EMPIRE: Intervention (EMPIRE SERIES Book 13)

by Richard F. Weyand

  That didn’t sound right either. Chapman knew that the prison had been expanded twice under Mieland, but could there really be ten thousand inmates there?

  The truth was worse. He realized he had forgotten the ones who went out the back door, the loading dock, to unmarked graves. Four thousand of them.

  Chapman felt sick, but he had suspected it for years. When the prison got overcrowded, they solved the problem in what was, for the Mieland regime, the simplest way. They executed the most objectionable, to them, of the political prisoners and buried them out of sight.

  Getting on with his assignment, he looked through the surviving prisoners for judges who had been on the bench prior to the Mieland regime. The youngest of them, trained in law schools in the Empire and coming to the colony in its early years, were now in their early sixties. He found five.

  It was amazing even that many had survived.

  “I have a total of five candidates for you, Madam President.”

  “I don’t know whether to think that’s a little or a lot, Mr. Chapman.”

  “It’s few enough, considering. Apparently the Mieland regime got tired of spending money to expand the prison. After that, they solved the problem of overcrowding by the simple expedient of executing enough prisoners to get the numbers back down. The more visible prisoners, and the ones who had been less trouble to the regime, they kept. The others they executed and buried in secret. Four thousand of them.”

  “And these five judges survived?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Though I’m not quite sure how. They’re all in their sixties.”

  “Get all five out of the prison. Have the medical unit assess their condition. Get them meals, showers, and a change of clothes. And maybe a good night’s sleep. I’ll talk to them tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Chapman looked at his data for a few moments, then back to Turley.

  “It’s almost enough to make one rethink the amnesty for Mr. Mieland, Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Mieland was a true believer, Mr. Chapman. By all accounts, he thought his program would work. Mr. Land was the head of the Security Ministry and the Secret Police. You can’t have Mr. Mieland without Mr. Land, and Mr. Land did not survive.”

  Chapman tried to relax the tension in his neck, in his shoulders. He sighed.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  The other justice issue Turley had to work on was the Council. Mieland had dismissed the Council five years ago. How many survived? She looked up the history of the Council, especially the last five years before it was dismissed.

  The Council was comprised of one hundred representatives, with five elected at large from each of twenty districts. Monroe, with something like thirty percent of the population ten years ago, had six districts, and the other fourteen were more rural districts extending as much as several hundred miles from the capital. Turley set the computer to finding how many of the one hundred representatives, called Councilors, were still alive.

  Nominally, each Councilor represented about a hundred thousand people, but as the economy had slowly contracted, the rural poor had fled to the capital. Now as many as five million of the colony’s ten million people crowded into the decaying capital. Did she re-apportion the Council, or leave it as it was, anticipating the exodus from the city that prosperity would bring?

  That was a question for another time. How much of the duly elected Council was left? That was today’s question.

  Fifty-four Councilors remained alive and at large. Turley cross-checked with the prison files Chapman had copied her on. Another fourteen Councilors were in prison. Altogether, there were sixty-nine of the Councilors elected ten years ago still alive on Julian.

  She had a quorum.

  Turley received the medical reports on the released judges late that afternoon. Remarkably enough, all five surviving jurists were in pretty good shape for their age. A little malnourishment, a bit underweight, and three needed dental work. One had an arrhythmia. Two others were working on a coronary. The doctors cured the last two issues with the appropriate nanites, and dental work was scheduled.

  Turley made a note to check on the status of VR and contraceptive implants in the population. Had the regime kept to Imperial standards there, or not? She had her suspicions.

  The next morning after breakfast, Turley met with the five jurists. She met with them in person, rather than in VR, so she could better judge their physical and mental health. They met in the conference area of the command headquarters tent at the spaceport.

  “This way, please, gentlemen,” Mark Chapman said as he led the five into the tent.

  They were all dressed in Imperial Marine MCUs, and filed in to take seats at the meeting table. General Turley was already seated there, and Chapman took a seat by her side. Turley’s aide, Lieutenant Parsons, sat off to one side, ready to take notes or action items. Chapman introduced them as Colin Noyce, Aidan Reid, Ravi Singh, Adam Mercer, and Marcel Colbert.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Turley said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Did we have a choice?” Mercer asked.

  “Yes, of course, you do. You can walk out the door right now, if you wish, and go back home. I know it may seem strange right now, but freedom has come back to Julian.”

  “Who are you people?” Reid asked. “Are you really the new president? Are you Imperial Marines?”

  “No. We’re a hired mercenary army, together with your own resistance movement. We actually work for Stauss Interstellar Holdings. As for being president, James Mieland stepped down the day before yesterday, and turned the presidency over to me as the interim government going into new elections.”

  “Extraordinary,” Mercer said.

  “You’re very businesslike for mercenaries,” Reid said.

  “We’re all former Imperial Marines.”

  “Ah. That explains much,” Reid said.

