Odom nodded.
“Well, it’s not like it hasn’t been fun. All the toys. And no worryin’ about budgets and shit.”
Odom shrugged.
“Sure. Why not? That Dickens guy part of it, too?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Good. He does nice work. Never got in the way. Always had good info. He’s a keeper.”
“I suppose.”
Odom laughed.
“You gotta let that shit go, Troy. That’s all a long time ago.”
Maire Kerrigan had sent out the Medusa message late this morning, Galway City time, and figured she would have to wait a week to see what happened. That’s not how it turned out, however. That evening she received a mail directly from Sean Boyle, her grandson Tommy’s alias. That was stupid. A lapse of security. She would have to talk to him about it.
She began to read.
Boyle had blind-copied Travis Geary on the letter to his grandmother. When things calmed down, after breakfast, Geary had a chance to read the letter. He sat stunned for minutes afterword, deciding what to do, until it became clear to him. He now had Ambrose Dickens’ mail address, and Geary sent Boyle’s letter on to him, with the request to ‘forward it to those interested parties we talked about earlier.’
Dickens read the letter and nodded. Using his illegal tools to bypass privacy settings and filters, he forwarded it directly to the Co-Consul and Their Majesties.
There were lots of reports and papers coming in to Ardmore and Burke that day. They were prioritizing their messages ruthlessly, trying to keep up with the most important reports.
Pitney’s executive summary came through, together with the attached reports of his primary agents on the scene, Troy Donahue and Ambrose Dickens. Their detailed reports would come in later, but Pitney had given his agents instructions to let him know what was going on fast, then supplement later.
Two groups had nearly simultaneously put the clues together to figure out the plot, the museum custodian and three Imperial Marine Academy cadets, and the three-man team of Pitney’s most capable agents on-planet. Together they had overwhelmed the colonel who was in charge of the museum restoration and had secreted the warhead into the building, then disarmed the warhead by blowing it up, destroying the detonator. That had released chemical and radioactive toxins that were in danger of being spread by the resulting fire, save for the selfless act of sacrifice of one of the cadets.
The twist in all of this was the cadet in question was a member of the conspiracy.
When Burke had read Pitney’s report, she scanned down her inbound queue looking for any follow-up. She didn’t find any follow-up, but she did find a message from an unknown sender. That was unusual given her filters, and she opened it. Apparently it was from Diener’s mystery correspondent, and was copied to both Ardmore and Diener as well.
She read Boyle’s letter to his grandmother and sat stunned.
Had Fate intervened to give her a lever by which she might move the DP families?
Burke popped into the investigative map viewing room. She found Lina Schneider there, watching the map.
“Remain seated, Ms. Schneider.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Tell me about Sean Boyle, Ms. Schneider.”
“Yes, Milady. Sean Boyle is an alias. His actual name was Thomas Walsh Doolan. He was the eldest grandchild of Maire Kerrigan, the head of the Walsh family and apparently one of the members of the board of the DP families conspiracy. He signed up with VR as Sean Boyle at age four when he received VR nanites, and his electronic presence is completely under that name. He attended the Imperial Marine Academy Center, and had just finished his junior year, majoring in history. He is listed as dead as of this morning. He was a recipient of the Medusa message, and he transmitted a message directly to his grandmother earlier today. We have his time of death as immediately after that transmission.”
Burke popped back out of VR into her office. She had a note from Ardmore – actually right next door – asking if she had seen Boyle’s letter. Burke responded in the affirmative, then sent a request for a meeting to the commanding cadet mentioned in Boyle’s letter, Brigade Commander Travis Geary.
It was late in the afternoon when Geary got a request for a meeting with the Empress Arsinoe under an Imperial header. He had never seen an Imperial header before, but clicking on it brought up the Imperial coat of arms of Her Majesty, crypto-verified.
Geary clicked on the pointer and found himself in VR, dressed in his senior cadet uniform, with brigade commander insignia, in the Empress’s office. She was dressed in a business suit, seated behind an expensive but not ornate desk. Geary realized with a shock the Emperor Ptolemy, also dressed in a business suit, sat in the other guest chair.
“Your Majesties,” Gear said, bowing first to her, then to him.
“Be seated, Brigade Commander.”
“Yes, Milady. Thank you, Milady.”
“Don’t be nervous, Commander Geary. We are simply gathering information on the events of this morning. What I need you to do is tell me about Cadet Sean Boyle.”
“Yes, Milady. Do you want his professional information only, or more insight?”
“I want everything, Commander Geary. Everything you know about him. I want to understand him. Since he blind-copied his letter to his grandmother to you – which you maneuvered to have forwarded to us, I assume – I surmise you were friends, not simply fellow cadets.”
“Yes, Milady.”
“Then I want it all, Commander Geary. Everything you can tell me. Trust me when I tell you it’s important.”
“Of course, Milady.”
