by Jim Rudnick
And it had seemed to work. What she was watching now, was the catering transport company who were in the process of loading food dollies—hot and cold service dollies, into the large moving conveyor belts that moved them from the edge of the parking lot off to one side, to the palace kitchens. There were over four hundred dollies she’d heard, and as she watched them being gently manhandled onto the conveyors, she almost grinned with the thought that someone inside the palace had to arrange all of them in order of the courses that were going to be served, then store them, then heat the hot service ones while chilling the cold ones.
Headaches like that I do not need today—let’s hope the caterers, when they show up are happy and ready to cook.
After the long line of food dollies she could see more than twenty five more transports coming in with furniture and equipment she understood. A wedding of ten thousand requires ten thousand chairs for the ceremony, out in the new gardens behind the new wing and ten thousand chairs for the reception. A few more hundred for contingencies were also included she knew. Then there were the tables, cutlery, napkins….the list went on and on and on.
She watched more food dollies being gently placed on the conveyors and thought about the four some odd hundred Heads of State and their guests too. Each Head of State couple was seated at their Realm Table, with eight guests of their own choosing. For most that was fine but for some of the realms it required adaptability. Erans were twelve feet tall and weighed on average about five to six hundred pounds. Furniture for them had to be sourced, bought and then sent to Neres City. Or say for the DenKoss realm, where those aliens were water breathers. That required special tanks, for a table of twelve and that too had been difficult. But no matter, all forty of the RIM Confederacy realms had been accommodated and all forty would be happy, she thought.
She left the transport area and walked steadily for over fifteen minutes, along this side of the palace to the new wing where the Bride and Groom would be living once they moved in. At the start of same she did take a moment to look at the outside of the wing and wondered what it might be like to be a Royal, where price means nothing.
First, it was beige to her—but the color, the Baroness had pointed out to her with a degree of forcefulness, was called Sahara.
It was Sahara, and it was a four story wing, of over sixty thousand square feet, with more than one hundred rooms.
She had been in same often and to say that the interior was well decorated was slander—it was utterly gorgeous. Her last few meetings had been in the room that was called the ‘small parlor’ and it too was outstanding.
The exterior however was all that the wedding guests would ever see as the interior was behind a secure force-field managed by the Barony EliteGuards. Even now, outside and more than twelve hours till the actual ceremony time, there were guards stationed on what they called ‘picket duty’ every fifty feet or so. As she walked she felt eyes on her time and time again, but around her neck on the lanyard hung her credentials and even from far away one could see the lime green border of the highest level of security.
She walked on, and at the close corner of the new wing, she stopped and looked back at the the transport area. That way, the sun was just about poking it’s head above the horizon, broad bands of pink and amber lay just above and dawn was minutes away.
She turned the corner, to enter the huge manicured gardens that the actual ceremony would occur in and she noted that she could see hundreds of gardeners there already. All wore some kind of spotlights on their hats so that they could see no matter what the time of day—or night was. Many were working on the lawns, huge swaths of close cut green grass, that were about as perfect as she had ever seen before. There were low hedges, sculpted in curves and foils and double-backs as she’d learned they were called were all being pruned as she watched.
Down the one side, that made the area secure, was the completely tented covered walkway. When the wedding procession left the foyer, they would leave, turn to their left for about fifty feet, then walk the whole length of the rest of the covered walkway to end up down there at the back of the ceremony area. Once there, led by EliteGuards, they’d be escorted to the main center aisle of the seating area, and each threesome would walk down the long aisle to take their places on the altar, on top of their stars. All except the groom, who would walk out of the foyer, and use the hidden side door to leave the front of the wing and suddenly appear on the far right hand side and mount the altar to stand alone and to await his bride.
It all looked perfect and she checked that hidden doorway and it worked perfectly too.
She continued to walk and as she got close to the area where the altar had already been setup. It was a simple eight inch riser that was fully carpeted—and again it was in the same Sahara shade too, she noted. It was already marked she saw with stars indicating where each and every wedding party member would be required to stand. She grinned when she noted that someone had made the female members stars pink and the males blue. From left to right, it was nineteen pink stars for bridesmaids, then the Maid of Honor’s star, the Brides star, the Master Adepts star, then the blue star for the Groom, followed by the blue star for the Best Man and then nine more blue stars for rest of the groomsmen. She had considered using many other methods of marking where each was to stand, but building the stars into the carpet itself had been sheer genius, she thought. She stepped up onto the altar and then walked directly to the Master Adept’s star and turned and stood right on it—and looked out at the whole gardens.
It was obvious that the food dollies had all been completed, the moving in of same, as what she could see were trucks with rows and rows of chairs all nicely stacked and ready to be placed.
She watched, and stood still so that the setup people might not even notice her.
One group of about ten men went to the first truck and worked out how to pull down stacks of chairs and then place them in a large holding area.
