EMPIRE: Succession

by Richard F. Weyand

“They have to accelerate constantly to maintain gravity,” Turley said.

  “Yes. They should have a couple months of reaction mass aboard. Then we supply them with more from here.”

  “What’s the cover story for that?” Gulliver asked.

  “It’s an expedition to see if asteroid mining is possible there, using Verano as a base. We could have it be something Stauss Interstellar is up to, couldn’t we?”

  Turley nodded. She turned to Gulliver.

  “That would work. We can arrange it with Dieter.”

  “But an attack ship carrier?” Gulliver asked.

  “Surplus. You need something with a lot of parasites to do asteroid prospecting on a large scale. That’s why I figured Stauss would be a good cover. Mother always worked for a Stauss company, I figured they were in on, well, whatever you guys were up to.”

  “We’ll have to have them jimmy the ship’s transponder,” Turley said.

  “Wait,” Gulliver said. “What about QE radio? The crew would leak. The Navy would know where they are, for that matter.”

  “The captain’s going to have to turn it off,” Bouchard said. “Five thousand people can’t keep a secret. But they’ll be three years from here. Radio signals wouldn’t be picked up for three years. By that time, the need for secrecy is over, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Turley said.

  It was a good plan. Holes, holes, where were the holes?

  “The supply ship has to have its QE radio turned off as well,” Turley said.

  “Of course,” Bouchard said. “Secret mission. Stauss doesn’t want people to know it’s prospecting the system.”

  “OK. That holds together. Always cover a secret with another secret. When people see through the first one, they stop looking. Human nature.”

  “Exactly.”

  “All right, Marie,” Turley said. “Thanks. That’s a great help.”

  “No problem. I confess to monitoring on a side channel. You said he was competent?”

  “Yes. And handsome.”

  Bouchard waved that away.

  “Looks don’t matter.”

  From the most beautiful woman either Turley or Gulliver had ever met, the statement seemed incongruous.

  But for all her undoubted beauty, neither did anyone ever doubt the competence of Senator Marie Louise Bouchard.

  With the basics of a plan, Turley and Gulliver worked over the next several days on fleshing it out. Failure points. Alternatives. Fallbacks. Escape plans. No plan ever survived execution unscathed. The secret to success was being able to execute around the unexpected. To have options at all points. The military planner and the expert at hiding in plain sight fine-tuned and honed the plan until they were happy with it.

  The body of Emperor Trajan, First Emperor of the Galactic Empire, lay in state in the apse of the gothic Throne Room, before the Throne he had served for so long. His body lay in state for sixty-three hours, one hour for each year of his reign.

  Over three hundred thousand people filed down the nave and past his open casket during those two and a half days. They waited in line throughout the day and night for the chance. Trillions more observed the body in VR.

  At ten o’clock in the evening of the third day, his casket was closed. It was carried by the Imperial Guard down Palace Mall, past the statue of his sister, to the Imperial Mausoleum where she herself lay. For the first time since her death, sixty-three years before, the mausoleum was opened, and his casket slid into place next to that of his first wife, Cynthia Newberry Dunham. The marker plate was affixed, the Guard withdrew, the mausoleum was sealed again.

  Peters did not attend. She had already said her goodbye.

  Provence Sector Governor Jerome Goulet arrived on Center eight days after the Emperor’s death. He went to the Imperial Palace for a meeting with the Co-Consul, Sanford Hayes.

  An Imperial Guard escort met him at his shuttle pad at the Imperial City spaceport and guided him and his two staff members to a pair of Imperial Palace limousines. They drove him to the Imperial Palace, passing the checkpoint and taking him to the underground entrance doors.

  Through the entrance doors, the Guardsmen took them to the elevators and up to the Imperial Guard floor.

  “Your staff can wait here, Governor Goulet.”

  The staffers looked to Goulet. He nodded and they got off, a Guardsman getting off with them. The elevator went up again, and the remaining Guardsman led Goulet down a hallway to an office door. The Guardsman knocked once, opened the door and walked in.

