EMPIRE: Succession

by Richard F. Weyand

  She met with the Seamstress first. They had the longer lead time.

  “Yes, Ma’am. Milady Empress – I guess I should say Ms. Peters now, but it just doesn’t sound right to me – Milady Empress told me you would be stopping by. You want to match the dress she wore to the first coronation, is that right?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Bouchard said.

  “I’m not sure we can get away with that, Ma’am. That dress was so sheer she might as well have been naked. No undergarments either. No foundation garments at all. Just her in that wisp of a dress. She couldn’t have gotten away with it except she was uniformly tan, and her nipples were so light. As it was, she had to shave her legs all the way to her waist, if you get my meaning. I wasn’t here, of course, but that dress is a legend in the Seamstress’s office. It was pure white but looked beige, because you could see her skin right through it.”

  She shook her head and Bouchard laughed. That did sound like a little much. Bouchard would be like the nearly naked Empress in one of those trashy fantasy videos. Then again, there was a certain attraction to that as well. For that to work, though, Parnell would have to dress like a barbarian warlord. What were the odds of that?

  “The other thing was,” the Seamstress went on, “she never turned around, in the whole ceremony. She had her back to the cameras and the crowd the whole time. Will that be the same for you, Ma’am?”

  “No. I will need to face the cameras and the crowd. And be in the sunlight coming in the skylight.”

  “Well, that means we need to do something more like the wedding dress, I think, Ma’am. Milady Empress wore that outside in the sun without causing a scandal.”

  “Can we do that and still get the fall right?”

  “Yes, I think so. It all has to do with the weight of the material, Ma’am. It doesn’t take much more to render it at least translucent, for heaven’s sake.”

  Bouchard nodded.

  “And no foundation garments either, Ma’am? And barefoot? Like Milady Empress?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Well, you certainly have the figure for it,” the Seamstress said and nodded. “Very well, then. Strip down, please, Ma’am, and let us get some measurements.”

  Bouchard stripped down and got up on the dressmaker’s stand, a single-step-high platform. The Seamstress looked her up and down while her assistants began taking measurements and recording them.

  “You have no tan lines, either, Ma’am. And your nipples are light, as well.”

  She tilted her head and considered.

  “You have very dark hair, though. We could push the envelope a little, if you were willing to, um, shave your legs quite a bit higher. Otherwise we’re going to have to go to a much heavier fabric.”

  Parnell went down to the second basement of the Palace and took the west slidewalk to the Imperial Research Building. He rode back up to the Investigations main floor and stopped in at Jenny Beecher’s office. She was expecting him.

  “Hello, General Parnell. Come in, come in.”

  She waved to a chair and Parnell sat.

  “I’m just doing an initial check-in, to see if you have what you need, Ms. Beecher.”

  “Yes, the Imperial Police gave us the VR IDs. Let’s go to the investigation map and see what we see. Join me on channel 342.”

  Parnell logged into channel 342 and found himself in a small lecture or presentation room. In the center of the open space in the speaker’s well was a chart of nodes joined by colored lines. It was growing as they watched.

  “OK, General Parnell. Each node here is normally a person. It could also be a place or an organization. They are joined in different ways. One of the easiest to track is money. What do you see so far?”

  “The three IDs are all of people from Vandalia Sector, Ms. Beecher.”

  “Yes, that’s right. What else do you see, Sir?”

  “You’ve identified the other two men, Ms. Beecher.”

  “We think we have, Sir. They’re marked tentative here and here. They can probably confirm the IDs in autopsy. What else do you see?”

  “The money came from Vandalia Sector, Ms. Beecher.”

  “That’s right, Sir. We haven’t finished tracking it down yet, but the money definitely came from Vandalia Sector.”

  “That’s a lot of progress this soon, Ms. Beecher.”

  “We expect it will be harder to nail it down to where the orders came from, Sir. I’m not sure we can get that at all.”