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,” Mercer said to his fellows, “but I want to find out more about what all is going on. I think I’ll put off walking out the door for the moment.”

  There was general agreement to that.

  “We’ll drive you all to your homes this evening, if they are still there. And pick you up again in the morning, for that matter, if you take me up on my offer.”

  “We’re listening, Madam President,” Mercer said.

  “One of the things I need to do is rebuild the justice system. To that end, I need a Minister of Justice. One of the first items of business is to review the arrest and conviction status of everyone in prison and release all those imprisoned on spurious charges, while retaining the real criminals where they belong. The second pressing item is to go through the laws and strike down as unconstitutional all those put in place by Mieland without action by the Council, as well as those passed by the Council that do not pass constitutional muster. We need to trim the law down to the bare essentials, and restore freedom to the citizenry.”

  “And our role in this, Madam President?” Singh asked.

  “I want you to select from among yourselves a Justice Minister, and then the others divide two and two on commissions to perform those two tasks. You can recruit others – such as attorneys or other jurists – who you know to be of like mind to fill out the commissions, either as fellow commissioners or staff. Up to you. Take the ball and run with it.”

  “How does the commission decide which prisoners are to be released? What are the criteria?” Colbert asked.

  “That’s up to you. You’re all judges. Make a judgment.”

  “You’re simply turning it all over to us?” Colbert asked.

  “Yes. These things must get done. You have the most experience and, due to your imprisonment, the most credibility of anyone on the planet. I have thirty other pressing things to get done, and I don’t have the time to do this myself even if I had your experience, which I don’t. Not my savvy. So, if you want the job, it’s yours. Do a good job for the citizens of Julian. That’s all I ask.”

/>   The five looked up and down the table at each other. There were some raised eyebrows, some nods, a shrug or two.

  “Very well, Madam President. Can we ask some general questions?” Mercer asked.

  “Please. Go right ahead.”

  “What is your general approach to the former regime’s facilitators and cronies?”

  “Reconciliation. Your imprisonment gives you credibility in pursuing such a course.”

  “Reconciliation? I didn’t expect that,” Colbert said.

  “How much do you know about the French Revolution, Monsieur Colbert?”

  “Too much, Madam President. I understand, I just didn’t expect it.”

  “With respect to the laws, Madam President,” Mercer said, “there has always been a tension between civil rights on the one hand, and certain limits many believe necessary. I would ask your opinion on those. Where do we draw the line? For example, freedom of speech versus limits such as those for libel and slander.”

  “I prefer no limits at all, Mr. Mercer.”

  Mercer nodded.

  “Same question with respect to freedom of the press?”

  “Same answer.”

  “And things like gun control, for example?”

  “No limits.”

  “Not even for criminals, Madam President?”

  “Once a man has served his sentence, he is no longer a criminal until and unless he re-offends, Mr. Mercer. When Mr. Mieland stepped down. he named me president because ‘the one with the guns rules,’ in his words. The people should have the guns, if we want the people to rule.”

  “An emphasis on rights over limits, then.”

  “Yes. Mr. Mercer, all five of you graduated from Imperial law schools. You all learned the Law of Ilithyia II. I would err, as the Empress did, on the side of rights over limits, especially given Julian’s recent history. Let’s give everyone the maximum freedom we can, and see where they take it.”

  “If you would give us a moment, please, Madam President.”

  Turley nodded, and the five got up and walked to the corner of the tent, where they had a spirited if whispered conversation. Turley and Chapman had their own conversation, about Turley’s next priority, but Turley noted much of the jurists’ conversation was carried on while Noyce, who had not said a word during the meeting, seemed to sit in judgment of the discussion.

  After ten minutes, the five returned to their seats. Mercer seemed to be the spokesman.

  “Thank you for the break, Madam President. We understand how precious your time is, and wanted to give you an answer now. We are agreed that Mr. Reid and I will address the laws, Mr. Singh and Mr. Colbert will address the prisoner issue, and Mr. Noyce will be your Minister of Justice.”

  “You are all agreed?” Turley asked.

  The other four all turned to Noyce, who sat at one end of the group.

  “Yes, Madam President. We are all agreed.”

  The other four turned back to Turley and nodded.

  “Very well, gentlemen. Run your personnel requests for your commissions through Minister Noyce. Minister Noyce, send those requests up through my aide here, Lieutenant Parsons. I would be pleased to hear a progress report from you in a week. We need to get those political prisoners released and home to their families, and some clarity in the laws going forward is a near-term need as well.”

  “I understand, Madam President,” Noyce said.

  “Once the repairmen have the Government Center complex up and operating again, we will be moving there. In the meantime, Mr. Noyce, Lieutenant Parsons will see to getting you some space to operate in.”

  Food and Water, and a Move

  The next most pressing items on Turley’s agenda were food and water.