  “Governor Goulet for Mr. Hayes.”

  “Thank you, Guardsman,” the secretary in the outer office said.

  The Guardsman left, and the secretary waved Goulet forward to the door on the back wall of the outer office. She opened it for him and waved him through.

  “Mr. Hayes is expecting you, sir.”

  Goulet walked into the office of the man who was now, for a time, the most powerful person in the Galactic Empire. Hayes stood up behind his desk and came around it to shake Goulet’s hand.

  “Governor Goulet, welcome. Let’s sit over here.”

  Hayes waved a hand toward a sitting arrangement to the side of the large office. Goulet took a seat and the two men sized each other up. They had worked together before, in VR, but this was their first personal meeting.

  Goulet was tall, distinguished, sixty years old, with clear blue eyes and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. He was the very picture of the elder statesman, the sort of man one trusted on meeting. Hayes was a huge contrast. He was also near sixty, but built like a fireplug, with soulful brown eyes and going bald. Despite the differences, Hayes was also the sort of man one trusted on meeting.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Hayes.”

  “Not at all, Governor Goulet. Thank you for coming to Center.”

  Goulet nodded.

  “I thought we might discuss the situation that’s developing around the succession to the Throne,” Goulet said.

  “Of course.”

  Goulet tried again.

  “I wondered what your view of it was, Mr. Hayes.”

  “I see two courses of action I might take, Governor Goulet. You may be able to advise me of others. The first is that I recognize the support you have now from some fifty-two of the seventy-nine sector governors and acknowledge you as Emperor.”

  “And the second?”

  “That I arrest you pending the arrival of Daniel Parnell next week, pending his disposition of your case.”

  Goulet nodded. It was no more than he had expected, but it was comforting to have it all out on the table.

  “And may I ask the considerations affecting your decision, Mr. Hayes?”

  “Sure. Why not? In the first case, in my opinion you are manifestly unsuited to occupy the Throne.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes. You have no military experience. You have no overall view of the Empire. You have a sector governor’s perspective, which is generally that the sector governors should have more power to set policy within their own sectors.”

  “And you consider that last a negative.”

  “Yes. The danger for an Empire of this size is that centrifugal forces are always at work, struggling to fling the Empire apart. An increase in the sector governors’ power would exacerbate that tendency, and ultimately shatter the Empire.”

  “Interesting. And your other option, Mr. Hayes?”

  “Is equally bad, Governor Goulet. Were I to arrest you and affirm Emperor Trajan’s choice for the Throne, there is a danger of civil war over the secession. That is a war the Throne would win, but it is not a pleasant prospect.”

  “The Throne would win, Mr. Hayes?”

  “The Throne always wins, Governor Goulet. The question is always, At what cost?”

  “I see.”

  “And your position, Governor Goulet?”

  “First, Mr. Hayes, this is not a situation I sought, or worked to bring about. I find myself chosen by my peers, which is, of
course, a wonderful compliment, but it is not through any act of mine. I, too, wish to avoid a civil war, which I would consider a calamity of existential proportions for the entire human race. We both know enough history to understand that.”

  Hayes nodded.

  “Yet I stand at the fulcrum of these forces, Mr. Hayes, and I have no way to defuse them myself. Were I to refuse the Throne, I am sure my fellow sector governors would go light on someone else, someone whose motives I trust less – perhaps much less – than my own.”

  “That’s an interesting perspective, Governor Goulet.”

  “Interesting but not comfortable, I assure you, Mr. Hayes. At the same time, I do not have as dismissive a view of my own abilities to rule the Empire as you do. I have weaknesses, as would any candidate, but I have my strengths, as well.”

  Hayes nodded.

  “Governor Goulet, I will not restrain your movement or your use of VR for the time being. That would be, in a way, to decide, and I sense the time is not yet ripe. However, I would prefer you not leave Imperial Park for the time being.”

