by Kal Spriggs
I held my breath. I could see the pale, snake-like Crown Prince struggle to keep control over his expression. This wasn’t just an embarrassment, it was all but a public spanking.
At long last, though, he sat back in his chair, his dark eyes glittering with anger. “Very well, Admiral. I shall do as you say. Crown Prince Abrasax, out.”
***
Chapter 24: Everything Works Out, More or Less
The final months of the year were rather more interesting than I think anyone had planned.
Almost a third of the Enforcers ended up being arrested. Since they were Century's planetary police force, that meant the Militia had to step in to carry out those arrests. The Regiment of Cadets ended up carrying out a lot of those arrests.
I didn't see much of that, though, because I spent a lot of my time giving official testimony, under oath. It didn't surprise me that Lieutenant General Corgan was one of the first arrests made. Much to my surprise, Charterer Beckman, was not. Our constitution forbade the arrest of members of the Charter Council and executive branch... so that meant we had to go through a political process that seemed to drag out forever. In the meantime, Charterer Beckman remained in the Capitol Complex where, by law, she couldn't be removed.
To make matters even more interesting, President Frey had resigned within the first few hours of the riots kicking off. Technically, there was a precedent for who would take over, but it would have gone to the Charter Council member with the largest percentage of the vote through land-shares. Since that was Charterer Beckman, the rest of the Charter Council voted to suspend the normal rules.
The fact that that took six hours of discussion even after the initial allegations went before them, was ample evidence that Charterer Beckman probably wasn't the only one involved in the conspiracy.
I think it was only the very present threat of the Militia that prevented Charterer Beckman's group from trying to sweep all of this under the rug. There were too many witnesses, too much evidence, and large numbers of both the populace and the Militia had seen the arrival of the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps fleet with their own eyes. For that matter, my evil digital twin had crashed their network, but she'd also left what was left of it wide open for Militia Intelligence to sort through.
This wasn't going away. Beckman's supporters and the other Charterers who wanted it to disappear and avoid public embarrassment, weren't going to get their way.
Twice I had to come to the Charter Council chambers and give testimony. The sessions were long and the questions I faced ranged from friendly to hostile. Both times, the questioning lasted for hours. The first one lasted most of the day and the second one still went for well over six hours. The questions they asked me ranged from details about what I'd overheard and what actions I'd taken to why I'd “attacked Charterer Beckman's niece without provocation” and “how Admiral Armstrong had orchestrated a coup.”
For the questions that made sense, I answered as best as I was able. For the ones that were deceptive or outright fabrications, I answered as politely as I could manage that that wasn't the case. Most of it was on video. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person to give testimony. The Admiral went before them seven or eight times. I watched most of the videos, playing them back after class or watching them live on my implant.
Oh, yeah, lest I forget, I still had class. We all did. Just because our planet had nearly been invaded and we were out arresting Enforcers during our weekend drills, it didn't mean we didn't have to do our classes. We still had classes, we still had tests.
Rear Admiral Fischer had to give testimony too. So did a few of our other instructors. Most of those were shorter, with brief statements about cadet actions. Rear Admiral Fischer was the exception, especially since he was testifying about conversations he'd had with Charterer Beckman.
A lot of things were coming out. Some of it was ugly. The back-room dealings that various politicians had used for decades. The way that senior Enforcers had subverted the law for their own gains. Lieutenant General Corgan might have been working under Charterer Beckman's guidance, but she'd also had hands in all kinds of other places. She'd had bank accounts off-world, with money from drug smugglers and pirates, as well as various organized crime syndicates on Century. She hadn't been the only one, either. Charterer Beckman had bank accounts on Drakkus and it was clear that she'd been taking their money, and doing their work, for decades. Two other Charterers she'd been using had also been taking bribes, one of them from three different criminal groups.
It was a mess. The different news feeds went wild about it all, especially since Beckman had been so outspoken about how “unfair” the system was. Her voting block disappeared within a few weeks as the news broke, which left her with the votes she held from her land shares... at least until the other Charter Council members relieved her of those.
They did the same for four other Charterers: her two direct accomplices and two more who'd been blackmailed or cajoled into voting with her. Since all five of them voted against, the other seven Charterers had to vote together... which in itself was a minor miracle. I'm pretty certain that two or three of the ones who voted against her were part of her conspiracy, to one degree or another, but they voted against her in the hopes it would clear their names.
Through it all, my friends and I watched as more and more people were arrested. Lieutenant General Corgan had refused to go before the Charter Council, refused to answer questions. Whether she'd decided that she wasn't going to get any deals or if she was just loyal to Charterer Beckman, I couldn't guess. Cadet Beckman managed to avoid prison. She'd gone before the Charter Council and told them that she hadn't had any idea what was going on, her aunt had simply asked her to keep an eye on me. She talked quickly enough and sounded earnest enough that they and other authorities believed her, even if I didn't. Kate Beckman didn't face any jail time, but she did end up resigning from the Academy to avoid being expelled.
Somehow, I knew that wasn't going to be the last I saw of her, however much I might wish it was.