Another group of only two, had what looked like some kind of handheld device—probably some kind of surveying tool she thought, so that they went to one spot just to her left as she looked those hundred yards or so away. They moved the device around a bit and then one said “here, Mac…got it” and he leaned down to push into the ground a small orange flag on a plastic post.
He waved at the last group, who then took those stacks of chairs, unstacked them and moved them all to that same exact point.
The first one there took direction as to where to place it and then others filled in the row.
There was supposed to be fifty rows of fifty chairs on each side totaling the ten thousand guests. She had insisted on an extra two rows, so there were going to be two hundred extra seats at the very back which was called ‘contingency planning’ and as she well knew, that was a thing that only the best did. She grinned and nodded.
These guys were doing fine and she left the altar riser and moved along the very front of the altar to the far side. It was here that the control points were setup. There was a twenty foot area all the way across the whole seating area, that was reserved for MEDIA only. They could go anywhere in that zone, but could not approach the altar itself. Behind the secure MEDIA area, was a small set of very low force field generators that would be turned on once all the wedding party had reached the altar. It would protect them from everybody present, except the MEDIA of course who needed to be able to get close for great photos and vids.
She nodded. Well done. Layouts looked proper and she was glad of that.
She turned and left the area and walked again all along this side of the wing, turned the last corner and walked into the huge reception area.
This was not good, she thought right off the top of her mind.
The whole head table was wrong. It was too close to the back areas, and that would mean that the service staff doing the serving would be seen by all. It would need to be moved out at least four or five feet. That would allow staff to be able to move behind the table to serve the wedding
party and not have to walk around to the front. She made a quick vocal note on her PDA and then moved twenty feet or so out front of the wedding party head table.
There were across the whole front of the reception area, two rows of twenty tables each, for the RIM Confederacy realms. She could see the one huge table at the far end of row two for the Erans and beside them, the temporary tanks for the Head of State of DenKoss and their delegation.
She had argued that putting these two realms side-by-side showed that the planner—herself actually, had no way of accommodating these two realms in any other way than to stick them in a corner together. She still shook her head at that because the tables behind these two, had blocked views or worse, perhaps would not be able to hear any of the ceremonies because of the loud tank sounds.
She had handled this before and setting the Eran table down three feet in a small depression had worked well for her before at other events for example, but that had been over ruled by the Baroness herself.
She shrugged. Nothing to do about that now.
She went out into the huge seating area behind the two rows of Realm tables and looked around. Each of the tables had been set in place according to the official seating plan. Each was now being populated with their chairs as down at the far end, setup crews were toiling at bringing stacks in on dollys and dropping off ten at each table.
She was pleased, and a glance at her PDA showed that it was coming up on six in the morning and they were about where they should be. Tables, check. Chairs done soon, check. Then cutlery and table tops were next.
It was almost thirteen hours till dinner—and they’d make it on time.
Not a lot of time to spare, she knew but that was her life.
Event planner to Royalty…more trouble than it was worth most often, but still….she had the kind of brain that enjoyed a job well done….this was surely the event of the century…and she had planned and executed it to the best of her ability…
#####
At about one in the afternoon, the MEDIA bus pulled up at the new wing of the Baronial palace and all the occupants got out and formed up in lines to go through Security. Gia Scott was in the middle line of the three, and she noted that it moved about the same speed as they all did. This was just to get onto the palace grounds, as there were further Security entry points within the grounds.
At the front of the line, she smiled at the young man who wore an EliteGuard uniform and said simply “Gia Scott of Gallipedia,” and he looked up at her face first. He keyed something into the tablet in front of him, got the answer he was looking for and then reached up and pulled her credential placard down towards the stripe reader on it’s side. The swipe proved that yes, this was Gia Scott and she smiled at him. She wore a solid pink pantsuit for the day so that she could ignore all the female issues with ducking and kneeling and trying to fight the scrum of news hounds for the best angle or spot to shoot from. Old habit, and she was glad for the years of experience that had taught her that.
“Yes Ms Scott—you’re good to go through. You should have already read your MEDIA instructions, so you’ll need to stay to the areas that are posted MEDIA only, Mam. That, and I have a question Mam. Why is there as yet, no Galli page on our EliteGuards, Mam.”
She paused and smiled at him.
“When all of this is over, wedding wise I mean, you have my local hotel— the Nere’s Hilton. You have the head of the EliteGuard call me and arrange an interview time and I’d be pleased to do just that, uh…sergeant?” she answered.
“Master sergeant, Mam and yes I’d be more than pleased to do just that…” he said as he grinned and said “next” as she walked by.
She kept to the red bordered areas, thanking whomever had thought of color coding accessible areas for each of the various security levels as being a good planner. She walked a long way and as the ceremony area got closer, she got in another Security lineup.
This one was the same but different.
