EMPIRE: Succession

by Richard F. Weyand

  “I think so, Sire.”

  Goulet sat down at the small table there, and Dillard set before him an Imperial Decree, abdicating the Throne of the Galactic Empire and naming Daniel Whittier Parnell Heir to the Throne. Goulet signed it “Jerome Albert Goulet, Nerva Imp.’

  MacFarland took the Imperial Decree and handed it for safekeeping to an Imperial Guardsman standing by.

  Goulet stood and addressed Parnell.

  “It is done, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Governor Goulet.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “Long live the Emperor,” MacFarland, Dillard, and Goulet all said, and bowed to Parnell.

  The coronation was ahead, but the transfer of power had already occurred.

  Parnell now sat at the table, and Dillard produced several more documents for his signature. One named Marie Louise Bouchard the Guardian of the Throne, to have full Imperial Powers until the succession had been accomplished. One named Sanford Hayes the current Heir to the Throne.

  The other dealt with the Five Musketeers.

  Outside the Throne Room, the Imperial Guard kept a clear line leading to the doors for a hundred feet down the sidewalk. The sector governors were starting to gather here. All of them were attending in VR, using VR projectors. Hayes, the Co-Consul, was there in person, and would lead them down the aisle created down the nave by two lines of Imperial Guardsmen.

  As Hayes was standing there, he got a mail message from Parnell.

  To: Sanford Hayes, Co-Consul

  From: Daniel Whittier Parnell

  Subject: Transfer Complete

  Transfer of power complete. All is well. Trajan Imp.

  Hayes breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Whatever happened now, the primary goal had been achieved. The rest was icing on the cake.

  He checked the time, then called the sector governors to order. They lined up in double file behind him, then he led them up the stairs of the Throne Room to stand at the threshold of the great doors, standing open now.

  In the other anteroom to the apse of the Throne Room, Amanda Peters and Marie Louise Bouchard sat, together with two officers of the Imperial Guard. Peters was in VR, and she had tapped into the VR controls of the gathered sector governors. She had added them to a group edit as they arrived in VR, and, with all of them here now, she made a little tweak here and a little tweak there.

  Bouchard heard her chuckle and smiled.

  That sounded like the chuckle of someone misbehaving, but Peters was on her side.

  The Coronation

  Co-Consul Sanford Hayes stood at the top of the stairs on the threshold of the entrance to the Throne Room of the Imperial Palace, the giant gothic nave at the front of the original palace of the Kings of Sintar. The old palace was long gone, the current palace having replaced it over three hundred fifty years ago. But the ancient gothic nave of the original palace had been retained.

  The sector governors lined up behind him, down the stairs and down the sidewalk. They weren’t actually here, but were attending in VR. The Palace was using the VR projectors Democracy of Planets politicians had used for decades to address crowds without weeks spent in interplanetary travel or risk of assassination. The sector governors were together in a single VR channel, wherever in the Empire they actually were, and they were projected here, looking real, looking present. They alone were not physically here. Hayes, the Emperor, and the crowd were.

  At eleven-fifteen, a trumpet fanfare was played, and Hayes walked down the center of the enormous nave, filled with people, between the rows of Imperial Guardsmen forming the aisle.

  He reached the front of the lines of Guardsmen, to where their lines turned left and right, forming the forward barrier of the crowd. He stopped just in front of them, and the sector governors split and walked out to either side until the line of them, there in front of the Guardsmen, stretched across the nave.

  At eleven-thirty a trumpet fanfare sounded again, and Jerome Goulet entered from a side door, walked to the dais and up its side steps to the top, and then across to the center. He was wearing a simple business suit. He turned and faced the crowd.

  “We are gathered here to witness the coronation of Daniel Whittier Parnell as the Emperor Trajan II, the third ruler of the Galactic Empire.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd as well as the sector governors. This wasn’t what they thought was going to happen. A very few sector governors tried to exit VR, to leave the coronation, and found to their shock that their VR controls didn’t work. They were stuck here.