The things that kept coming up was how many people involved in Beckman's conspiracy had either not known the full extent of it or who insisted they didn't. Most of them would admit that they were part of her plan to seize power, but enough of them seemed honest, and passed lie detector tests proving it, when they said they thought that Charterer Beckman wanted to consolidate power and put her people in charge... and each insisted they hadn’t known about Drakkus's involvement.
I finished up my finals for the year, just as they stripped Beckman of her land shares and arrested her for treason. There were a couple of punishments they could give her, depending on circumstances. I knew which one I wanted her to receive. She'd been behind the deaths of my entire family, it only seemed fair that she pay the same price for her ambition.
The Academy was without a superintendent at that point. Rear Admiral Fischer had received clemency for his support of the Militia's activities and for providing his evidence towards the removal of Charterer Beckman from the Council. He'd been allowed to retire, but his involvement in this all had meant he'd been irreversibly tarnished. The overweight, balding senior officer had seemed almost relieved when he'd given the Regiment a farewell speech.
We left for Christmas break without receiving next year's assignments. For that matter, there was a lot of confusion about grades, ranking, and placement for the graduating class. Everything was in flux, for no small part including the fact that numerous Militia officers had also been arrested for corruption turned up in the investigation of Charterer Beckman's conspiracy. It wasn't anywhere near as widespread as the Enforcers, but there was enough that it shook up the Militia a bit.
This was the first year that I wouldn't be going home to Black Mesa Outpost. I couldn’t go home to a family that didn’t exist anymore. I was going to the Admiral's house. Kyle had offered for me to come to his home, but I felt like I needed to be close to the Admiral, close to the family I still had. I told him I might come visit and h
e was more than welcome to do the same… but I needed a few days with my grandmother.
The train took me most of the way there. As I came up out of the train station, James, the Admiral's steward, was waiting with his long, black groundcar. “Miss Jiden,” he nodded at me
“Good to see you, James,” I said. On impulse, I stepped forward and gave the short, wiry man a hug.
He awkwardly patted me on the shoulder. Then he helped me to get my bags in the trunk and held the rear door open for me as I climbed in.
The trip to the Admiral's house didn't take long. On the way, he asked me questions about my training and other mundane things. He didn't ask about the investigations or the news. Only once did he refer to any of it, and then only when I mentioned that they would be sentencing Beckman later in the week.
“Good job, Miss Jiden, with that business. Your mother would be proud of you.”
I teared up at that and I could barely swallow around a lump in my throat.
Before I could decide how to respond, we arrived at the Admiral's house. The big, blue stone, building wasn't nearly as ominous as on my first visit. I hefted my duffel bags out of the trunk and carried them up the stairs. Stacy, James's wife and the Admiral's housekeeper, opened the front door for me and I gave her a grateful nod as I passed through, setting my bags down to the side near the stairs. “Is the Admiral in?” I asked.
“She arrived earlier this morning, she's in the study,” Stacy said with a smile. “I gather she's expecting you, she said to send you right back.”
“Thanks,” I said. I took a moment to straighten my uniform and then stepped into the library, pausing a moment to look at the spines of the antique books, ships logs and reports along with histories of wars that stretched back to before mankind had ever left Earth.
Had it only been four years ago that I had stood in this library, a pouting, spoiled child? I'd disobeyed my parents. I'd lied. I flushed with embarrassment as I thought of how I must have sounded, how I must have looked.
I would have given anything to turn back the clock. To have been nicer to my mother. To have listened to my father... to have one last chance to tell them both that I loved them.
I fought back the tears in my eyes and marched to the Admiral's office. As I came through the door, I braced to attention, “Ma'am, Cadet First Class Armstrong, reporting.”
The Admiral rose from her desk and she gave me a warm, friendly smile. I could have been wrong, but I thought I saw tears in her eyes. “Jiden, welcome home.”
She came around the desk and to my surprise, she hugged me. I hugged her right back and I felt the tears that had been waiting finally come forth. In an instant, both of us were crying, part in relief and part in loss. It was a moment that I couldn't explain, but that I treasured... and it couldn't last long. Not with who the Admiral was... and who I had become.
She stepped back, taking a deep breath and straightening her uniform. “Well done, Jiden. Well done indeed.”
This was the first opportunity we'd had to speak in person and I found myself standing a little straighter as she said that. “Thank, you, grandmother.” I swallowed nervously, and then asked the question that had been burning in my mind since she'd done it, “How did you manage to get so much of the Militia mobilized in so short a time? For that matter, were you really going to attack them, so close to the planet?”
The Admiral didn't answer, not at first. She went around her desk and took a seat in her chair, her expression unreadable. “As for the first part... I called in a great many favors and I took a huge risk: I called Admiral Toshi Drien.”
“You what?” I asked in shock.
“I was able to get a good number of reserve units to mobilize on my say-so,” the Admiral went on, “but we needed the Active Duty Militia as well. I called Admiral Drien and I convinced him of the importance. He already knew that something was going on. Commander Arton was his agent at Summit Station. I was able to convince him and the rest... well, we had three quarters of the Militia in orbit when the DISK Fleet arrived.”
