EMPIRE: Resurgence

by Richard F. Weyand

  “The arresting officers will be standing by along Imperial Mall with Police or Guard vans, to each of which a squad will be assigned. When we arrive, form up outside your shuttle and await your assignment.”

  Corporal Bianchi turned around to talk to Staff Sergeant Friseal.

  “We’re going along on some civilian arrests, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah, Bianchi. These people are being arrested for treason on Imperial Warrants. I think some of ‘em had other plans for today. So we stand there and look tough while the Impies and the Guard do the work.”

  “Look tough, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah. Look like you really want ‘em to run so you can shoot ‘em, ‘cause if you don’t shoot somebody tonight you’ll go home disappointed.”

  “But that’s true, Sergeant.”

  “Then it should be easy, Bianchi.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Got it. Thanks, Sergeant.”

  Bianchi turned around, and Friseal rolled his eyes and said a silent prayer.

  Not knowing yet the nature of the threat, the Imperial Marines deployed around the Imperial Palace according to the emergency plans that had been reinstated when Hargreaves had taken command. That included some of them landing on the Imperial Mall between the Throne room and the statue of Ilithyia II, in the space that Augustus VI had cleared by removing all the extraneous statuary on the Mall.

  Other shuttles deployed on the back side of the Palace, and a few deployed along rows of Imperial Police and Imperial Guard vehicles down either side of the Mall.

  Those Imperial Marines who dropped around the Imperial Palace set up their perimeter as per the plans. Some units went on into the Imperial Palace to give General Hargreaves a deeper ready force, what with so many Guardsmen on arrest detail.

  The Imperial Marines who dropped along the lines of arrest vehicles were parceled out, one rifle squad to a vehicle. A vehicle moved up, took aboard it’s rifle squad, and took off. Then the next moved up, and so on. It only took minutes to deploy dozens of arrest teams.

  Donahue’s team watched all this get underway via Imperial Police cameras into which Dickens had access. He put them on private VR channels Donahue and Odom could access. They sat on the couch in Dickens’ apartment like they were watching sports. Dickens had it set up so, whichever channel they chose, they were watching from an armchair in VR, whether it be out in the middle of the street or wherever.

  “Hey, look at 27, you guys,” Odom said.

  Donahue and Dickens switched to channel 27. It was still early morning, and they saw someone rousted out of bed while they sat in comfortable armchairs in the hallway. The arrestee saw the Imperial Marines there in the hallway when he opened the door and all the starch went out of him. He went quietly.

  “That’s one of the ones you IDed, ain’t it, Ambrose?”

  “Yes. He has a separate alias for communications,” Dickens said.

  “They hit him with a VR suppressor right away,” Odom said.

  “Yes, to keep him from communicating to his superiors that he was picked up,” Dickens said. “Looks like they got the drop on that.”

  “Nice. I hope they’re all this easy,” Donahue said.

  Sean Boyle had gotten the Medusa message. It had woken him early in the morning. Unlike the families, he had a healthy appreciation for the Empire’s capabilities.

  Boyle went to his closet and dug around in the bottom of his trunk. There it was. Personal VR suppressor. He checked the battery. Full charge. He turned it on and put it in his pocket.

  Now what did he do? Seven days until whatever they had been planning happened. Medusa meant it was an attack on Imperial City. He was being warned to be out of town.

  Shit. The day he had hoped, for the last two years, would never come had in fact arrived. What did he do, what did he do, what did he do?

  Travis Geary had just gotten up and gotten dressed. In uniform, as he had some paperwork to do in the Imperial Marine Academy today. Nathan Benton came in through the communicating door. He was in civvies.

  “You ready for breakfast?” Benton asked.

  “Yeah, just one sec.”

  They were just ready to leave when there was a knock on the door.

  “Who the hell could that be, this early?” Geary asked.

  Geary opened the door to see Sean Boyle standing there. His eyes were haunted.

  “Sean, are you OK?” Geary asked waving him in.

