Highway traffic into Imperial City was scanned as it entered an eighty-mile radius of the city. Highways passed through scanning and sensing locations. No byways or rural roads crossed this divide, so there were no other land routes.
Of course, some cargoes – such as pharmaceutical radioisotopes – would set off the scanners, but drivers knew what those cargoes were. There were manual scanning locations alongside the scanners for these cargoes to bypass the automated scanning system.
It was one of these bypasses the DP’s plutocratic families planned to use to bring their nuclear device into the city. That device had arrived on Center and at the moment sat in a warehouse at the Center Freightport, outside the eighty-mile scanning boundary.
“Holy shit,” Martin Long said. “Hey, Don. Check this out. This thing’s hotter than hell.”
Donato Ricci had already climbed up into the container. The manual scanning station required two scanners to check every shipment, and their shifts and partners were rotated constantly to prevent collusion. Ricci and Long had worked together before, but it was maybe ten percent of the time either was on this scanning station.
“What?” Ricci asked.
Ricci looked at the reading on Long’s Geiger counter.
“Wow. What’s the manifest say?”
“Pharmaceutical radioisotopes.”
“Let me check.”
Ricci checked the shipment with his meter, but got a much lower reading.
“I don’t get anything like you got.”
Long looked at Ricci’s meter.
“Well, that’s more like what you would expect,” he said.
“Yeah. Right on the button. Hey. Which meter is that?”
“Number thirty-two.”
“Oh, not that shit again,” Ricci said. “I got a hot reading off that bastard last week. They were supposed to fix it.”
“Now what are we supposed to do? Supposed to be two guys check everything.”
“Here. Use my meter.”
“I gotta check it first,” Long said.
“Sure, sure. I’ll wait here.”
Ricci passed his meter to Long, unobtrusively pushing a small stud hidden behind the sensor.
Long took the meter and climbed down out of the container. He went into the small office, and checked the Geiger counter against a standard source kept there in a lead box. He came back out and climbed back into the truck.
“It checks accurate,” Long said.
“Good. Now what reading do you get?”
Long measured the crate that had set off the other meter.
“Spot on the value specified in the manifest. Huh. I guess that other meter is flaky.”
“We’ll have to tag it for repair again. See if they actually fix it this time.”
“Yeah. Great. More paperwork. Well, here’s yours back.”
Long handed Ricci the meter and they both got down out of the container. The driver sealed it up again, and they signed off on his pass.
When Martin Long went to the bathroom later in the shift, Donato Ricci – actually Giancarlo Sciacca, Antonio Sciacca’s nephew – swapped his modified meter back into his lunch pail where he had put the nearly duplicate standard-issue meter. The modified meter would give an artificially low reading the second reading it made after the contact stud was momentarily pressed.
The truck bearing the shipping container with a live ten-megaton nuclear warhead aboard drove into Imperial City otherwise unimpeded.
The container was taken to a warehouse in the city where it was relabeled for the Imperial War Museum.
Trigger
Colonel Walsh was watching as the final refurbished exhibits were being moved into the Imperial War Museum. The exhibits that were too big to move out of the museum had been moved into their final places first, freeing up the locations where they had been set aside for the decorators to finish the interior work on the building.
The big armor had been moved back into the great entrance hall, all repainted and re-stenciled. They looked magnificent, gleaming under the lights. Once those were in place, the cafeteria and gift shop, modeled on Imperial Marines mess halls and supplies tents, had been set up in the space behind them. They had had to wait until the armor had been brought in through the street-level vehicle entrances at the back of the building.
Then the big display cases had been brought in, and the collections arranged within them. Once the display cases were in place and being populated, the seating areas were installed. Mock-ups of Imperial Marine assault shuttles, attack ship pilot briefing rooms, and other military facilities, these had been built up in large sections outside the facilities and assembled in place.
It was now down to some of the final floor displays. One of those was a dummy nuclear warhead from an Imperial Navy ship-to-ship missile.
“Well, I have to say, Colonel Ryan, you’ve done a tremendous job,” General Hansen said once he had completed his tour. “It was looking good as you went along, but it’s really coming together.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Ryan said.
“I like everything about it. And those seating areas are inspired. I sat in the assault shuttle mock-up, and it brought back memories. Not all good ones, mind you, but it’s very evocative. That’s the point.”
“The vendor on those has a very good master designer, Sir.”
“Clearly.”
Hansen looked around, nodding.
“Yes, a splendid job. Just splendid. Well, I’ll get out of your way and let you get back to work, then, Colonel. Carry on.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
Hansen and his aide walked away toward the escalator talking to each other. Ryan watched them leave, then turned to the next item on his to-do list.
“Make sure that stand is securely bolted to the floor,” Ryan said as the workmen were placing the display stand for the decommissioned nuclear warhead. “If someone knocks the stand over, that thing is heavy enough to kill or injure somebody.”
“Yes, sir, though the stand is pretty sturdy. Take quite a shove to tip it.”
“Even so.”