  “I understand, Mr. Hayes.”

  “While we await further clarity, I would suggest you meet with Amanda Peters.”

  “The Empress?”

  “She who was the Empress, yes. There is no one alive who understands better what it means to occupy the Throne.”

  Amanda in Command

  The Imperial Guard showed Governor Goulet and his staff to guest rooms in the Imperial Administration Building, just east of the Imperial Palace. They took the underground slidewalk that joined the basements of the Imperial Administration Building, the Imperial Palace, and the Imperial Research building on the Palace’s west side.

  “The staff cafeteria is at the end of this hall and around the corner, sir. Anything you need, you can ask Housekeeping for, using VR. If you wish to go to a meeting with someone in the Imperial Palace, you can ask the Imperial Guard to escort you, also using VR.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  Goulet went over to the windows. He found the controls for the drapes and sheers, and also for the glass, in VR. He pushed ‘Open Glass’ and first the drapes, then the sheers, then the glass wall itself opened up to the view. He looked down Palace Mall, two miles long, and saw the statue of Ilithyia II on its pedestal.

  Goulet had seen pictures, even seen it in VR, but it didn’t match the reality of being here. The Empress stood on her pedestal, seven times life-size, the book of Law in her left arm, and a golden sword in the other. The sword was held aside and down, leaving her open to the blow that took her down for the benefit of the Empire.

  Goulet looked at the statue for a long time, lost in his thoughts.

  Jerome Goulet put in a meeting request for Amanda Peters the next day. She accepted, and sent him back a time and a place, a small conference room on the Co-Consul’s floor he had been on yesterday.

  The Imperial Guard escorted him to the room, then stood guard outside of it so they could escort him back to the Imperial Administration Building when the meeting was over. The symbolism of keeping Goulet out of the Imperial Palace was not lost on him.

  Peters was sitting to one side of the small conference table when the Guard let him in. She was smaller than he thought she would be, though much of that, he supposed, was due to age. Thin, both naturally and with age, her dark eyes were nevertheless clear and sharp. She gestured to the chair opposite.

  “Governor Goulet.”

  “Thank you, Milady.”

  “Ms. Peters will do nicely, Governor Goulet. My claim to the title has passed.”

  “And on that, my condolences, Ms. Peters.”

  “Thank you, Governor Goulet.”

  When he was seated, Peters said, “You asked for this meeting, Governor Goulet. Please proceed.”

  “I met with Mr. Hayes yesterday. He said he had two options, and he didn’t like either of them very much. One was to arrest me and hold me for General Parnell to deal with, the other was to accept me as Emperor on the basis of the sector governors’ support.”

  Peters just nodded.

  “He didn’t like the first much, worried that it would lead to civil war, and he didn’t like the second much, worried that I simply can’t do the job.”

  “I agree with him. On both counts, actually.”

  “I myself agree on the first. I’m interested in why you think the second.”

  “Frankly, Governor Goulet?”

  “Yes, Ms. Peters. Please.”

  “Very well. You’ve been a sector governor. You have some experience with that–“

  “Fifteen years!”

  Peters gave him the stern schoolteacher look.

  “Governor Goulet, I was Empress longer than you’ve been alive. I have children your age.”

  Goulet subsided.

  “As I say, you have experience as a sector governor. You think it gives you the necessary experience to be Emperor. That Emperor is something like sector governor writ large. But it doesn’t, Governor Goulet. You push your papers around. You hold your press conferences. You ‘administrate,’ whatever that is.

  “But you don’t rule. You don’t command. You’ve never even been in the military. You don’t know what it is to order people to go out there and defend the Empire, knowing full well some thousands or millions of them will never come home. And you’ve never had to order people killed.”

  “I have had to order the occasional execution be carried out, Ms. Peters.”

  Peters snorted.

  “After the Imperial courts found them guilty and sentenced them to death. A criminal here, a criminal there, and the decisions were made for you.