  “Yeah. I– I have to tell you guys something.”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “It’s something of a– a confession, I guess.”

  Geary motioned to the chairs and they all sat down, as they had a hundred times before. Boyle sat with his elbows on his thighs, as he wrung his hands between his knees.

  “Go ahead, Sean,” Benton said.

  Boyle looked back and forth between them.

  “You know I come from Galway, in the former DP, right?”

  “Yes, of course. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “What you don’t know is my fifteenth great grandfather was Sean Robert Walsh, who was executed by the Emperor Trajan for treason in 10 GE.”

  “So what? Sean, what is it?”

  “You also don’t know my grandmother is Maire Kerrigan, one of the current leaders of a generations-long conspiracy against the Throne. I’m supposed to be here as a deep-plant agent. My name isn’t even Sean Boyle. It’s Tommy Doolan.”

  “No shit,” Benton said. “And you didn’t think that was worth bringing up somewhere along the way?”

  Boyle held his head in his hands now.

  “I hoped it would never come to this. That it wouldn’t ever really happen. That they wouldn’t be able to do it, or they would change their minds, or the Empire would catch them.”

  “Why bring this up now?” Geary asked.

  Boyle looked up at him, tears in his eyes.

  “Because I got a message this morning. I never get messages from the family. They’re afraid the Empire will track them somehow. But I got a message this morning. It’s in a little code, but it means they are going to destroy Imperial City in seven days. It’s my warning to get out of the city.”

  “How, Sean. How are they going to destroy Imperial City?”

  “I don’t know,” Boyle said through his tears. “I wasn’t in the loop. All I know is what I told you.”

  Geary’s mind raced. What could he do with this information? What should he do?

  There was a knock on the door.

  “What the hell?” Benton asked. “It’s like Imperial City Spaceport in here.”

  Geary went to the door and opened it.

  “Mr. Stinson?” Geary said, letting the museum attendant in.

  “Good morning, Sir. I hope I’m not too early this morning.”

  Stinson looked over at Benton and Boyle.

  “Or interrupting or anything,” he continued.

  “No, not at all. What is it, Mr. Stinson?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if this is important or not, Sir. It’s such a little thing. And I didn’t know where to take it. And then I thought of you, Sir, and your interest in the Museum, and I figured I could tell you and ask you if it’s important.”

  Despite Boyle’s revelations and the urgent need to do something about them, Geary was fascinated by Stinson’s appearance here, and his hesitation.

  “Tell me what, Mr. Stinson?”

  “Well, Sir. I was looking through the museum this morning, and just looking for anything that needed tidying up before the grand reopening next week. And I got a bit tired walking around, so I leaned up against one of the displays. The decommissioned missile warhead.”

  He looked back and forth between Geary and the other two, to make sure they understood.

  “Yes, Mr. Stinson?”

  “And it was warm, Sir. Warm to the touch. Never was before.”

  “Travis!” Benton said. “That fucker’s live.”

  “One thing I didn’t get to tell you, Travis,” Boyle said. “Colonel Ryan i
s my uncle. He’s really Ian Walsh. Maire Kerrigan’s brother.”

  “And he proposed the remodel of the museum and ran it all along,” Geary said. “We have to tell somebody.”

  “It’ll be being watched, Travis,” Boyle said. “It’ll be booby-trapped. That’s just how these people think.”

  Geary’s mind was crystal-clear with the adrenalin rush. So the plan was seven days, to give all their agents time to get out. Unless they gave someone notice somehow and they decided to detonate early. Now what?

  Reconnoiter.

  “Mr. Stinson. Could you give the three of us something of an early tour of the museum? Just, you know, showing some friends through. Inspection tour by the Brigade Commander. Something like that?”

  “Of course, Sir. If that’s what you want.”

  “I do, indeed. Lead on, Mr. Stinson. Come on, you guys.”