Once the stand was bolted down, the warhead itself was brought in. It was suspended by a lift-bolt in the nose, and was lowered onto the stand by the small fork lift that brought it in.
“Easy. Easy. OK. We’re down.”
Once on the stand, the device was bolted to the stand. One of those bolts depressed a contact within the device. After eight hours, the device armed itself. If that bolt were now removed, the device would detonate.
Ryan checked it all and nodded.
“OK. Good work.”
As the end of the school year approached, the Imperial Marine Academy Center named its student body commanders for the next year. These positions were usually rotated around, so more people got a chance at command.
The exception was the brigade commander, to whom the regimental commanders of each class reported. The brigade commander was always chosen from among those who had been a regimental commander during one of their class years. There were usually six cadets with regimental commander experience to choose from, but this time there were only five.
Third Regimental Commander Conner Norwood had been dismissed from the service halfway through Travis Geary’s sophomore year, and Geary had served as Third Regimental Commander for the rest of the year. Not having served a full term, he was still eligible for consideration for junior year, and had been selected Second Regimental Commander for his junior year.
Now approaching the end of the academic year, the next year’s command staff was named. One of the five people eligible for brigade commander was Geary, and he had three semesters of experience as regimental commander. The evaluation process put him out as the primary candidate, and General Hansen and his staff were happy to go along with that.
When the senior class graduated and the upperclassmen were commissioned as second lieutenants in Their Majesties’ Imperial Marines, Travis Geary was named the Brigade Commander o
f the Imperial Marine Academy Center student body for the next academic year.
“Jeez, Travis. Brigade commander? Really?” Nathan Benton asked.
“Yeah. Pretty bizarre, huh?” Travis Geary said. “Probably anybody in the job feels the same way. Me? Really?”
“Well, you’ve been regimental commander for a year and a half, so it isn’t that much of a stretch, generally speaking. It’s just that it’s you. You weren’t even going to come to the Academy until a couple weeks ahead of time.”
“Yes. I remember. It was the right decision in retrospect.”
“So when is it official? I mean, when do you begin your duties?”
“I already have. The upperclassmen have all received their commissions with graduation yesterday, and there has to be a brigade commander, so I’m already it.”
“Are we going to be able to have any fun this summer?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll take leave. There’s not really much to do yet, but they have to have someone in the position. Not going to be able to spend the whole summer at the beach, though.”
“That’s OK. I think we wore that out last year. Be nice to get away a little bit over the summer, though.”
“Summer coming up. Can you believe it?” Burke asked Ardmore as they lay on the double chaise on the pool deck.
“And Stevie’s just turned eight months old. Amazing.”
“And still no news of what’s up.”
“Could we have been wrong?” Ardmore asked. “Are they just not going to do anything, maybe?”
“No, I think that’s wrong. They’re up to something. I can feel it. Smell it. It just smells wrong. Not sure why, but there it is.”
“Do you want to go on heightened alert?”
Burke looked off across the pool into the copse of trees on the other side while chewing her lip.
“No. That’s not the sort of thing you can maintain.”
She thought about it a little longer. Ardmore was content to wait.
“We could pull Daniel Parnell’s little trick, though.”
“You mean, let it be passed around among the NCOs there might be an exercise coming?” Ardmore asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that. Can we get that circulating?”
“Sure. I’ll talk to General Hargreaves about it.”
“General Hargreaves, Your Majesty,” Edward Moody, Their Majesties’ Personal Secretary said as he waved the Imperial Guard Commandant in from the outer office.
“Be seated, General Hargreaves.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Hargreaves sat and was all attention. Ardmore had learned Burke’s hand signals, and signaled the Imperial Guardsmen present to leave, then suspended audio monitoring in his office. Hargreaves raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“General Hargreaves, Milady Empress and I are concerned the DP plutocrat families are going to move soon. She has a feeling.”
“I feel it, too, Sire.”
“I have learned not to mistrust her instincts, General Hargreaves. At the same time, going to a heightened state of readiness for long periods does not work well.”
Hargreaves merely nodded.
“What I was wondering, General Hargreaves, is if we couldn’t sort of pass a rumor through the NCOs there was an exercise being contemplated. You know, one of those surprise readiness exercises.”
“Yes, Sire. We could do that. The old Daniel Parnell ploy.”
“Yes, General Hargreaves. Would people see through it?”
“They might, Sire. People have been discovering their history again over the last seven, eight years. But they wouldn’t take the chance it wasn’t real. They would tighten up. Just in case.”
“Let’s do that then, General Hargreaves. Just here on Center. Oh, and you need to get the Imperial Marines involved as well.”
“Of course, Sire. I’ll speak to General Destin about it.”
“Excellent. That will be all, General Hargreaves.”
Hargreaves included the Imperial Police, too, in the plan. Throughout the Imperial Palace, Imperial City, and at the Imperial Marines Combat Training Center four hundred miles south of Imperial City, Guardsmen, Police Officers, and Marines were checking their equipment, checking their transport, making sure their ready gear was top-notch and in place.