Geary told Their Majesties everything. How he and Boyle, as fellow history majors, had become friends. How they had argued about the Sintar-DP war. How he had recommended ‘His Majesty’s book’ to Boyle, not for the text, which could be argued to be self-serving, but for the citations. How Boyle had reported back about reading Derwinsky’s autobiography, and the impact it had on him. Their summer together on the beach. How they both loved the Imperial War Museum. Finally, how Boyle had come to him after he received the Medusa message, and his agony about it.
“And that leads us into this morning, Commander Geary.”
“Yes, Milady.
“Did you see Cadet Boyle go into the hot zone, Commander Geary?”
“We were in the hot zone, Milady, in VR projection. We actually watched the explosion, and saw the fires starting. Then Sean was dragging fire extinguishers to put out the blaze, and I realized he couldn’t be in VR anymore, he had dropped out of VR and dragged those two big extinguishers in there from where we were all physically safe out in the hallway.”
“You saw all of this in VR, Commander Geary?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“Did you save the recording, Commander Geary?”
“Yes, Milady. I haven’t been able to watch it again, though. Not yet.”
“I understand, Commander Geary. Could you forward me that recording? If it isn’t too personal to you?”
“Of course, Milady.”
Geary pushed the recording to the two IDs in the VR meeting with him.
“I had another question, Commander Geary. I reviewed your file earlier. You signed up for the Imperial Marine Academy at the last minute. Just weeks before the start of classes. Is that right?”
“Yes, Milady. The weekend after the coronation.”
“It was the coronation then, Commander Geary?”
Geary remembered the Empress – this woman before him – in that incredible sheer caftan, and he blushed.
“No, Milady. It was your announcement of the assassination attempt against you. I subscribe to the cusp theory of history. That history has a momentum, but it gets, one might say, ductile at times. Where a single person, or a small group of people, by their actions might change history. Send it off in a different direction.”
Geary looked to Ardmore, who was nodding, then turned his attention back to Burke.
“The assassination attempt signaled to me that a cusp was approaching.”
“You thought you might be the right man in the right place at the right time, Commander Geary?”
“No, Milady. I thought the odds were highly against it. But, since I saw the cusp coming, I had a personal duty to be available for that role. To be in the right place.”
“A duty you did not shirk, Commander Geary.”
“How does one shirk a duty, Milady? In any case, I was not that person. Sean was.”
“A position he would not have been in but for you, Commander Geary. That much is clear.”
Burke looked to Ardmore, and he nodded.
“Very well, Commander Geary. You may hear from us again on this matter.”
“It is my pleasure to serve the Throne, Milady Empress.”
Burke cut the channel.
Leverage
When she dropped out of VR, Burke went next door to Ardmore’s office and sat in one of the guest chairs.
“What an incredible young man,” she said.
“All three of them, in fact,” Ardmore said.
“Yes, but Cadets Benton and Boyle took their lead from Commander Geary. This, I think, is clear.”
Ardmore nodded.
“And he’s clearly a student of your work,” Burke said.
“Yes. And he was right. Out there in the suburbs of – What planet was it? Mandrake? – in Lacomia Sector, he saw the cusp coming.”
“And stepped up. We would be in serious trouble without him.”
Ardmore glanced at the Imperial Guardsmen standing watch in the corners of his office.
“I think the other people on the scene might have handled the weapon OK,” he said.
“And the fires afterward?”
“Point taken.”
“You want to watch this recording together?” Burke asked.
“How about after dinner? It’s that time.”
“Sure.”
After dinner, they entered the recording together, and sat in virtual armchairs off to the side where they could watch the action. The recording began when the group went back into the exhibit hall in VR projection to view the explosion.
Burke halted the recording at the very beginning.
“OK. I see what they’ve done. This is the warhead on its stand, and they put the nosecone from that missile over the top of it to retain the pressure of the explosion long enough to crush the detonator compartment and destroy the detonator. The plastic explosives and the detonator for them are under the nosecone. Then they have this clever bucket arrangement to hold the nosecone down, so it doesn’t immediately go flying off. I mean, it will go flying off, but the pressure will be considerably higher for being held in longer. Does that all make sense?”
“Sure,” Ardmore said. “I understand.”
Burke let the recording play then. The explosion itself was shocking in its violence, and, as she had predicted, the nosecone and the buckets all went flying. The group stood there, in projection, watching the fires, when Dickens said he had sent for an Imperial Marine N/B/C team.
Burke halted the recording again.
“Well, there’s our mystery correspondent. That message, we know, went directly to the Co-Consul. So it was one of Mr. Pitney’s people.”
Ardmore nodded, and Burke let the recording continue.
Sean Boyle entered the recording then, dragging two fire extinguishers. Ardmore halted the recording.
“Why is he dragging them?”
“He could carry one. Two is too many to carry. And he can’t go back out into the corridor to get another one. He would poison the corridor. Those are double doors, with seals, from Donahue’s report. There are more extinguishers in the exhibit hall, but he’s bringing as many as he can, to make sure there are enough.”
Ardmore nodded and let the recording continue.
Boyle fought the fires with the extinguishers, ultimately needing a third from the wall of the exhibit hall, until all the blazes had been extinguished. He was clearly weakening by the time he was done. He then collapsed to the floor, leaning against a display cabinet.