  Parnell entered through the same side door as Goulet, walked around to the front of the dais, and up the steps. He knelt on a pillow on the floor in front of Goulet. He was wearing his Imperial Guard uniform, the Imperial Marines’ Marine Dress Uniform with the gold fourragère of the Imperial Guard.

  Kneeling in front of Goulet, Parnell loudly and clearly recited the Oath of the Emperor.

  “I, Daniel Whittier Parnell, pledge to perform the duties and responsibilities of Emperor, wielding authority with compassion, justice with mercy, and power with finesse, for the benefit and well-being of the people of the Galactic Empire and all humanity, now and into the future, until I die.”

  At that point, Marie Louise Bouchard entered the Throne Room from the opposite side door as Goulet and Parnell had, carrying a square purple pillow with gold fringe and tassels. On it was a woven gold circlet with a single large blue jewel in the center – the Star of Humanity – and overlain with a gold representation of a laurel wreath. She walked around to the foot of the dais in front, and up the steps to Parnell’s right, stopping one step short of the top.

  Goulet took the crown and placed it on Parnell’s head. Bouchard backed down the steps and stood at the foot of the steps to the dais.

  Two Imperial Guard officers entered from the same side door as Bouchard had, carrying between them an accordion-folded purple cloth. They were also wearing the Imperial Marines’ Marine Dress Uniform with the gold fourragère of the Imperial Guard. They walked around to the foot of the dais in the front, and up the steps until they were on either side of Parnell, one step down from the top. They held the cloth up to Parnell’s shoulders, and Goulet took a clasp from each side and fastened them in front of Parnell’s neck. The Guard officers unfolded the cloth by lowering it to the floor, revealing an imperial purple cape, chased at the hem, plackets, and collar with an intricate design in gold thread.

  The Guard officers backed down the steps and stood to either side of the steps, one of them next to Bouchard.

  Goulet walked to one front corner of the dais and stood facing Parnell.

  Parnell rose and stood. He walked forward to the Throne and mounted the one single additional step in front of it. He knelt before the Throne and bowed deeply to it, then kissed the end of the left arm of the Throne, then the right. He stood and turned to face the crowd, bathed in the midday sunlight streaming through the skylight above. The gold of the crown and cape glinted in the sunlight, and the Star of Humanity on his forehead shone with a blue fire.

  Goulet called out, “The Emperor Trajan II.”

  Goulet, Bouchard, and the Guard officers all went down on one knee and bowed their heads as the trumpets started the Imperial Fanfare. Hayes and the sector governors all went down on one knee and bowed their heads, followed by the crowd. The two lines of Imperial Guardsmen, who had been standing at ease, turned toward the Throne and came to attention, then, as one, saluted and held the salute through the fanfare.

  When the fanfare was finished, Parnell remained standing in front of the Throne.

  “Please rise.”

  At his command, everyone rose. Parnell walked forward to the front step and signaled Bouchard, at the bottom of the steps. She climbed the steps and knelt on the pillow in front of him.

  From the same side door as Bouchard and the Guard officers had come, now came Amanda Peters. She was dressed in a white robe and barefoot. She carried a square purple pillow with gold fringe and
tassels. On it was an intricate plastron necklace of gold mounted with blue gemstones, the crown jewels of Sintar. She climbed the steps to one side of Bouchard, stopping one step short of the top.

  Parnell took the necklace, which Peters had worn for ceremonial occasions for over sixty years, and placed it around Bouchard’s neck, clasping it behind her. He gave her his hand and helped her up. She turned and they faced the crowd together holding hands, the handsome Emperor in uniform, wearing the Imperial purple cape and the golden crown, and the beautiful Empress in her figure-revealing white dress, her black hair entwined with multi-colored roses, the crown jewels across her breast.

  Goulet called out, “The Empress Consort Marie, Guardian of the Throne.”

  Parnell and Bouchard walked back to the Throne and up the last step. He sat on the Throne, and she stood to his right side with her left hand on his shoulder and the sunlight streaming in through the skylights above. Bouchard looked out over the crowd, her shoulders back, her head high. She was Guardian of the Throne, whom none dared challenge.