“You think this is one o’ them Daniel Parnell things, Sergeant Friseal?” Imperial Marine Corporal Matteo Bianchi asked his platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Aidan Friseal.
“Could be. You wanna take the chance, Bianchi?”
“No, Sergeant. Forget I said anything.”
“Good. And don’t forget. With Daniel Parnell, it was real, and when the call came in, it was not an exercise.”
“Yeah. There’s that. OK, Sergeant. We’re on it.”
With the device in place, Daniel Ryan sent one message, through his middleman, to his sister, Maire Kerrigan.
When Maire Kerrigan got the message, she let Antonio Sciacca know, and he made the call.
“Send it,” was all he sent back.
Maire Kerrigan sent out the synching message, to all the other family heads, and to her own family’s remaining agents, through their middlemen.
Investigations Office boss Lina Schneider was woken by an alarm from the investigation map room. She didn’t bother getting dressed, but checked into the map viewing room in VR direct from her bed. Her avatar of course wore a normal business suit.
Stanley Nowak met her there.
“We have a single message traversing down through all the contacts, Ma’am.”
The message’s path had been highlighted in the map, and it was still spreading.
“What’s the message?”
“’Medusa minus seven.’”
Schneider and Nowak looked at each other.
“I’ll wake Mr. Diener.”
Paul Diener joined them within seconds. He looked at the map and at the message text.
“This looks like it. I’ll wake Their Majesties.”
Ardmore and Burke appeared in the investigative map viewing room.
“Remain seated,” Burke said as they appeared. “What do you have, Ms. Schneider?”
“One message, propagating throughout our whole tree, Your Majesty. Just what we have been watching for.”
“The message, Ms. Schneider?”
“’Medusa minus seven,’ Sire.”
“They’re synching their plans up,” Burke said to Ardmore.
“Yes, but seven what?” Ardmore asked.
“Well, seconds and minutes are out, and weeks is ridiculous. So it’s hours or days.”
“Days, I think, Milady,” Schneider said. “It’s taking the message a while to propagate.”
“That makes sense, Ms. Schneider.”
Ardmore turned to Burke and raised an eyebrow. She nodded.
“Mr. Diener, activate all our assets and round them all up. Immediate priority, on Imperial Warrants. Deadly force is authorized for capture.”
“Yes, Sire.”
Diener started sending orders on another channel in VR.
Burke turned to Ardmore.
“Something I don’t get, Jimmy. Medusa?”
“How did Perseus kill Medusa, Gail?”
“Oh! He cut off her head. So the attack is here, in Imperial City.”
“That’s how I read it,” Ardmore said.
“We’re tracking the message, Sire,” Schneider said. “We should get more contacts just by watching where it goes.”
“Put them all on the arrest list, Mr. Diener.”
“Yes, Sire.”
It was the middle of the day in the Mondari Alps on Biarritz when the alert came in to Thomas Pitney. He had a message just waiting to go out to all of his agents across the Empire, a general alert to be ready to respond immediately to specific instructions.
He triggered that message, and Department agents dropped what they were doing and prepared for action all across the Empire.
In the Imperial Palace, all Imperi
al Guardsmen were called to active status. Men on their off shift, their off day, or on leave – everybody was called to appear. The Palace motor pool was busy making every vehicle they could available and getting drivers for every van.
All across Imperial City, Imperial Police officers rolled out of bed, got in uniform, and headed into the Imperial City Police Headquarters in Imperial Park South. Whether they were on their day off or on their off shift, the Imperial Police had called everyone in to Headquarters. The motor pool there, too, was getting a driver into every vehicle they had. All vehicles currently out on patrol were also assigned.
At the Imperial Marines Combat Training Center, the ready division ran for their assault shuttles as the message repeated in their VR emergency channels.
“Saddle up. This is not a drill or exercise. Saddle up.”
One engine on each ready squadron shuttle was kept idling at all times, rotated among the engines to even out the wear. The pilots of the big ships were now starting the other seven engines as Marines piled aboard.
Staff Sergeant Aidan Friseal poked Corporal Matteo Bianchi, seated in the row in front of him.
“What’d I tell you, Bianchi?”
“Yes, Sergeant. Right you were. It’s party time.”
When each loadmaster gave the all clear, that shuttle leapt into the sky and streaked for Imperial City, four hundred miles away.
Realization
On the way to Imperial City, the company commander, Captain Joel Atkins, addressed them in VR.
“Our company’s assignment on this mission is to provide armed support for Imperial Police and Imperial Guard making arrests throughout Imperial City.
“In that role, we will deploy as rifle squads, with one squad per arresting officer. You will simply go along to ensure there is no failure to comply.
“That said, these people are being arrested on Imperial Warrants for capital treason. No one is to be allowed to escape, and the use of deadly force has been authorized to prevent it. You will get your firing instructions from the arresting officer.
EMPIRE: Resurgence Page 13