  One of the arrestees was at work, way outside the city, at one of the highway scanning stations. It was Bianchi’s squad in the van that headed out from the city an hour’s drive to the scanning station.

  They had no trouble arresting Donato Ricci. They cable-tied his hands and hung a personal VR suppressor around his neck, then put him in a jump seat in the back of the van, cable-tied his legs, and then cable-tied him to the seat.

  They were about ready to go when one of Bianchi’s squad came up to him, leading along the other fellow at the scanning station.

  “Hey, Corporal. Get a load of this. Tell him what you told me, Mr. Long.”

  With all the heavily armed Marines around, Martin Long looked nervous enough to jump out of his skin.

  “Yes, Mr. Long? You have some information or something?” Bianchi asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s important or not, Corporal. But maybe three weeks ago, Ricci and I were on shift together, and we had a container come through. I measured it with my Geiger counter and it gave a really high reading. Don – that is, Donato Ricci – told me my meter was flaky and had me check it with his. It read much lower. I mean, I checked it against the standard source and everything, but it read much lower, so I figured my meter was wrong and we let the truck go.

  “But later, when my meter was checked out by the tech guys, it was fine. And when I saw Ricci’s meter later that day, it looked different. You know, they get wear marks and scuffs and stuff just being used all the time. But his meter didn’t look like the same one later in the day. I figured I was just wrong.”

  “What do you think, Corporal?” the soldier asked.

  “I’m bouncing this upstairs,” Bianchi said.

  Bianchi took the recording of Martin Long’s little speech and bounced it to the Staff Sergeant.

  “Do you have any evidence of any of this, Mr. Long?”

  “Of course, Corporal. We have to file paperwork about everything.”

  “Let me see that, please. Reardon, let the Guard lieutenant know I’d like to hang out here for a minute.”

  “Yes, Corporal.”

  “Hey, guys. We got trouble,” Odom said. “Go to channel fifty-one and wind it back ten minutes.”

  Donahue and Dickens watched Long tell his story to Bianchi.

  “It’s gotta be a nuke,” Dickens said.

  “Fuck. I hate nukes,” Odom said.

  “Dickens, can you give me a direct connection to the Co-Consul? Or just send him this recording?” Donahue asked.

  “Sure. Copy our boss, put the notation ‘Nuke in Imperial City?’ on it, and punch it through. Right?”

  “Right. Do it.”

  “How the hell do we find a nuke somewhere in Imp City, Mike? They’re only a couple, three feet on a side.”

  It hit Donahue like a brick. He knew where the nuke was. Had seen it, in fact.

  “OK, I sent that message,” Dickens said. “And I have new data coming in. That message they sent out to all their agents gave me a bunch more agents.”

  Dickens scanned the list in VR.

  “Hey, what was the name of that colonel running the museum project you were working on?”

  “Colonel Daniel Ryan,” Donahue said absently, as he mentally cross-checked his intuition.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. He’s on this list.”

  Donahue didn’t need to cross-check now.

  “Both of you guys grab whatever you need. We’re heading to the museum.”

  “Fuck. I hate nukes,” Odom said.

  Paul Diener understood the import of Martin Long’s story immediately. He transmitted orders to the Imperial Police and Imperial Marines, then requested a meeting with Their Majesties. They sent him a pointer for a meeting in channel 22, Ardmore’s office.

  When Diener arrived, Ardmore was behind his desk, and Burke was in one of the side chairs. That was in VR. In reality, they were in the living room of the Imperial Residence upstairs. Once awakened earlier, they had decided to stay up and monitor events.

  “Your Majesties,” Diener said, bowing.

  “Be seated, Mr. Diener.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Proceed, Mr. Diener.”

  “Yes, Sire. Something just came in to me on emergency priority. Burned right through my controls. It wasn’t from anyone I know, so how it even got through is a mystery to me. It was copied to our friend Tom, so I assume it’s one of his people. You should watch it.”

  Diener pushed the short video to both Burke and Ardmore. When both had watched it, their avatars reanimated.