  “Emperor Trajan ordered the demolition of the building next door to strike at the Throne’s enemies. Thousands died. He personally pushed the firing button on nuclear missiles that incinerated a city of twenty million people to put down the Wollaston Insurgency. In the Sintar/Alliance War, eleven billion died in his attacks on their gathering fleets. They, at least, were all military personnel. On Olympia, he incinerated an entire planet of three and a half billion people – men, women, and children – to put an end to the war.

  “Emperor Trajan personally ordered the deaths of more people than any other person in humanity’s long, dark history. I sometimes worry he will go down in history as Trajan the Terrible.

  “How could he even do such things? Did he have no heart? Was he not even human? I can tell you he agonized over those decisions, Governor Goulet, and he tortured himself about them afterward. But he had to make them, in order to secure and maintain the peace of the Empire. The proof is all around you. For fifty years, we have had peace, and prosperity, in an Empire of one and a third quadrillion people.

  “Now to you, Governor Goulet. Can you make those decisions? Order billions into battle? Order the slaughter of billions more, to achieve the greater goal? To ensure the order and security of the Empire for all humanity? There is nothing in your experience to suggest you can. You haven’t ordered a single platoon into battle.”

  “That’s not your only reservation about me, Ms. Peters.”

  “No. It’s not. That’s the lesser complaint I have with your experience, actually. You are a sector governor, Governor Goulet. An important role. But that gives you a certain perspective. A certain way of looking at the world. That means that, as Emperor, your reflexes are all wrong. You may intend the greater good of the Empire, but indulging your perspective, loosening the reins on the sector governors, ensures that the Empire will spin apart under the pull of the centrifugal forces that emanate from humanity’s innate tribalism.

  “In some sense, this complaint ties into the other one. Despite the sector governors’ views, the Empire has stayed together until now. Part of that was that each and every one of the sector governors knew exactly what the Emperor would do to ensure it stayed together. And that was, simply, whatever it took. If it meant incinerating their entire planet, he would have done that. And every one of them – including you,
Governor Goulet – knew that. Didn’t guess it. Knew it.”

  Goulet nodded.

  “And you think General Parnell has the right qualities?”

  “Yes. Bobby did first, actually. The Emperor. I saw it later. Parnell can command. He sees the bigger picture. The Emperor had him stand watch in his deepest councils, during his most difficult decisions. For the last ten years, General Parnell has been the Emperor’s understudy.”

  Goulet looked at his hands, folded on the table before him, and sighed. He looked back up at her.

  “I told Mr. Hayes, and I’ll tell you, that I think you’re wrong. About me. About my being able to rule in the best interests of the Empire. But, even were I to believe you, we are stuck, all of us. I cannot step aside, or the sector governors will advance another candidate. One who is, perhaps, even more objectionable than I.”

  “I know. Governor Hawking is playing with the forces that would bring down the Empire, and he’s too ignorant to know it. God damn that miserable bastard to hell.”

  Goulet was taken aback at that, and Peters noticed.

  “That shocks you, Governor Goulet? You will have to deal with him, if you take the Throne. He will not stop if he does not get what he wants. He will push hard on a new, inexperienced Emperor. Are you willing to do what it takes? To take him down, together with Sounder and the others? Because if you’re not, then you’re the wrong person for the Throne. The Throne always wins, but how do you minimize the cost? That is the question you will wrestle with, every day, for the rest of your life.”

  Goulet sat on the balcony of his guest apartment that evening, drinking a glass of wine and thinking back over the interview with Amanda Peters. As Hayes had said, there was no more knowledgeable person alive about what it took to rule the Empire.

  He considered the statue of Ilithyia II again. The Last Empress of Sintar. She had certainly weighed the cost. The price of preserving the Empire. And she had willingly paid it.

  What would the price of preserving the Empire be this time?

  “We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace at Richland soon, General Parnell. Any idea of what we’ll find?”