“So what did you think of Geoffrey and Suzanne?” Dunham asked Peters when they were back in their living room.
“They’re very nice people. I guess I’m surprised. I always think of high mucky-mucks as being unapproachable and aloof.”
“That’s a defense mechanism against all the people wanting their time and attention. When you’re actually in their circle, it’s different.”
“I see. I especially liked Suzanne. She’s looking out for you, Bobby.”
“I think you’re right, but why do you say that?”
“You didn’t notice her sizing me up, deciding whether I was good for you or not?”
“No. She did?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And did you pass?”
“Yes. She said so, anyway, and I think it was her honest opinion. And that’s nice, mostly because otherwise it could leak over into your relationship with Geoffrey. That would be bad.”
“Well, I’m glad everybody got along. It makes life easier.”
“Easy is good.”
Reassignment and Remembrance
The VR network operations working group had been called together because of a rush job from the Projects organization within the Imperial Palace.
“OK, so what have they got for us now?” Carl Becker asked.
“There’s a concern someone will want to intercept the VR feed of the coronation into their sector and substitute their own feed,” Caroline Pritchard said. “They want to know if they can do that, and if we can counter-hack it.”
“I think first we have to decide how they would go about it,” Chouko Saito said.
“There may be more than one way,” Brendan O’Clery said. “We’ll have to figure counters for all the ways they could try it.”
“We’ll have to set up a counter-hack center in VR to fight it,” Pritchard said. “Have the network gurus all sitting there waiting for it.”
“Hacker Wars,” Becker said. “I love it. They think we won’t be expecting it, and we’ll counter immediately.”
“And we need to be ready to counter their counter-moves as well,” O’Clery said. “We can’t assume they won’t anticipate our response.”
“This is the write-up?” Becker asked, pointing to a file in the VR meeting room.
“Yes, that’s it,” Pritchard said. “That and that twenty-page attachment there.
“All right. Let’s get this to our departments and see what they come up with.”
“Good morning, Mr. Saaret.”
“Good morning, Your Majesty.”
“So what’s on our agenda this morning, Mr. Saaret?”
“We’ve started a project to investigate means of diverting the VR feed of the coronation on a sector basis, and the countermoves possible, Sire.”
“Excellent, Mr. Saaret.”
“The timeframe involved, with the coronation only eight weeks away, does not appear to present any difficulties.”
“Better and better, Mr. Saaret.”
“Yes, Sire. This whole project brings up another subject, though. I wonder if a position in palace finance isn’t a poor use of Ms. Peters’ abilities.”
“Explain, Mr. Saaret.”
“Of course, Sire. Twice in the last week, Ms. Peters has pulled a bunny out of the hat. That is, come up with an outstanding observation or suggestion that had eluded all our other resources.”
“Neither of those has proven out yet, Mr. Saaret.”
“I understand, Sire. But you and I both believe they probably will. If she could be put in a position that would make better use of that skill, I believe it would pay off handsomely. Given the magnitude and implications of her two inputs so far, if she could do that even once every month or two, it would be a huge benefit.”
“I see, Mr. Saaret. What do you suggest?”
“Not a position in Your Majesty’s office, Sire. I think that might be a problem of too close, too often. But a position as a Senior Adviser in my office would, I think, give her the visibility into issues to make best use of that skill.”
“And this is not nepotism or an attempt to curry favor, Mr. Saaret?”
“No, Sire. If I did not believe it was in the best interests of the Empire writ large, I would not propose it.”
“Very well, Mr. Saaret. I had to ask.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“I will discuss it with her, Mr. Saaret.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
They were sitting in the living room after dinner.
“Saaret brought me an interesting proposal this afternoon, Amanda,” Dunham said.
“Oh? What was it about?”
“It was about you, actually. Saaret is impressed with your two suggestions of the last week, and he was wondering if your position in finance was the best use of your abilities.”
“What did he propose, Bobby?”
“Senior policy adviser in the co-consul’s office.”
“Yikes! Bobby, those two were flukes. I don’t think I can do that day in and day out.”
“He said if you could pull even one of those stunts every month or two, it would be worth it. After all, nobody else saw either of those two.”
“What do you think, Bobby?”
“It’s probably worth giving it a try. The other thing it would do is keep you up to date on what’s going on, which would make you valuable to me as a sounding board.”
“I wouldn’t be working directly with you, though, right?”
“No. Saaret said that might create a problem of too much, too often, and I know what he means.”
“Yes. It’s nice to have space away from each other so you appreciate being together.”
“Exactly.”
“OK, Bobby. If you think that’s the best way for me to help, let’s do it.”
“I’ll let Saaret know.”
Three days later, Peters was packing her office for the move from finance upstairs to the co-consul’s office. She could have had Housekeeping do it, but packing one’s office on a move was too much of a rite of passage for her to want to leave it to someone else. The mementos on her office credenza, her pictures of the rooftop gardens in bloom – real printed pictures, because she was old-fashioned – some pressed flowers in a frame.
