EMPIRE: Investigation

by Richard F. Weyand

  The arrest and punishment phase of the crisis was over. The rebuilding phase would take longer.

  Many Things In Flux

  The Imperial Marines and Imperial Navy maintained lists of those up for promotion once positions became available. Filling the positions of Imperial Navy sector commander and commanders for the Imperial fleet bases on Earth, Sondheim, Esmeralda, and Dalnimir was therefore a simple matter of looking up who was next in line. Similarly for the Imperial Marines, the division commanders for the Marine divisions on the four provincial capitals were drawn from the list.

  As always, preference was given to those within a thousand light-years – eighteen days’ spacing in hyperspace – and notices of reassignment sent out. The new commanders were notified and on the way as soon as the previous commanders were relieved, on the Tuesday after the attack on Turley and Gulliver. As of the end of that second week, they were still as much as eight days away, but were on the way to their new assignments. They would arrive in ones and twos over the next week.

  Sector Governor Horst Kleiner and his wife Madeline left the afternoon following the Emperor’s evening call, after a frenzied night of packing what they would take with them. She spent the morning instructing the household staff on the packing and shipping of everything to follow after them. Kleiner had been right to suppose his wife would have no objection to the promotion to sector governor and moving to Paris.

  It was Paris, after all.

  For his part, Kleiner spent the morning offering the four provincial governor positions to the candidates the Emperor had proposed. He received no objections. The bump from planetary governor to provincial governor of a thousand or more planets was not a small one.

  Kleiner spoke to the candidates in decreasing order of seniority, beginning with Terry Neylin. Other than the provincial governor spot for Earth Province, which Kleiner agreed should go to Neylin, he gave the candidates their choice of province. Lionel Brower took Esmeralda of the three open provinces, Wayne Buetler took Sondheim of the remaining two, and Pedro Quintero was happy to become provincial governor of Dalnimir Province.

  All four were exhorted to expedite their movements, and within twenty-four hours all would be on the way to Earth Sector. It would take three weeks for them all to arrive and assume their duties. Kleiner and Quintero, coming from locations within the old DP, would arrive soonest, in a bit over a week.

  Ann Turley gave instructions to the household staffs of the provincial governor’s residences on Dalnimir and Esmeralda to prepare them for their new occupants. She and Gulliver remained in the townhouse on flag row at IFB Dalnimir.

  “Well, they’re all on their way,” Turley told Gulliver Friday night after dinner.

  “Who?”

  “All Derwinsky’s and my replacements. Governors, commanders, they’re all on the way.”

  “That should be a relief,” Gulliver said.

  “Yeah, they’ll take a while to get here, but it should quiet down now. What a week!”

  “Your mail should have quieted down after the Emperor’s talk on Monday.”

  “It has,” Turley said. “People are trying their best. I’ve had a couple times when people got in touch because they truly were in trouble, or they had to make a decision that required a policy call. Other than that, everybody’s trying.”

  “And you got all the sentences carried out and the brigs emptied.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad that’s over.”

  “All the condemned died at their own hand,” Gulliver said.

  “Well, given the choice, what would you pick?”

  “Cognac, I think. Like Knowlton.”

  “But you wouldn’t pick the wall,” Turley said.

  “Of course not. I’m allergic to pain. It makes me break out.”

  Turley laughed and Gulliver smiled.

  “Oh, and I got a note – in my Jan Purny mailbox – from Ralph Jurgens.”

  “The manager of the hotel?”

  “Yes,” Turley said. “He thanked me for what he called the vacation idea. He said he had a wonderful vacation, and he’ll be back at work tomorrow. He also offered to return the VR suppressor. I told him to keep it. Never know when something like that could come in handy.”

  Gulliver laughed.

  “Well, I’m glad he made out OK. If they had caught up with him, though....”

  “Yeah. That could have been ugly.”

  “So that came out all right. How are the local commanders working out?” Gulliver asked.

  “The stand-ins? They’re all doing OK. They’re staying away from the policy issues that are a commander’s prerogative and taking care of the day-to-day issues. So that’s the right role for them at this point, with new commanders on the way.”

  “And you’re sort of doing the same thing at the sector commander and provincial governor roles.”

  “Of course. Any policy progress, advancing people up into the open administrative positions, I think all that should be handled by the new people coming in.”

  Gulliver nodded.

  “So, after all these people arrive, and take their positions, and you’re relieved of your temporary positions, then what do we do?”

  Turley looked down at her hands for several seconds. Gulliver waited. She looked up into his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The stock answer would be that we report in to– our superior, report Mission Accomplished, and await a new assignment.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m afraid of a new assignment. I’m afraid of losing you. And that’s not compatible with the job. It would color my decisions, color my actions, and make me less effective. Ineffective, in fact. It would probably put us both in more danger, not less.”

  Gulliver nodded.

  “I know.”

  “And you?” Turley asked.

  “Same answer. You said it very well.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dieter Stauss had spent much of the last ten days staying up on all the news coming out of Earth Sector. By the end of the second week, he thought he finally had an idea of just what had gone on – the level of corruption, how pervasive it had been, how it had affected his own companies.

