Petron

by Blaze Ward

Tedrik Kasum, older brother of Nils, the man who had been First Lord of the Fleet when she was at the Academy. She recognized him from the briefing she had been given this morning in preparation and his resemblance to his brother.

  Nils Kasum was safe on St. Legier, as far as Andrea knew, having secretly gotten that information from General zu Arlo himself. Nils would continue to be safe there, regardless of what happened here today, even if he ended up never returning to Aquitaine space.

  She couldn’t imagine a galaxy where that sort of an outcome was acceptable.

  “Mister Chairman, I would address this body,” Senator Kasum called out in a voice that didn’t appear to be nearly as mirthful as his peers.

  Premier Horvat turned around with surprise in his body language as he laid eyes on the man who was on his side of the central divider, a nominal ally.

  “The Chair recognizes Senator Kasum,” the man at the high end of the room said in a more formal tone.

  The Chair of the Senate was a sinecure position, responsible for generally maintaining decorum in the body, as well as supervising the housekeeping staff in all its various flavors. He also held official power from the point when a Senate stood down for elections until a new body was seated.

  “My friends and colleagues, I bear terrible tidings into this body today,” Senator Kasum called in a voice that echoed off the far walls, even as the men and women on the floor fell into an awkward, almost haunted silence. “Outside these walls, our friends and enemies alike have begun to gird themselves for war, as many of you know. However, I have been made privy to certain information not yet public knowledge, for the purposes that I may convey it to this body in open session.”

  Premier Horvat was turned fully to the side now, apparently unsure where his supposed ally was going, but unwilling to speak over him yet. The rest of the room had sobered, even the galley where Andrea watched fell into a silent, pregnant pause.

  “The President of the Republic herself has contacted me at the behest of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy, my friends,” Senator Kasum continued. “Many of you are aware that assassins failed in their attempt to kill RAN Centurion Vo Arlo, now Imperial General zu Arlo, while he was attending the wedding of First Centurion Jessica Keller at Petron. Some few of you even know zu Arlo personally, and are aware that the man has always brought the highest esteem on this body and Aquitaine itself.”

  That brought a rumble of support. Vo was a hero, even Andrea understood how deeply entwined with both nations the man had become.

  “However,” Senator Kasum raised his tone to an angry roar that stilled the crowd. “It has come to the attention of the President, via the Judge Advocate General of the Navy’s office, that our government may have had some culpability in the assassination attempt itself, and the subsequent, low-grade warfare that has broken out between our long-time ally, Lincolnshire, and their neighbors: Salonnia and Corynthe.”

  The rumbling turned darker now.

  Unfriendly, if Andrea had to give it a tone.

  “Put simply, my friends, we may have hired the assassins ourselves,” Senator Kasum turned his angry gaze on the Premier now.

  The Senate floor erupted as men and women came to their feet, screaming invective and insults at each other. Andrea had never imagined this body suffering such a loss of decorum, and yet she had known what the day held.

  It took the Chairman nearly five minutes to restore order. Even then, men and women in the back rows occasionally interjected the odd profanity into the air.

  “The Honored Gentleman would best exercise care in his accusations,” the Chairman called in a hard, serious voice. “I will remind this body of the extent and repercussions of slander today, or libel tomorrow. You will behave as Senators of this proud Republic, and not a rabble. Am I understood?”

  “Clearly, Mister Chairman,” Senator Kasum called, unbowed. “I make no accusations myself as I am merely the Herald for others today. Such has come to me by way of the President of the Republic, Madame Calina Szabolcsi herself. I will trust her words and intentions. As should you all.”

  Andrea held her breath as Senator Kasum reached down and picked up a bundle of papers that had been hidden beside his chair until now. He strode forward and placed them onto the counter separating the body into two parts with a resounding thump that echoed hollowly in the sudden silence.