  Bouchard was a vision in the sunlight from the skylights, the stunning white dress shining and the blue fire of the jewels dancing across her breast. The Star of Humanity blazed on Parnell’s brow, and he looked out across the crowded nave and the Palace Mall beyond to the statue of Ilithyia II, lit by the reflectors on the Throne Room buttresses and framed in the archway of the great open doors of the Throne Room.

  The crowd inside was applauding, while the crowd outside was cheering wildly.

  When Parnell took the necklace from her, Peters backed down the steps and went to the corner of the dais, where a chair had been set for her, and sat down. She had worried she would not last, between the excitement and the exertion, but she had done her part. There could be no bigger symbols than Goulet giving the crown to Parnell and Peters giving the necklace to Bouchard. The factions were mended.

  Save for those five bastards standing there looking bewildered. She watched the time carefully, and at the proper moment gave the signal.

  From five different Imperial Navy attack ship carriers the orders went out. ‘You have weapons release. Launch GDP on confirmed target.’

  Over five different sector capitals, a pair of armored assault shuttles, now at a hundred miles above the surface, deviated from their filed spacing plans and pulled up sharply, heading back to their mother ships. One shuttle in each pair dropped a single munition as they climbed.

  Parnell now held up a hand and the crowd quieted.

  “Governor Jerome Goulet,” Parnell said.

  Goulet bowed to the Emperor, walked down the side steps of the dais, around to the front, and up the steps of the dais to kneel on the pillow on the top step.

  Parnell got up and came forward, Bouchard at his side. She was carrying the large version of the Gratitude of the Throne with her, picked up from a small table behind the Throne.

  “For extraordinary service to the Throne and the Empire, I am pleased to present you with the Gratitude of the Throne.”

  Parnell took the medal – a laurel wreath wrought in gold on a purple ribbon – from Bouchard and placed the ribbon over Goulet’s head and around his neck.

  The crowd applauded and cheered again. Goulet bowed to Parnell, then got up and backed down the steps. Parnell and Bouchard walked back to the Throne. Parnell sat and Bouchard took up her position as before. Goulet walked to the corner of the dais and took a chair there, on the opposite side of the dais as Peters’s.

  It was a unifying scene: Daniel Parnell on the Throne, his beautiful Empress, Marie Louise Bouchard, at his side, the widowed Empress Amanda Peters seated on one side of the dais, and the former Emperor Nerva, Jerome Goulet, the gold laurel wreath of the Gratitude of the Throne on his chest, seated on the other side of the dais.

  Parnell let the crowd cheer a little bit. He looked at Peters to one side, and she just nodded. So their timing was good, anyway. Parnell sent a VR message to MacFarland.

  Imperial General MacFarland came out of the anteroom to one side of the apse, the side from which Parnell and Goulet had entered. He carried an official document in his hand. He walked up the side steps of the dais and crossed the dais to the Throne. He bowed to the Emperor, and then handed the Emperor the document. MacFarland retreated to the side of the dais.

  Parnell checked his time, then lifted the document in front of him and read it to the crowd.

  “Stanton Sector Governor Bryan Hawking, Fremd Sector Governor James Thornton, Vandalia Sector Governor Elizabeth Sounder, Lauda Sector Governor Joshua Lewis, and Mantua Sector Governor Teresa Montefiore, you have been found by the Throne to be guilty of interfering with the succession to the Throne, a treason that is punishable by death. The sentence of death is imposed, and will be carried out immediately.”

  The locations of the five sector governors within the Sector Governor’s Residence on the capital planets of Stanton, Fremd, Vandalia, Lauda, and Mantua had been nailed down to a T by monitoring the governors’ VR systems. Those locations were used as the target point for each of the five GDPs.

  The five-ton tungsten cylinders came in at over four thousand miles an hour and hit the Sector Governor’s Residences dead center on the Sector Governor’s VR signal. Even epoxycrete was no barrier to an impact like that, and the projectile punched down through the roof and the multiple floors of the building with ease.