  “Nevertheless, Ms. Beecher. Thank you. Let me know when you get anything else significant.”

  “You’re very welcome, Sir. We certainly will.”

  The news of the ‘shoot-out’ between Imperial Guard units at the Imperial City spaceport was all over the newsfeeds. The press was clamoring for a statement from the Imperial Palace, so the Press Office accommodated them with a press release. The Press Office did not take questions.

  PRESS RELEASE

  – For Immediate Release –

  IMPERIAL PALACE – Gunmen impersonating Imperial Guardsmen attacked Imperial Guard Brigadier General Daniel Parnell and his entourage at the Imperial City spaceport this morning. General Parnell was unharmed and has resumed his duties in the Imperial Palace.

  Peters had suggested the meeting, and then Goulet had called it. They met in Peters’s cozy fireplace room, though, as something like neutral territory. The widowed Empress, the current Emperor, the Emperor-to-be, and the Empress-to-be, were putting the final touches on what was now their plan, rather than merely Peters’s plan.

  They went through who went where, what happened when. and who did what. It was designed for maximum impact, making clear to everybody where they stood, who was in charge, and how he would operate, and making that irreversible by any assembly of sector governors.

  For Peters, it felt like old times.

  “We’re all set, then?” Peters asked.

  Everyone nodded.

  “And everybody’s happy with their role, and how it works out for them?”

  Peters looked from one to the other. They all nodded. She stopped with Goulet.

  “Truly?” Peters asked him.

  “Truly. I’m happy. I would much rather be a successful sector governor than a failed Emperor. I’m just sorry we had to go through all this to get to where we needed to be.”

  “I’m not,” Parnell said.

  Goulet looked at him in surprise. Parnell turned to him to elaborate.

  “We surfaced some snakes, whom we will now be able to deal with effectively. And I met Marie. Neither of those things would have happened if this had all played out by rote.”

  Goulet nodded, then turned to Peters.

  “And I now know I do not have what it takes to be Emperor. Which is a positive development. I need never be jealous of the occupant of the Throne.”

  “You may even be able to spread that sentiment through the sector governors,” Peters said. “Which would be a positive development as well.”

  Peters gathered them all up with her eyes.

  “Very well, then. Let it all go forward as we have planned.”

  Another group of conspirators was meeting as well. Hawking, Sounder, Thornton, Lewis, and Montefiore were meeting in VR.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing, Beth?” Hawking asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Bryan,” Sounder said.

  “You don’t, eh? Well, you better damn well hope you’ve covered your tracks. Conspiracy to murder an Imperial Guard general staff officer is a capital offense.”

  “Wait,” Lewis said. “That shootout in the Imperial City spaceport was one of us?”

  “She says not,” Hawking said, gesturing to Sounder. “It sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  “That was incredible,” Montefiore said. “Did you see the surveillance recordings in the newsfeeds? That major with Parnell was fast as lightning. I didn’t even see where the guns came from. She just fell on the floor and started shooting with both ha
nds.”

  “The Imperial Guard is hand-picked from the Imperial Marines,” Thornton said. “They have some very competent people.”

  “And Parnell was OK, and got to the Imperial Palace safely,” Lewis said. “That was what I read, anyway.”

  “Yes,” Hawking said. “The word I’m getting from inside the Palace is that he is going to be in the coronation ceremony. Goulet is going to name him the Heir to the Throne, to keep Trajan loyalists from causing trouble.”

  “That could be a problem,” Thornton said.

  “Yes, eventually,” Hawking said. “The Emperor can change the named Heir any time he wants, though. We have time to work on that.”

  “What about the leaks out of the Palace that Goulet is going to crown Parnell instead?” Sounder asked.

  “Give away the Throne of the Galactic Empire?” Hawking asked. “That is obviously from someone who doesn’t know how ambitious Goulet is. He didn’t get to be sector governor by being a shrinking violet.”

  “So what do we do now?” Lewis asked.