  Of course, no Stauss Interstellar company had been involved. Otto Stauss had been utterly ruthless in rooting out any corruption in the companies he had taken over during what was now called the Great Chaos, the twenty-four-hour period during which Otto Stauss had taken down the big money players in the former Democracy of Planets after their failed attempt to assassinate Emperor Trajan. Stepping into the chaotic markets, Otto and Dieter Stauss had leveraged their position with a series of transactions and market moves that transferred over two hundred forty trillion credits from members of the failed cabal into their own pockets.

  And then Otto Stauss had gone after corruption in the companies he had acquired. It was a bloodbath. The Democracy of Planets had been rife with corruption at all levels. It was simply how things were done. As the companies Otto Stauss acquired were primarily based in the former DP, they were hip-deep in the corruption themselves. Otto Stauss had cleaned it all up, and Dieter had been there through it all, his father’s right-hand man and, in many cases, his henchman.

  Dieter Stauss ran a cross-reference query of the names of those arrested in the Earth Sector against the decision-makers in awards of bid, court cases, and other decisions that had gone against Stauss-affiliated companies during the last ten years, since Bartholomew Gerber had been named Earth Sector Governor. The list stretched out, with most of the adverse decisions being in the last five to eight years. The first couple years had apparently been the time it took Gerber to set up his little house of administrative horrors.

  Stauss called his son Bernd into his office.

  “You’ve been quiet the last couple weeks,” Bernd said as he sank into the visitor chair in front of his father’s desk.

  “I’ve been looking into this mess in Earth Secto
r. Did you know a lot of the people arrested were the decision-makers or contract managers in government contracts and regulatory decisions that went against us?”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “Right,” Dieter said. “And we’re going after them.”

  “The administrators?”

  “No. We’re going after deeper pockets. We’re going after the companies that paid corruption money to get those contracts. Including triple damages.”

  “That’ll teach ‘em,” Bernd said.

  “Indeed. And we’re also going after getting those regulatory decisions overturned through the courts.”

  “Excellent.”

  “So here’s the list I’ve come up with,” Dieter said, pushing the output of his analysis to Bernd. “Get our attorneys on this. I want to rub these bastards faces in this. Assume we can get discovery on the amounts that were being paid, given we have the list of miscreants.”

  “I’m on it, Dad.”

  “I knew they’d step in it sooner or later. We’ve got ‘em now. Smug bastards.”

  Gerry Conner was in the Adirondack chair on the porch of his home, looking out over the lake on Jora, the location of his ersatz retirement. He wasn’t logged into VR, wasn’t in his virtual office in Section Six. He was contemplating his own future.

  Conner had read the latest reports from his agents on Dalnimir, Paul Gulliver and Ann Turley. They were simply waiting for Turley’s replacements to arrive, and then they would be free for assignment again.

  They had been perhaps the most effective team he had ever fielded in his twenty years as head of Section Six. The ripples of the corruption investigation were still spreading, driven now by the Imperial Investigations group. There would be fallout in several other sectors, Conner was sure. The Emperor seemed determined to follow this thread wherever it went. And it had taken Gulliver and Turley mere hours to turn up the first lead, and just weeks to blow it all wide open.

  At the same time, as undercover agents Gulliver and Turley were totally burned. The Julian affair had made headlines enough, but the Earth Sector chaos was another level of visibility altogether. Several levels, in fact. Ann Turley had been acting Earth Sector Governor, reporting directly to the Emperor. Her picture had been on every newsfeed in the Empire, with lurid headlines about the suicide of the Earth Sector Governor Gerber, the death in space of Dalnimir Provincial Governor Pearson as he fled from Imperial Navy battleships, and the execution of almost a hundred and fifty administrators, journalists, judges, and police officials.

  It was probably just as well Conner couldn’t assign them. He had allowed himself to get emotionally involved with them. He didn’t know if he could assign them to another such assignment.

  And that meant his usefulness to the Emperor as the head of Section Six was probably over.

  Dunham and Peters were sitting around the fire pit in the rooftop gardens Saturday night. The weather had been beautiful all day, and they had taken a walk through the gardens in the afternoon. Amanda’s father had been the chief gardener for the gardens for years – she had grown up in them, in fact – and the gardens were where they had met, over fifty years ago. They remained a favorite spot of the pair, who were confined to the Imperial Palace for security reasons.

  They no longer curled up together on the double chaise as they had when young. Aching joints and the other infirmities of age made such contortions painful. The old picnic table with its hard wooden benches was now also out of the question. There was instead a new picnic table at the spot, with cushioned benches. They sat together and noshed off the picnic meal staff had set out.

  As often happened between the pair, their conversation drifted to the affairs of Empire, what was by now their lifelong project.

  “We got too complacent. That’s how all this got so out of hand,” Dunham said.

  “Who do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “All of us. The administration. A lot of it is because we’ve gotten old. We were too comfortable letting things ride. And look where it’s led.”