  “A nuke in Imperial City, Mr. Diener?”

  “That’s what it looks like, Sire. Do you want to remove yourselves from the capital?”

  “No,” Burke said. “The Throne is here, Mr. Diener, and here we will remain.”

  Diener started to open his mouth, saw the look on her face, and thought better of it.

  “What actions have you taken, Mr. Diener?” Ardmore asked.

  “I’ve dispatched an interrogation team from here and an N/B/C team from the Combat Training Center directly to this location, to see what else we can find out, Sire.”

  “Excellent,” Burke said.

  “You have Imperial authorization for the interrogation and execution, as required, Mr. Diener. I’ll get you the paperwork later.”

  “Thank you, Sire.”

  “And Tom knows, you say?” Ardmore asked.

  “Yes, Sire. It was copied to him.”

  “All right. Make sure our prisoners are all kept in VR suppression, Mr. Diener. We don’t want somebody to be communicating home and getting anybody excited about jumping the gun on their seven-day calendar.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Oh, and you should probably have the Imperial Press Office issue a press release first thing this morning about the security exercise the Imperial Marines and Imperial Guard are conducting today.”

  “Good idea, Sire. I’ll take care of it.”

  “That is all, Mr. Diener.”

  Ardmore cut the channel and he and Burke were back in the private living room of the Imperial Residence.

  “A nuke. Well, now we know,” Ardmore said.

  “At last it’s time for action,” Burke said. “I feel better when my team is in play, rather than waiting for the other side to make their move.”

  “And Tom’s people are definitely in play. Not just anybody can send an emergency message to the Co-Consul.”

  “They could probably have sent it directly to us, for that matter. And everyone else is in play now, too.”

  “Do you think we can find it and defuse it?” Ardmore asked.

  “We have seven days. That’s a hole in their strategy. They should have just set it off when it got here. That’s one of the problems with a family plot. They would have been blowing up their close relatives and they built in an escape for them.”

  “So you think we can find it.”

  “We’ll see,” Burke said. “Either way, they lose. Assuming we win this round, I am going to deal with these people once and for all. And If we don’t, I expect Governor von Hesse will take th
e same approach.”

  “But you’re sure we stay in the city, Gail?”

  “Oh, yes. Ilithyia II was right about that. To do otherwise, and leave everyone else here to die, weakens the Throne. We stand here, live or die. What about you, Jimmy?”

  “Oh, I agree,” Ardmore said. “I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

  “Always.”

  “GO! GO! GO!” the sergeant major bellowed.

  The Nuclear Weapons Team of the Imperial Marines Nuclear-Biological-Chemical (N/B/C) Weapons Group ran for their shuttles, pre-loaded with all the field equipment they would need.

  When everyone was aboard, the pilots spooled up their engines and the shuttles lifted off the pads, gained elevation, and screamed off to the northeast.

  When they got to the scanning station, the Imperial Guard interrogation team was already there.

  Colonel Daniel Ryan also received the Medusa message. Worried the communication may have burned his alias, he decided it would be a good idea to make himself scarce for a while. He dressed in civvies and used a personal VR suppressor to drop himself off the network. After tucking a semi-automatic pistol into the pocket of his jacket, he slipped quietly out of his apartment in officer country before anyone else was stirring.

  Convergence And Confrontation

  Stinson led Geary, Benton, and Boyle through tunnels under the arcade level that connected the Imperial University of Center Residence to the Imperial University of Center, which housed the Imperial Marine Academy, and finally the Imperial War Museum. The tunnels were wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. Geary had never been this way before, but it explained a lot. You never saw vehicles in the arcade level. The street level would also do, he supposed, but that was public, and exposed to the weather.

  Stinson was unlocking doors in VR as they went. They came out in the service area of the museum, and took a heavy vehicle lift up to street level. They walked through the loading docks at the back of the building, then out into the museum proper. They skipped the escalators and took an elevator directly to the floor with the warhead display.