Geary, in projection, had his last conversation with Boyle, and the recording ended.
Back in the living room of the Imperial Apartment, Burke VRed into the Palace switchboard.
“Yes, Milady Empress.”
“Find out who is handling the cleanup in the Imperial War Museum. The head of the N/B/C team there. I need to talk to him.”
“Yes, Milady.”
Burke dropped back out of VR.
“I just put in a request to talk to the head of the N/B/C team,” she said.
“Bury him at sea?”
“Yes. It’s not protocol, but they can do it. He deserves it.”
“Another person who refused to shirk a duty,” Ardmore said. “His family’s problem, it was his duty to fix it.”
“And we know where he learned that.”
Ardmore nodded.
The Palace switchboard pinged her, and Burke went back into VR.
“Milady Empress, I have the commander on the scene. Imperial Marines Major Reginald Law.”
The face changed to the avatar of a red-haired man in MDU.
“Milady Empress.”
“Major Law, have you removed the body from the scene yet?”
“No, Milady. We’ve been concentrating on the worst contamination, trying to reduce the containment risk.”
“Very good, Major. When you do remove the body, we need to take whatever measures we need to for burial out in the open ocean. It was his last request, and I think we should honor it.”
“Yes, Milady. We were already told his last request and were planning on honoring it. The only problem is weighting the body. We need to keep it down there long enough for the worst of the contamination to dilute.”
Burke thought about it.
“Major, can you fill one of those fire extinguishers – the very symbol of his heroism – with enough lead or steel shot to weight the body? I think that would be a suitable choice.”
Law nodded.
“Yes, Milady. That will work.”
“Very good, Major. That is all.”
Burke cut the connection.
“All taken care of,” she said. “I declare family time.”
“Works for me,” Ardmore said.
Greg Posten and Mary Anne Burke had had dinner with their daughter and her husband while Stevie was down for a nap. When they got the message from Burke the after-dinner business they had to take care of was done, they were in the nursery, with Stevie, who had just woken up.
They took Stevie with them when they went to the private living room of the Imperial Apartment. Now eight and a half months, Stevie wanted his mother when he saw her, and Mary Anne handed him over.
“Yes, yes, you little monster,” Burke said. “You just want your Mommy because she has your dinner for you.”
Burke opened her after-hours MCU top and offered her breast to the infant. He settled down quickly.
“Business go OK, Dear?” Mary Anne asked.
“Yes. Very well, actually.”
“Well, I know the big crisis is over. You told us that over dinner. Was this more of that whole business?”
“Yes. An Imperial Marine Academy cadet died this morning, foiling the plot. We need to see he is honored appropriately.”
“I would think so,” Posten said.
“It’s a queer situation, though. One of the planners of this grand treason is his grandmother.”
“Her plot killed her grandson?” Mary Anne asked.
“Yes. Her eldest and most favorite grandchild. He died to foil her plan. He decided the Empire was a force for good, and his own family was a force for evil. And he told her so in a long letter he prepared in advance and hadn’t yet sent her. He sent it to her as he lay dying.”
“Oh, no. I can’t imagine what she must be going through,” Mary Anne said, looking at her grandson fondly.
“Oh, it’s worse than that. His letter told her in no uncertain terms she was wrong, and he would not let her succeed. And he included a postscript to tell her he lay dying at her own hand.”
“Heavens. She must be devastated.”
“I hope so. I have to turn her away from these insane plots – all of them, not just her and her family – or we are going to have to hunt them down and execute them.”
“How many of them are there?” Posten asked.
“About a billion,” Ardmore said.
“Not that many,” Burke said. “Not when they threaten the lives and peace of two and a half quadrillion people.”
“Still a lot of people to track down,” Posten said.
“We have the family DNA signatures,” Burke said. “And I can offer a sizeable bounty.”
“On a billion people?” Posten asked.
“A million-credit bounty on a billion people is only a quadrillion credits,” Burke said. “Don’t you think it’s worth forty cents apiece to the people of the Empire to be rid of this plague?”
“When you put it that way, yes,” Posten said.
“Unless they stop. Right?” Mare Anne asked.
“Yes. I just don’t know how to turn her,” Burke said.
“You’re going to give him a medal or something?”
“Oh, yes,” Burke said. “At least one. Normally, one would give him his commission, too, so he died an officer.”
“Send them to her,” Mary Anne said. “His honors. Send them to her. Make him a hero. But force her to face it.”
“I’m not sure how to do that in a timely way,” Ardmore said. “Galway is five weeks’ spacing.”
“Can’t you have them printed there?” Mary Anne asked. “When I bought jewelry or clothes on Moria from the catalog, they printed it on-planet. I didn’t wait for shipping times.”
“That’s assuming the print files exist, though,” Ardmore said.
“I’m sure they do, Jimmy,” Burke said. “That’s probably how the ones here are made. We just have to send the print files and get them printed there. Do we have an Imperial Guard officer on TAD with the Marines there?”
EMPIRE: Resurgence Page 17