“They arrived almost in the upper atmosphere,” I noted. “I could see some of their ships from the ground. Wouldn't attacking them have done serious damage to Century?”
“Yes,” the Admiral admitted, her expression tight. “It would have devastated the planet. The best outcome would have destroyed our magnetic field and left life on the planet to die of radiation poisoning over months or years. The worst case, an antimatter bomb or missile would have struck the planet and...” She shrugged, “the deaths would have been much quicker in that case.”
“You would have risked that...”
She didn't let me finish, “It was a bluff, Jiden. I did not want to let Drakkus and Charterer Beckman win, but I would not have killed everyone on our homeworld to do it. I wagered that Crown Prince Abrasax had brought a sizable quantity of the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps with him. In fact, Sword Fleet represents something over thirty percent of their total strength, if I understand it correctly. While we stood to lose our planet, he stood to lose irreplaceable ships and personnel. Even if they won, they would have lost thousands... and the way that Drakkus politics works, the embarrassment of that loss would cost Crown Prince Abrasax his position as heir.”
“So you weren't going to do it?” I asked in relief.
“I was half a second from ordering our ships to power down when Crown Prince Abrasax gave in,” The Admiral admitted.
I wasn't really sure how to respond to that.
“In any case,” The Admiral said, “Thankfully the entire business is done.” She sighed then and her gaze went distant. “While I'm reasonably certain we got all of Beckman's accomplices here on Century, I would have liked to have captured the pirates she was in league with. There were a lot of questions I still wanted answers to... and Crown Prince Abrasax wasn't going to give them to me.”
“Pirates?” I asked in surprise. “I assumed, after the DISK Fleet arrived, that they must have been DISK ships that conducted the attacks.”
“The Drakkus Imperial Space Korps is far more professional than the pirates that attacked Black Mesa Outpost... or that destroyed Summit Station,” my grandmother corrected. She stared at me, “Sometimes, child, I forget that you haven't been involved in everything.” She sighed then. “The hidden network that Lieutenant General Corgan and Beckman operated had a great deal of information in it. Some of it was Beckman's blackmail file, which was half of how she kept her conspiracy together. Some of it was her bookkeeping, where she tracked payments to her subordinates and those she'd suborned. But there was also communications, transmissions, between her and her contacts. The smugglers, for instance, that kidnapped you. We haven't yet gone back through all the files, I think that's going to take years... and we'll see more arrests as we uncover more.”
“Good,” I growled. I wanted every one of the people responsible for all this to pay for it.
“One of the things we've turned up is that Beckman's main contact through all this is a Drakkus pirate, by the name of Wessek,” The Admiral said. I shivered as I recognized the name, the same one the pirates had used at Black Mesa Outpost. “We don't know for certain yet, but we think Crown Prince Abrasax is his patron.” She grimaced and sat back in her chair, gesturing at the one across from her desk, “No need to stand, Jiden.”
“Ma'am,” I nodded and took the seat.
“Drakkus handles pirates rather differently than most nations. They operate slave traders and pirates as a part of their economy. They've used pirates as auxiliaries for their fleet for centuries. From what I understand, even the Star Guard look the other way,” The Admiral's jaw set in a way that suggested she really didn't approve. Then again, neither did I.
“Anyway, this pirate,” she almost spat the word, “has operated in coordination with Beckman for some time, decades, maybe. Originally he was selling her stolen goods, unloading loot he'd taken in the area and didn't want to transport back to Drakkus or out to Vagyr. Then he and some Drakkus
intelligence agents hatched this scheme and they convinced Beckman that they'd make her the governor of the planet.”
“Do you think they'd actually have left her in charge?” I asked.
“Maybe,” my grandmother shrugged. “But it's just as likely that Crown Prince Abrasax would have exercised direct control over the planet as a way to prove himself. In any case, the point is moot. The Drakkus Imperial Space Korps wasn't capable of keeping ships stationed near Century, so Beckman's contact, this pirate Wessek, was the one who managed the smuggling operations, conducted the attack on Black Mesa Outpost, and then again at Summit Station.”
“Then he's dead, right?” I asked. “Kyle and I killed that destroyer that came after us.”
“Wessek had rather more resources than that, I'm afraid,” The Admiral shook her head. “From what Beckman's files show, he had a cruiser and a pair of destroyers, one of which you accounted for.” She nodded her head at me. “He also had a base of operations, an old mining platform in the outer system, but we've found he abandoned it shortly after Crown Prince Abrasax withdrew.”
“We didn't get him,” I slumped in my chair. Somehow, I'd made peace with the idea that we couldn't afford to punish the Drakkus Empire for what they'd done to my planet. But I'd consoled myself with the fact that we'd caught everyone else. Beckman was going to either be put to death or go to jail for several lifetimes. Lieutenant General Corgan had already been executed. Hundreds of their personnel were already in prison work-camps, where many of them would stay for decades or longer, the ones that hadn't also faced execution for their crimes. Only now, it appeared, that one of the true architects of my family's murder, had gone free.