  “No Senator may face the actions of law enforcement while the Senate itself sits,” Senator Kasum reminded them in a tight, angry voice. “Thus is this body immune to the deprecations of political tides. However, there are very specific rules and procedures that must be followed when one of us stands accused of criminal activity that cannot be disregarded under the excuse of mere politics.”

  She watched the man turn completely in place, like a lighthouse bringing his immense, contained rage to each and every person in the body today. Darkness, followed by a strobe of intense anger, and then darkness again.

  Even in the audience, Andrea felt the power of the man’s gaze.

  “Senator Tadej Horvat, Premier of the Aquitaine Senate, I convey to the floor indictments leveled by the President herself, accusing you of illegalities sufficient that this body should set aside your legal immunities until such time as you stand acquitted or convicted. I will enter this information into the public record, and I call upon the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate itself to take Senator Horvat directly into custody, under the President’s authority.”

  If it had been bedlam before, the floor of the Senate dissolved into chaos now. The Chairman banged his gavel so loud and hard that Andrea was surprised he didn’t break it. Two groups of bodies coalesced on the floor, one surrounding Horvat, as if they would protect him from harm, and the second around Kasum. The latter did not appear to be facing anything like the Ides of March, but Andrea couldn’t say the same about Horvat.

  The pile of papers was torn open and read with cries of rage or glee, depending. The Sergeant-at-Arms had apparently been briefed, because she appeared quickly and managed to elbow and shove her way into the group around Horvat, with several of her much larger assistants in tow.

  She was a small woman, blond. Built like a dancer, but Andrea would have assumed the woman to be an assassin herself, were they to meet as strangers on the street. She had a hard, cold, lethal edge to her as she moved. Horvat and his friends recognized it. They also knew that Kasum and Szabolcsi were handling the situation exactly according to the law.

  Somewhere in this city, Judit Chavarría was also being taken into custody, along with several others, spies Andrea presumed. zu Arlo’s report had provided none of their names, but Naval Intelligence had supplied a list of personnel, when First Lord demanded them.

  An entire network was being rolled up today, even as the government itself threatened to fall.

  Below, four big men took Horvat by the elbows and shoved back any Senator that got too close as they removed the Premier from the chamber. The tiny blond woman escorted them and Senator Kasum to the door like it was a wake.

  In a way, it was.

  “This Chamber stands in recess,” she heard the Chairman gavel the Senate to closure.

  Andrea rose and made her way to the door of the galley and the world outside as the noise continued unabated. There might be other fireworks on the floor below, especially as two Senators appeared to be ready to come to blows, but she was needed elsewhere.

  She had sworn an oath to Justice itself, long before any lesser promises. It would be her testimony, most likely, that would bring down the entire government of Aquitaine.

  And maybe Aquitaine itself.

  EPILOGUE – DENIS

  IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 184/06/30. IMPERIAL PALACE, MEJICO, ST. LEGIER

  It felt weird, being escorted like this as a civilian, but Denis Jež knew he was done with uniforms forever. Imperial marines had handed him off to troopers of the 189th Legion, who then handed him off to men of the Household Guard once they got inside the building.

  Vo had made the pla
ce famous, once upon a time. Long before it had become the Imperial Palace. Denis found it strange that she was here, rather than in the magnificent edifice he had overflown on the way to the nearest starport, across the lake and up the river. But she was also the Emperor, and could do anything she really wanted, if she put her foot down and refused to budge.

  He might have even helped foster that sort of behavior in the young woman, once upon a time.

  The guard knocked on a random, second-story door. Anna-Katherine Kallenberger cracked it enough to smile at him, and then opened the door the rest of the way and stepped back into the room.

  “Denis Jež,” she said simply, acknowledging that he was in civilian attire.

  Retired.

  Done, just like Jessica would be soon. He had gotten her there.

  Now it was his turn.

  Her Imperial Majesty Karl VIII, Emperor of Fribourg by Grace of God rose from a couch and walked right up to hug him, in front of God and everyone.

