of huge new sources of raw materials, human capital, and free markets. Those who had sat out investing in Pannia after its annexation were not going to be caught on the sidelines this time. The rule of law – the Law of Ilithyia II – made these investments safe, protected from the predations of nobility and government that might otherwise apply.
The automated factories ran twenty-four hours a day now, at their full capacity. One economic sector that saw huge growth comprised the businesses that built the automated factories themselves. Another was the extraction industries, as the burgeoning economy surged in its use of raw materials.
The economy of Sintar was already roaring. The annexations stoked the fire.
“Oh, no. Now what’s happened?” Greg Deval asked.
“The Emperor is annexing Garland,” Diana Fogerty said.
“Really? Garland? I sure didn’t expect that.”
“What did I tell you? And I still don’t think he’s done. I think he’s going to annex the entire farside.”
“Who’s left? Abelard, Bordain, Jasmine, Sirdon, Westhaven, Wingard, ...”
“You forgot Doria and Midlothia.”
“Well, they’re only, what? Another twenty trillion people between them.”
“Something like that. So how are those education courses coming?”
“Really well, actually. We have a lot of video out of Estvia. That was a good idea. The scripts have been written and the editing and narrations are being done now.”
“Good. Because we’re going to need them. And what came out of the Zoo? Anything useful?”
“A lot of stuff. Some of it is definitely useful. Some of it is also pretty crazy. Joe Lin has the review groups tearing into the proposals now. But I think some of it is going be a big help.”
“All right. Good. Keep me posted on developments.”
“Will do.”
Admiral Maria della Espinoza called her chief of staff over.
“Jay, I just received a private communication from Imperial Navy Headquarters Sintar. I’ve been promoted to Fleet Admiral.”
“Congratulations, Ma’am.”
“Thanks. Also, we have a new assignment. I’ve been made Imperial Navy Sector Commander.”
“Excellent. Which sector?” Admiral Kim asked.
“The Garland Sector.”
“The Garland Sector?”
“You heard me. The Garland Sector. The Empire is annexing Garland. It’s a friendly annexation, so we don’t have to go in shooting.”
“Well, that’s nice, anyway.”
“Yes. So we need to get movement plans together. We’re leaving as soon as we can. The rest of our sector defense force will be following along presently. And I should talk to the current naval operations commander in Garland, so I can make sure this is really as friendly as we’ve been assured.”
“I’ll see to that, Ma’am.”
“We’re goin’ where, Chief?” Kowalski asked.
“Garland Sector.”
“Garland? Weren’t we just shootin’ at those guys, Chief?”
“Yeah, but that was under the other guy. That James character. Francis, now he’s a different sort altogether.”
“So they’re not going to be shooting at us?”
“Nope. We’re goin’ in all friendly like.”
“Does that mean we can take the battle ensign down, Chief?”
“Yeah, actually. I think it does.”
“Good. That thing gives me the creeps.”
“We all set to go, Jay?” Espinoza asked.
“We’re good, Ma’am. Just awaiting your orders.”
“All right. Comm. Fleet orders. Execute movement orders. Let’s get under way. Send that.”
“Fleet orders transmitted, Ma’am.”
Democracy of Planets Defense Minister Pavel Isaev called an emergency meeting. To save time, they met in a VR conference room rather than in the prime minister’s office.
EMPIRE: Warlord (EMPIRE SERIES Book 5) Page 21