Brenda Connolly came in.
“New boyfriend moving you upstairs, huh?”
“Brenda! That’s not what this is.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“I know.”
Peters flopped in one of her side chairs, and Connolly sat in the other.
“What really happened is we were talking about what’s going on in the Empire, and I had a couple of ideas,” Peters said. “I guess nobody else had them, and they turned out to be really important. Mr. Saaret decided I should just work on that. Having those kinds of ideas.”
“What were the ideas?”
“I can’t tell you, Brenda. Not yet. Maybe after the coronation.”
“Huh. Well, we’re going to miss you around here. I’m going to miss you.”
“Can’t we still do lunch together?”
“Sure, but you know how hard it is to stay in touch once someone moves on.”
“Yes, unless both people work at it. Work at it with me, Brenda. Please. Promise.”
“OK. I will if you will, Amanda. We’re still in the same building, after all.”
“There you go. I’m going to hold you to that.”
That evening Dunham seemed distracted and a bit remote. Peters didn’t say anything about it during dinner, but later in the living she brought it up.
“What’s the matter, Bobby? You seem really distracted.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, my dear.”
“OK. Good. What’s going on?”
Dunham waved a hand in dismissal.
“Everybody’s got their demons.”
Peters got up and came over to sit next to him on the sofa.
“Oh, no, you don’t. If something bothers you that much
, I should at least know what it is so I don’t accidentally set it off.”
“That’s fair.”
Dunham looked out the open window wall, down the Palace Mall.
“The Council Revolt was two months ago today,” he said.
“Bobby, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that everything goes on, goes back to normal, moves on. We’ve moved on with the government. I’ve moved on, with you. Everything moves on. Life has to go forward, or stop.”
He turned to look at her.
“But I worry that they’ll be forgotten. That Dee will be forgotten. I’ve begun to understand now, finally, what she did for the Empire.”
He looked back out the window.
“The Empire was fundamentally broken. The Council had accumulated too much power. But the Council was never the Empire. The Throne is the Empire. The loyalty of the people is to the Throne, because it’s the Throne that holds back the government, that fights for people’s rights, for their future. The Throne is not just the source of all authority in the Empire, it is also the limiter on all authority in the Empire. Lila Mishra understood that. Jiahui Song understood that. And Dee understood that.
“The Council and their sponsors, wealthy elites and large corporations, had over generations twisted the government to serve their interests, and not the people’s. The Throne finally woke up and pushed back. Mishra set things in motion by sponsoring the development of the new school curriculum. Song deployed the new school curriculum, and freed up the bottleneck in some medications. Those two things are why Dee was even in a position to become Empress in the first place.
“Mishra and Song were playing the long game, working to undo the Council’s worst abuses, trying to put the genie back in the bottle a bit at a time. But Dee saw that it wasn’t enough. That the long game couldn’t succeed. She deliberately set it up so the Council would either have to buckle to her authority or strike out against her. After Vash Medved’s murder, it was clear the Council would strike at her.
“But she kept the pressure on. She arrested and interrogated the underlings she could lay hands on, with drugs and execution if she had to. She kept working toward the leaders, forcing their hand. But she would not strike first. The Throne had to have clean hands.”
Dunham turned from the window to Peters.
“Do you understand? Dee systematically and deliberately forced the Council to take one path or the other, knowing full well an attack on her would likely succeed. She knew the Imperial Police had military weapons. She knew Stanier and Pomeroy were in bed with each other. She forced them to either submit to the Throne or to attack the Throne.
Dunham looked back out the window.
“She forced them either to submit to her or to attack her and thus give the Throne a free hand to fight back. She had her counterstroke ready. The Council building was wired for demolition well in advance, and the military had complete plans for the reduction of the Imperial Police Headquarters in place. But one way or another, she was going to break the Council to her will, to reassert the supremacy of the Throne, to get the Empire serving the people once again.
“And it worked. The Council is no more. The Throne reigns supreme. There is no power center left in the government large enough or strong enough to oppose the Throne’s reforms. And her death at their hands made her a martyr – the people’s martyr – and increased the respect for and loyalty to the Throne throughout the Empire.
“All it cost her was her life, hers and Sean’s and Cindy’s. That’s the bargain she made. Restore the Throne, ensure the Empire, and lose her life doing it. She left a final message to me in VR, triggered to deliver if she died, in which she made it clear she knew that was the deal she was making and she was willing and happy to make it. She owed the Empire everything, and she would not hold back anything, even her life, in delivering the Empire out of the clutches of the Council.
“That’s why she won, her ultimate advantage over the Council. She wasn’t afraid to die.
“I was the least of the four of us. Sean and Cindy were right there with her, supporting her all the way. I was afraid for her. I argued with her, to strike at the Council first or to take herself out of harm’s way, and she refused. It would sully the Throne and weaken the Empire. She held to her course. She would not let even the prospect of death push her aside from her high purpose.