  “Just hold tight,” Hawking said. “The coronation is next Friday.”

  “But we’ll be there,” Lewis said.

  “In VR, yes. But not in person. And my military contacts on the planet tell me nothing unusual is going on. There’s no alert or anything. There’s nothing going on that is a threat to us. Everybody on the base here is planning on watching the coronation.”

  “It just all makes me nervous,” Lewis said.

  “Everything makes you nervous, Joshua,” Sounder said.

  Sunday Brunch

  Preparations for the coronation continued into the weekend. The Seamstress had a first sizing on Saturday. This was not the final dress. They were making one out of a material that was easier to work with to use as a pattern for the actual dress.

  Housekeeping was working on the Throne Room, making sure everything was clean and in good repair. Coronations didn’t happen often, and it was an excuse to get everything right. Even the skylights in the roof of the nave, which lit up the Throne at noon, were cleaned. The reflectors that light up the statue of Ilithyia II in the center of Palace Mall were also cleaned and polished.

  The hairdresser was working on obtaining the flowers for Bouchard’s hair, and did a test run on putting her hair up on Friday.

  Bouchard was hitting the gym. She didn’t want to be too small for the dress, but she certainly didn’t want to eat her way out of fitting into it, either. Carbs were off the menu for the time being.

  About the only people who weren’t running around getting everything in order were Goulet and Parnell, the central players. The Seamstress did take time to have a couple of her assistants go over one of Parnell’s Imperial Marine MDUs with a fine-tooth comb, and set it aside for the coronation.

  Sunday everybody took a breather.

  Parnell and Bouchard were invited to have brunch Sunday morning with the Co-Consul and his wife, Sanford ‘Sandy’ Hayes and Dominica Hayes. They accepted, and Sunday morning at ten went up to the top floor of the Imperial Residence, to which they both had access, Parnell by virtue of being in the Imperial Guard and Bouchard because the Emperor had given her access to his personal staff for the preparations. That hadn’t had to include access to the upper of the two floors, but Goulet had done it anyway.

  Parnell and Bouchard got off the elevator on the top floor of the Imperial Residence – the top floor of the Imperial Palace, in fact – and walked out in to an elevator lobby with a seating alcove opposite and double doors on both sides. There were two Imperial Guardsmen standing watch on the doors to the right. Parnell nodded to them and they nodded back, but he and Bouchard turned to the doors on the left.

  Parnell knocked on the doors as a formality, while he sent a VR message to Hayes. Hayes sent a message back to ‘Come on in,’ and Parnell opened the primary of the two doors and waved Bouchard through. Hayes and his wife were coming down the hallway beyond. All four were dressed in casual clothes, as the invitation had specified.

  “Dan,” Hayes asked, “how are you? I’d like you to meet my wife, Dominica Hayes.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Dominica,” Parnell said. “I’d like you both to meet my wife, Marie Louise Bouchard.”

  There were handshakes and choruses of ‘pleased to meet you’ all around, then Hayes waved a hand toward the dining room.

  “Come on in and let’s eat while everything’s hot,” he said.

  Bouchard went on into the dining room. The window wall opposite was open to the balcony on this pleasant morning, giving the same view to the south down Palace Mall that they had from their apartment two floors below. There was a closed double door to the formal living room on her right, and a sideboard along the wall to her left, laid out with brunch fare. Two staff members stood by. In the center, the square table was set for four, and was oriented on the diagonal so no one would have their back to the windows.

  “How nice,” Bouchard said.

  “Take a plate and get us started, Marie,” Dominica said. “And there’s no need to excuse oneself from table to go back for more, everybody. Let’s keep things simple.”

  When everybody had taken a pass down the sideboard and been seated, Hayes explained the invitation.

  “For the last ten years, since I became Co-Consul, Bobby and Amanda had brunch with us here every Sunday morning. It was a tradition started by Suzanne Saaret at the very beginning of Bobby’s reign, before he even met Amanda, as a way of keeping him from being so lonely after his wife and sister were killed in the Council Revolt. Emperor Nerva waved off continuing the tradition, but I thought we might get it started again.”