The person behind the desk now, was an older woman, who asked for her creds and swiped the placard first.
She waited to see the answers as to who this was, and looked back and forth between what was on her tablet and Gia in front of her. She smiled after a moment and then said “Gia Scott—Gallipedia, I take it?” politely.
Gia nodded and said “guilty” which got a smile back.
“This is supposed to be quite the event—so it’s so nice that something as important as the wedding of the millennia would be covered and reported to the galaxy. Nice,” she said and then went on “any thing you’re bringing in, Ms. Scott?”
Gia knew that this would happen so she pulled the camera off her shoulder and said, “for photos for the event page…” then she dropped her reporters book and pen on the table too saying “for any quotes I can get out of the bride and groom,” and finally she began to undo her PDA.
But the woman waved her off and said “they’re all fine and hope you have a great time, Mam. Craft services for the MEDIA is in the red octagon tent over there,” she said as she pointed along the far side of the ceremony area.
“Welcome Ms. Gallipedia…” and she passed the security placard back to Gia who put the lanyard over her head to let it swing against her chest.
First, the area itself, she said to herself as she walked the area and went right up to the edge of the red flags in front of the altar area. She figured the distance that she would be standing from where the groom would be and it was about fifteen or sixteen feet. The MEDIA flags allowed her no closer and that was fine with her. She pulled the camera up to her face, turning it on and used it to frame the area about in the center of the altar area, and the viewfinder under her eyes said that it was almost sixteen feet, camera to the area where she knew the groom would be standing.
Fine. Good, she said to herself. I am ready. Camera ready, and pen backup ready.
She smiled and looking at her PDA she saw that it was only three in the afternoon, she still had two hours to kill. She thought about going around the other side of the wing to see the reception area, but belayed that for awhile—craft services and a nice cup of coffee would be what she needed now. She went towards the red tent to get one and that meant that she could get out of the sun too…and wait….life was about waiting for opportunities to arise…
#####
The stewards were slow on purpose, Bram thought as he waved at one standing in the corner of the State parlor up on the second floor of the new wing. All of the groomsmen had been asked to be there, with their clothing for the wedding at 2 pm, and all had complied. The group was what might be called lively. He had wanted to say ‘slightly boisterous’ but that was a bit past it. Lively, yes we were all lively, he thought as the steward finally showed up with another beer.
Must be a wedding day rule, not to let the groomsmen get loaded before the ceremony—the reception was okay as long as it was after the speeches. That brought a big smile to his ‘lively’ face and he went back over to sit with admiral Childs who was expounding on the new Academy and their towers. He had a rapt audience, Bram could see and that was fine with him.
Over on another seating group, the Duke was half crouching, telling a hunting story and Bram grinned at Tanner who was sitting and listening with only half an ear, it appeared. The rest of them were sitting at a round table chatting about whatever they wanted and as it was only coming up on three, no one had even made a move to get dressed as yet. Men dress so much quicker than women do, that whomever had planned for them to have two and a half hours to get dressed was obviously not a man.
No smile at that one. That was just plain loony? But not unknown.
He sat and listened to admiral Childs talking about the second tower and the issues that had arisen with the foundations and he noted that some there were actually interested. Not me, he said as he asked if he could get anyone there a beer and thank god that Ahanu said yes. Seems the Ikarians liked our beer, he said to himself and that got him smiling again.
Time w
ent by and it was the Duke who, taking on the role of Best Man, who stood and said “let’s all get dressed lads,” and he went over to the hanging racks, found his items and retired to one of the temporary dressing rooms to put on his tuxedo.
Bram noted that he still had a full half hour till they had to wander down to the ground floor and the huge foyer to be formed up into the wedding procession, but he shrugged and got his own clothing bag and went to another of the dressing rooms.
He entered the room and closed the door behind him and hung up the bag, pressing on the open button up at the top. The front of the bag rolled down to disappear in the bag’s bottom and he slowly took out all of the items from within.
Tux pants, check.
Clean pressed shirt, check
Bow tie, check.
Cummerbund, check.
Tie, check.
Clean socks, check.
Black shoes, check.
He left the tux jacket on it’s hanger and slowly undressed and then re-dressed in the tuxedo.
He looked at himself at times in the mirror and he grinned at what he saw. A young Issian, of average looks, but dressed very well. Polished even and now the tie…
He was falling…falling and falling and he knew exactly what was going on as he sidestepped over to the chair and dropped heavily into it. Falling…falling…his mind aswirl with the oncoming mind link….ahead there was a pinpoint of a light…and as it got closer and larger…suddenly he was sitting before the Master Adept.
She smiled at him in the mind link and then the smile disappeared.
You will be a part of today’s event…you have the talent I know to see what is coming moments before it happens…and I am here now to tell you to freeze…do nothing no matter what the cost is. Do you hear your Master, Sander? she thought at him…