“Dee was the bravest person I have ever met, staring Death in the eye with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. Even a soldier gets to shoot at the enemy, but she had to sit and wait for the blow to fall, knowing it was coming, expecting not to survive. And because of her, the Empire lives on, is stronger, has survived its existential crisis.”
Peters was silent as Dunham stared out the window. Finally, he turned to her.
“She did all that, Amanda, and now we go on, because we must. Life goes on. But I worry that her memory will fade. That her willing sacrifice will be forgotten.”
“Build her a monument, Bobby. A statue – a really big one, on a pedestal – and put it right there.”
Peters pointed out the window to the middle of the Palace Mall.
“Something all future rulers of Sintar will see every day out of the windows of the Imperial Apartment. A reminder to all future rulers of the Empire of what it means to be deserving of the Throne.”
“The Empire has never erected statues of its Empresses.”
“Why not?”
“The Council wouldn’t approve, for one thing.”
“Well, that objection is gone.”
“That’s true.”
Dunham looked out the window, imagining the statue there, on its pedestal, covered in gold. Slowly he started to nod.
“That’s probably worth doing.”
He turned to her.
“That’s the third good idea out of you this week, Amanda.”
“Nope. Today’s Thursday.”
“Eight days, then.”
Peters shrugged.
“Hey, a girl’s got to earn her keep. It’s not enough just to be in love with Mr. Emperor Bigshot.”
Dunham laughed, and Peters snuggled up to him.
Begone, demons. He’s my man, and you can’t have him.
The next time they ran into each other in the elevator lobby, Dunham had a request for Suzanne Saaret.
“Good morning, Bobby.”
“Good morning, Suzanne. I had a request for you if I might.”
“Of course.”
“You likely have the best contacts of anyone I know for this. I want to commission a statue. A heroic one. Perhaps thirty or forty feet tall, on a similar height pedestal. A statue of my sister. Covered in gold.”
“Where would you put it?”
“In the middle of Palace Mall, facing the palace.”
“I like it.”
“I thought you might. What I need is the best sculptor for such a project. He doesn’t have to be on Sintar. But I want the best. Cost is not an issue. Can you get a recommendation for me?”
“I have a few ideas, but let me ask around just to be sure.”
“Wonderful. Thank you.”
“What’s your timeframe?”
“Open. It’s more important to get it right than to have it fast.”
“Understood. Very well, Bobby. I’ll look into it.”
A New Navy?
Admiral Leicester – actually Imperial Admiral Leicester, who wore a coronet of six stars on his collar – vastly outranked the Vice Admiral with whom he waited in the conference room in the Imperial Palace. Both stood when the Emperor entered.
“Be seated.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Admiral Leicester, you asked for this meeting. You may proceed.”
“Yes, Sire. Two months ago, you charged General Kraus and myself to correct various issues that had crept into our services in terms of both personnel and ideas. With regard to the ideas, in particular, you said to surface those ideas that had been shuffled
aside for being contrary to someone’s special interests, even if they would be to the benefit of the service.”
“I recall, Admiral Leicester.”
“To that end, Sire, I would like to introduce Vice Admiral Anastasia Kuznetsov. She has been working a strategic idea that, in my opinion, has never gotten the attention it deserved. I would propose she present it to you in some detail so you understand its implications. Then I will request your reaction, in terms of whether we should pursue it further or not.”
“These are, in general, your considerations, Admiral Leicester.”
“Yes, Sire. Agreed. The implications of Admiral Kuznetsov’s plans are so far-reaching, however, I think the decision on this matter is above my pay grade.”
“Indeed, Admiral Leicester?”
“Yes, Sire.”
Dunham turned to Kuznetsov.
“Very well, Admiral Kuznetsov. Proceed.”
“Yes, Sire. If you would join me on palace channel 922, please.”
Dunham dropped into VR, and was seated with Leicester in a pair of lecture-room chairs facing a large display wall. Kuznetsov stood in front of the display.
“Here we see the common types of warship in His Majesty’s Navy. Battleships, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, picket ships, and attack ships. The tonnage and crew complement of each is shown.”
Kuznetsov changed the display to a ship roster of the Wollaston Task Force.
“If we deploy these in the manner of the Wollaston Task Force, we can see the overall crew complement of the ships deployed to Wollaston exceeds a quarter of a million spacers.”
Kuznetsov changed the display to a ship roster of an Imperial Fleet.
“Similarly, if we consider the typical fleet deployment to a defensive area of a sector, we can see the crew complement of the Imperial Fleet assigned to that area approaches four million spacers. With five such fleets per sector, and thirty sectors, active ship deployments approach six hundred million on-ship personnel in the one hundred and fifty Imperial Fleets active at any given time, with shore assignments and fleet, ship, and personnel rotations running several times again that number.
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