  She was also in civilian attire today. Loose pants and a dressy shirt, but he could see a mock turtleneck in chaos green peeking out at her collar. That had been part of her Centurion uniform, when they’d all been younger.

  At forty-four, Denis didn’t feel old, but he understood that one door had finally closed, hopefully forever, and this young woman was a herald pointing him toward a new future.

  She surprised him with a kiss on the cheek before she stepped back with a smile.

  “Sit, Uncle,” she gestured to one of the chairs as she more or less flopped onto the couch.

  Not the most formal of audiences, then. Not that he was surprised.

  Anna-Katherine was close at hand.

  “Coffee, tea, or privacy?” the other young woman asked in a cheerful voice.

  “None of the above,” Casey announced with a matching smile. “You sit at the table and chaperone us like you always do.”

  Denis sat. Once upon a time, he would have been poised at the outer edge, alert and possibly ready to bolt, but once upon a times were also passed. He leaned back and crossed his legs as he got comfortable.

  Casey studied him for a long moment, but Denis just watched her with a patient, relaxed smile. He could do that now.

  The wars were over. His were, anyway.

  And she called him Uncle as an honorific given only to a very few. Him, Robbie, Alber’, and Kigali. Em and apparently Nils now.

  If she considered Jessica to be her second mother, Denis supposed that made him Jess’s other little brother, counting Sasha. Not necessarily all that far from the truth.

  “Thank you,” she said simply, without anything else.

  Her eyes covered the wealth of details summed up in those two words.

  Everything. And then some.

  Denis nodded and tried not to blush. He was still an Irish redhead, even though his hair was thin and graying rapidly these days.

  “I had a long conversation with Tom Provst,” she continued. “And another one with Vo. Your name came up repeatedly.”

  Denis decided not to fight it and just went ahead and shrugged. This woman could be considered his niece. He didn’t have anything to hide from her. Not after the last decade.

  “When they wanted to burn the periphery down and salt the ruins, you stopped them,” Casey said. “I’ve heard their side of the story, but I’d like to get yours. I have decisions to make, going forward, and your counsel will be greatly appreciated, Uncle.”

  Again, he blushed. Who was Denis Jež, to be advising Fribourg Emperors?

  But hadn’t he started there? Senior Centurion responsible for holding the semi-incompetent hands of well-bred fools promoted far past their competence, so that they could go into politics or something? Augustine Kwok had only been the last of such, not the first.

  After that, Jessica. And history.

  “Jessica always had a plan,” Denis said. “And three more behind it. If you gave her twenty-four hours, you might get sixty variations and branches on a decision tree, so that she could instantly communicate to her officers, and later her squadrons, exactly what she needed them to do. It was up to each Tactical Officer to execute, but every one of them had faith that Jessica had them covered by someone else, so nobody was left hanging in the wind.”

  Casey nodded. He had helped shape her as a Centurion. He understood how smart the woman was.

  “Vo’s signature was rage,” Denis continued. “Tom’s was, as well. You could not have chosen two Imperial officers more likely to annihilate Lincolnshire and Salonnia, given the weight of firepower they had at their command.”

  “And yet you stopped them,” she repeated, casually, as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

  Nobody moved Vo. He moved himself, if he chose to. And Tom Provst’s reputation as Em’s Avenging Angel had made it across most of known space.

  “We study history, as officers of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy, Casey,” he said, falling back into the patterns when she was on his ship, serving on Jessica’s flag bridge.

  And she was his niece.

  “You didn’t get the full four years of immersion that a more typical officer would have,” Denis continued. “A lot of it was unnecessary for where you were going, but some of it was flavor. We study Rome, because that is one of the cultural patterns Henri Baudin impressed upon his young republic at the beginning.”

  He wanted to rise. To pace. Denis held himself still instead. It was just the two of them, with Anna-Katherine watching.

  “Tell me about Rome, Uncle,” Casey prompted.