  As the Mieland regime had spent more and more of its time and energy on its social agenda, it had ignored – in fact, had actively suppressed, through its tax policy – capital development. One end result was a shortage of clean water. No dams had been constructed, no desalination plants built, no infrastructure improved. The situation was not yet dire, but it was deteriorating.

  The other end result was a lack of diesel fuel. There was plenty of oil available – the oil fields a hundred miles north of the city could produce plenty at their current state of development – but refinery capacity had actually shrunk due to both a lack of new investment and a failure to maintain the existing infrastructure to standards.

  Lack of diesel meant farmers couldn’t run their big farm machinery, which reduced crop yields. By a lot. Animal husbandry needed lots and lots of grains, and the insufficiency of them meant the protein content of the Julian diet was falling. It was tending to carbohydrates, and as a result the population was tending to the counterintuitive combination of overweight and malnutrition.

  Worse, the situation was deteriorating. Another few years and the population of Julian would be on the verge of famine.

  Turley called Sergeant Major Gordon and Paul Gulliver to her command headquarters tent. Hopefully, they would be moving into the Government Center complex next week. The repairmen had a lot of glass to clean up and windows to replace after her demolition of the Security Ministry.

  “Yes, Madam President,” Command Sergeant Major Gordon said at the door of the tent.

  “Come on in, Sergeant Major. And you, Mr. Gulliver. Have a seat.”

  They all sat at her meeting table.

  “We need to start working on the food and water problems. Sergeant Major, that dam site you were looking at, where we landed the armor. Is that an actual possible for a dam, or was that site driven by our military needs?”

  “Bit o’ both, Ma’am. But it is the best site close enough to the city, if you’re looking at water needs. If it was electricity you were most interested in, you can range a little farther without problems. Wires are cheaper’n pipes.”

  “Understood. So we could build a dam there?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Would you be able to size the equipment and crews required for us, Sergeant Major?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Hydraulix has project files of dam projects all over human space. I enter the parameters, and it finds similar projects and what the requirements were, how it all worked out, and I go from there.”

  “Manpower requirements?”

  “Well, Ma’am, we got a bunch o’ guys who are already here and on payroll, and local unemployment is high, so I think we would be OK with what we have. A few experts we need, but on labor we’re OK.”

  “Mr. Gulliver, would you be able to get us the things we need? Bulldozers and earthmovers, of course, but also the power plant and water treatment plant?”

  “Yes, of course, Madam President. Probably a month to get them here, but we can get them under way as soon as I have the numbers.”

  “Sergeant Major, as soon as you have numbers, get them to Mr. Gulliver so we can get that stuff on the way.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “All right. Let’s move on to food. The big problem there is farm production. We can’t raise meat animals without grains, and we can’t get grain production up without diesel fuel. As I understand it, the farms already have big farm equipment, right?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Gulliver said. “They have the machines, but they can’t afford to run them. Not with the price of diesel what it is.”

  “So we need to build up their refinery capacity. By a lot. Can we get that as well, Mr. Gulliver?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, although the problem may not be as big as you think it is.”

  “How’s that, Mr. Gulliver?”

  “That big farm equipment, Ma’am? Those were selected for the colonies with some forethought. Those big turbodiesels will run fine on a fifty-fifty mix of diesel and fuel oil. You can actually run them on pure fuel oil, but they’ll overheat when you push them, so I don’t recommend it. But when you put in refinery capacity, you get both products, diesel and fuel oil.”

  “And if we mix them at the refinery, they’re dedicated farm use, which
keeps it going where we need it most. Is that right?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Farm or construction use.”

  “Oh, I like the sound of that.”

  Turley sat and thought for a moment.

  “Do you know how much farm equipment we have out there, Mr. Gulliver?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. From the delivery records.”

  “And can you project needs in order to size the refinery capacity we need.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “How long does it take to build a refinery, Mr. Gulliver?”

  “The standard colony refineries sort of come in a kit, Ma’am. It’s not long. A month or so.”

  “Excellent. Well, we should probably get that on the way as well.”

  “And seed. And fertilizer. And probably also order up livestock for future delivery, Ma’am. The lead times on that are much longer, but it would be much faster than trying to build the herds back up.”

  “Do they have the facilities here for raising the livestock?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Mostly sitting idle.”

  Turley shook her head.

  “They were headed for famine, on a planet rich in resources, with all their equipment sitting idle.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Gulliver. Indeed. And apparently just in time.”

  Saturday morning, the fifth day after Monday’s active phase, Turley’s aide had news.

  “Ma’am, I had a question,” Parsons said.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  “How much space do we need at the Government Center complex, Ma’am?”

  “Well, enough for all the staff that’s currently working. We sent the previous regime’s people home while we got things back into shape, right?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Two weeks’ furlough for everybody, then we bring back the ones we’ll keep, you said.”

  “So we need enough space for my whole staff here, including the new Justice Ministry people and the new Security Ministry people and– Oh, shit. I need to have a personnel department looking at all the previous government folks, too, don’t I, Lieutenant?”