  “Well, we can’t exactly make ourselves younger,” Peters said. “Are you thinking of stepping down?”

  “No. Not yet. But I need to bring some younger people into the picture. More energy. More spit and vinegar.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Dunham sighed.

  “I should probably encourage Darrel to step down. Get a younger co-consul. And Andy as well. Let them step down together. Retire together.”

  “Is Mr. Dillard ready, do you think?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of him for co-consul. I was thinking Sandy Hayes might be a better choice.”

  “From Investigations?” Peters asked.

  “Yes, but he took a turn through Projects before that, and he came out of the Zoo. He has a pretty broad perspective.”

  Peters nodded.

  “That might work. What else?”

  “I’m impressed by Major Parnell. He was instrumental in making this whole thing work out as well as it did. Turley’s and Gulliver’s reports make that clear. I was thinking of bringing him back to the Palace. Putting him on my personal detail.”

  “On your personal detail?” Peters asked.

  “Yes. Have him stand watch in the most important meetings. Get him involved, as an observer at least.”

  “Do you think he’s the one?”

  “He could be,” Dunham said. “He’s young enough to have a good long run. I want to give him the chance at least. To grow. To see how it works out.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You agree?”

  “Oh, yes. But you’ll forgive me if I hope he has a very long wait.”

  Dunham nodded and took her hand. He lifted it to his mouth and kissed it.

  “I hope so, too.”

  “Your Majesty, General MacFarland is here,” Steven Dillard said.

  Dunham’s Personal Secretary waved the commandant of the Imperial Guard into Dunham’s office.

  “Be seated, General MacFarland,” Dunham said.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  MacFarland settled into a visitor’s chair and waited.

  “General MacFarland, how do you assess the performance of Major Parnell in the recent events on Dalnimir?”

  “I think he did very well, Sire. He had a battalion ready to go on literally a moment’s notice, despite not being in command, and without alerting the conspiracy anything was going on. He effectuated General Turley’s rescue without loss of life on either side, and he carried on that way through the initial arrests. He also successfully commanded multiple battalions during the arrest phase of the operation, including overcoming any issues that might have arisen with his former commanding officer even while assuming command over him. All told, it was an excellent performance.”

  “I agree, General MacFarland. I want to confirm him in his rank as Major, out of the zone. And I want to bring him back to the Imperial Palace and put him on my personal detail.”

  “A major, standing watch, Sire?”

  “Yes. General MacFarland. I want him on watch during my most important meetings.”

  MacFarland tipped his head just a fraction and considered. Could the Emperor be thinking the young Guard officer might be fit for the Throne? Well, time would tell, he supposed, and you couldn’t have the right people in place when you needed them if you didn’t give people the chance to grow and prove themselves.

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Going Home

  Quiet weeks went by as the dust settled. Horst Kleiner arrived on Earth and took over as permanent Earth Sector Governor from Eugene Derwinsky. Derwinsky stayed on as temporary Earth Provincial Governor and Sondheim Provincial Governor, which also allowed him to help his old protégé Kleiner settle into the sector governorship.

  Pedro Quintero showed up on Dalnimir and moved into the Provincial Governor’s Residence formerly occupied by Vincent Pearson. The staff were glad to see him, as Governor Turley’s running the pr
ovince from IFB Dalnimir had raised fears the Provincial Governor’s Residence might be closed down and they would lose their jobs. Quintero and his wife found them all eager and cooperative.

  The new sector commander, Vice Admiral Konomi Tanaka arrived at IFB Earth and took command of the sector from Turley. She thanked Turley for ‘keeping the seat warm’ for her. With Tanaka in place, Admiral Zhang and the other commanders of Imperial fleet bases all now reported to Tanaka, and they were off Turley’s plate.

  Similarly with the Imperial Marines, the new Field Group commander, Lieutenant General Reinaldo Pereira, showed up at IFB Earth and took command of the Marine divisions in the sector. He also paid his respects to Turley on assuming command, and General Walsh and the other Marine commanders were also off Turley’s plate.

  With the change of command at the top, the welcoming and supervision of the new Imperial Marine and Imperial Navy commanders arriving over the next week were now the responsibilities of Tanaka and Pereira, and not part of Turley’s responsibilities. Her only remaining assignment was as acting Esmeralda Provincial Governor. The next week, Lionel Brower arrived on Esmeralda and assumed the role of permanent Esmeralda Provincial Governor.

  And Imperial Guard Lieutenant General Ann Turley found herself out of a job.

  The evening Brower arrived, Gulliver gave her grief about it.

  “I am not unemployed,” Turley insisted. “In the military, it’s called ‘between assignments’.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes. Kind of. OK,I admit it. I’m crazy. For weeks all I wanted was to get rid of all these responsibilities, and, now that I have, I’m bored already.”

  Gulliver chuckled.

  “That’s actually very common with high-energy and high-performing individuals. Complain all the while the music plays, then complain about boredom when it stops.”

  “Well, you have to admit it’s been quite a year since you and I met on Alexa.”