  It was a specially designed, expanding round. Rather than being designed to remain intact and penetrate a hardened bunker a hundred feet under the ground, the nose of the Gravity Demolition Projectile expanded with every impact, and it punched bigger and bigger holes through the floors as it went, until it hit the basement floor.

  Programmed for the number of impacts it took to reach the basement, the fuzee on the weapon detonated the demolition charge when the projectile had reached the basement, and hundreds of pieces of heavy tungsten shrapnel sleeted across the basement, taking out the supporting columns of the building.

  With the floors shattered and the supporting columns broken, the building slowly collapsed into itself, the crumbling center pulling the outer walls with it as it fell. The five Sector Governors, their assistants, and their enablers, were all buried in the rubble of the buildings from which they had thought to direct the succession of the Empire.

  When the governors died, their VR signals were lost.

  In Imperial City, in the Throne Room of the Imperial Palace, the Emperor had just pronounced sentence of death on the five sector governors, the Five Musketeers. They would have objected, they would have fled, but their VR systems were no longer under their control.

  Amanda Peters smiled as they looked around perplexed, terrified, not knowing what would happen next.

  Then Joshua Lewis simply disappeared. Teresa Montefiore was next. Then James Thornton disappeared. Hawking and Sounder were looking around madly. Bryan Hawking disappeared, leaving Elizabeth Sounder standing in the gap where all five had stood together. She was screaming in VR, but her output was muted. Then she, too, disappeared.

  The crowd stood stunned.

  “Let none interfere in the proper succession to the Throne,” Parnell announced.

  Parnell turned to General MacFarland.

  “Proceed, General MacFarland,” Parnell said.

  “Consul Sanford Hayes,” MacFarland called out.

  Hayes approached the dais, climbed the steps, and knelt on the pillow. He bowed to the Emperor.

  “I pledge my obedience, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Consul Hayes.”

  Hayes rose and returned to his place.

  “Provence Sector Governor Jerome Goulet,” MacFarland called out.

  Goulet got up from the chair at the side of the dais and repeated Hayes’s actions.

  “I pledge my obedience, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Governor Goulet.”

  Goulet rose and withdrew, taking his place with the other sector governors, in the gap left by the disappearance of the Five Muske
teers.

  MacFarland proceeded through the Call of the Sector Governors, and each sector governor came up to the Emperor to kneel, bow, and pledge their obedience as they followed the ancient ritual. None dared deny Trajan II his oath, not after he showed just how much like his namesake he was. Only seventy-four of seventy-nine sectors now had sector governors. The Five Musketeers’ replacements would have to be named.

  When MacFarland had completed the roll, the Imperial Fanfare sounded again, and Parnell stood. Everyone went down on one knee and bowed as he and Bouchard walked slowly hand-in-hand across the dais, down the side steps and out through the door Parnell had entered from. At the end of the Imperial Fanfare, everyone stood.

  At this point, Amanda Peters, still seated alongside the dais, reversed the group edit she had done on the VR controls of the sector governors. They could now once again drop out of VR.

  The coronation was over.

  The After Party

  The entire coronation party – Parnell, Bouchard, Goulet, Peters, Hayes, MacFarland, and the two Imperial Guard officers, Captain Joseph Dietrich and Colonel Miguel Perez, chosen by lot from among their peers, and, in the cases of Hayes, MacFarland, and the Guard officers, their wives – were directed to the Imperial Palace elevators, where Imperial Guardsmen stood by to run the elevator controls to take them to the top Imperial Residence floor. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres were served in the formal living room. The window wall was completely open to the balcony on this pleasant afternoon.

  This being the Imperial Residence, the etiquette was first names only. While some of the attendees were used to it, and the Imperial Guard officers were aware of it from standing watch in the Imperial Residence, the wives of the guard officers were shocked to be introduced to the new Emperor and Empress as Dan and Marie. Marie laughed it off and made them feel at ease.

  “Yes, this is the one place in the entire galaxy where we can be treated as normal people. At home. Welcome to our home.”