  Parnell cast a sideways glance at the staff members, but they were straightening things on the sideboard.

  “The other thing about the tradition,” Hayes continued, “is that everyone on this floor is on a first-name basis, also eschewed by this Emperor, and that there is no business discussed until breakfast is over and we’ve moved on to coffee.”

  Hayes raised an eyebrow to Parnell.

  “That’s all OK with me,” Parnell said.

  “Sounds wonderful to me,” Bouchard said.

  So brunch passed with talk of the weather, and the food, but with no mention of the momentous events shaking the Empire.

  After breakfast, they moved out on to the balcony for coffee. Staff served them out there, and left the pot of coffee and a plate of nibbles, and then were dismissed.

  “I’m surprised you wanted to restart this tradition before Friday, Sandy,” Parnell said. “Aren’t we worried someone will put two and two together and get four?”

  “No, for a number of reasons, Dan. One is that the palace staff is intensely loyal to the current regime. At the moment, that means Amanda Peters.”

  “Are there no spies in the Palace, Sandy?” Bouchard asked.

  “Oh, there’s a bunch of them, Marie. There always have been.”

  At Bouchard’s look of alarm, Hayes laughed.

  “The Palace staff has instructions that, if someone tries to recruit them as a spy, they should go along with it. We even have training classes for staff about how to be appropriately hesitant, pretend to some slight that has them upset, that sort of thing. Then we run them as double agents. We feed them what we want people to know. Bobby did that throughout his reign, but it was in place well before that. The Imperial Guard runs that operation, so Dan knows all about it.”

  Parnell nodded.

  “So what’s the official story about me?” Parnell asked.

  “That’s another reason I’m not worried about restarting brunch. You are to be named the Heir to the Throne at the coronation. That is Goulet’s sop to the pro-Parnell faction, you see. To quiet things down about the irregularity of his succession. So every consideration is being given to you to placate your faction. Meanwhile, it is darkly hinted, having you as the named Heir to the Throne will protect Goulet from assassination attempts, because then they would get you on the Throne.”


  Parnell and Bouchard both laughed.

  “So that is why you are in the coronation party, that is why Marie is in the coronation party, that is why Amanda is in the coronation party. It’s all a sop to your faction by Goulet.”

  “But won’t the real story get out? Certainly there must be spies you don’t know about,” Bouchard said.

  “Yes, but now there are competing stories. And the competing story is that Goulet is simply going to walk away from being Emperor and give the Throne to Dan. The people we are concerned about are people who thirst for power, are drunk on it. They can’t even imagine Goulet doing that. So the planted story is more believable to them than the truth.”

  “What about among the Palace staff?” Bouchard asked.

  “Oh, absolutely everybody knows,” Hayes said.

  “How do they know?” Parnell asked.

  “Amanda told them. But she also told them it was a secret, for Palace staff only. She wanted to make sure there was no effort to sabotage Goulet’s coronation, which people might well have done thinking it was what she wanted. Out of loyalty to her.”

  “Then why the assassination attempt in Imperial City spaceport?” Dominica asked.

  “I actually think it was a kidnapping attempt gone wrong,” Hayes said. “They would have escorted Dan out to a car, and kept him incommunicado or killed him off-site.”

  Hayes turned to Parnell.

  “Did Jenny Beecher tell you where the money came from, Dan?”

  “Yes. From Vandalia Sector.”

  “She’s got it nailed down better now. They were henchmen of one of Sounder’s political allies. So it was likely Sounder. She’s actually the most dangerous of the Five Musketeers because she’s a loose cannon. Paranoid. Everything that happens in the Empire, it turns out, centers on her. So she imagines the worst thing that can possibly happen from her point of view, and then assumes that’s what everyone in the Empire is plotting.”