  “They overthrew their kings and instituted a republic, one of the first that really survived long,” Denis replied. “They had laws and culture backing them. No man was above them. But as with all things, it grew frail and eventually fell to a charismatic demagogue.”

  “Julius Caesar,” she said with a nod.

  “No,” Denis corrected his young student. “Sulla.”

  Her confusion was priceless. He doubted more than handful of people had ever been allowed to see Casey at such a loss for words.

  “He seized power and revived the rank of dictator when Caesar was still a young man,” Denis said. “Was actually talked out of killing Julius Caesar by others. Sulla wanted to save the republic as he saw it, by enacting reforms intended to shore up the strength of the Senate against the populists. He ended up breaking it instead. His loyalists rounded up and killed so many people that the citizens demanded he post a placard showing the people accused of crimes against the state. Against Sulla. Those who were next.”

  Her face grew serious as she absorbed everything. Denis had no doubt that she would find a good history or three of the late republic and consume them in the next month, but she was listening, now, here, to him.

  “When he did, those became proscriptions,” Denis continued. “Literally, those next to be killed, if they didn’t flee into exile. Sulla reformed things as he thought they should be and then retired. He did apparently write his memoirs, but they have been largely lost, except as quotes in other documents.”

  “And?” Casey asked pointedly.

  “Sulla brought back the dictatorship, overruling all the others and disrupting the balance of power that had been put in place, where two consuls could largely thwart each other if they felt it necessary,” Denis said. “Julius Caesar had a precedent and a roadmap, two generations later, when he decided that the only way to keep his own enemies from destroying him was to seize ultimate power. But unlike Sulla, who did what he thought was necessary and retired, Caesar created the Empire, with himself as permanent dictator.”

  “So what is the risk to Fribourg?” Casey asked.

  “Not Fribourg, Your Majesty,” Denis smiled sadly. “Aquitaine. The Republic has been gravely wounded over the last generation. First, your father and grandfather began to get seriously close to winning the Great War. Even Nils Kasum only held them at bay for a while until Jessica could push you back, at Cahllepp and then Thuringwell. The risk is that we, they,
will fall into that same pattern, where a charismatic demagogue rises. There will be a hard peace with Fribourg, but also with Lincolnshire. If Salonnia gets cleaned up, the Republic might be suddenly beset on three sides by competent governments and foes, where they were used to only really having to deal with one. Tadej Horvat has been such a dominant figure for the last generation that people might fall prey to someone offering them false promises. Promising a spurious return to some largely mythical past and riling up the populace, especially if the Fifty Families are seen as the ones responsible for the mess Aquitaine got themselves into and can’t stop it next time. I fear Imperial Aquitaine.”

  “How soon until we risk the rise of Julius Caesar?” Casey leaned forward now.

  “Sulla retired in 81 BCE,” Denis said. “Julius seized power in 49 BCE, so nearly two generations passed in those thirty-two years, as they counted things in those days. But you’d only be in your fifties, if that sort of thing happened today.”

  “And that’s the future your studies see?” Casey asked.

  Denis shrugged and considered his words carefully.

  “There will be a generation of troubles ahead,” he prognosticated. “Nils might never feel safe enough return to Ladaux. Jessica will be a foreigner when she does, as she won’t stay long. Many politicians will be tainted, so others will have to rise instead, and I have my doubts, given that Nils and Horvat just spent a generation weeding out the aristocrats from positions of power in the navy, which is traditionally the base of power upon which the Republic rests, same as the Empire. That opens the way for populists, the sorts of men and women who play on your baser fears, rather than your dreams.”

  “Imperial Aquitaine?” Casey asked, repeating the words.

  “It would not take much,” Denis nodded. “That might even be the path of least resistance going forward, given the possible failure of the meritocratic Republic. One man or woman who can convince enough others that they have the cure for all Aquitaine’s ills, if they are just given absolute power for a few years to make the changes necessary.”