“She told me that she wanted to personally supervise the video recording today,” Flood answered. “They are going to take excerpts from this event to build PR spots for netcast. ‘The Empress out among her people,’ that sort of thing.”
“Well, the Deputy Minister has yet to drop by and pay her respects,” said Renata sarcastically.
“And my guess is that she won’t,” Flood said grinning as she pressed one finger against an earbud. “They are ready for you on stage, ma’am.”
As Colonel Flood and four Kaskian Guards escorted Renata to a wing of the stage, she could hear the headmaster giving her introduction.
“…Defender of the Realm, Keeper of the Sun, and Archon of the Empire. Parents and guests, would you please give a warm Grenzbach welcome to Her Imperial Majesty, Renata.”
* * * *
“…to strive toward our full potential. For three centuries, Grenzbach has set the standard for primary education, and with our support, it will continue in that role for many years to come.”
Applause swept through the auditorium. It was the kind of speech that all parents loved to hear: ‘You have the best children in the starhold, you are all wonderful and loving parents, long live the Empire.’ Renata turned to wave to the children of Grenzbach Primary, most of whom were crammed onstage behind her in chairs and on risers. With their teachers at their side, the youngsters made the perfect backdrop for her brief address. As she pivoted to acknowledge the parents in the audience and their robust ovation, she was reminded of her days as an elected politician, stumping for votes in community centers and school auditoriums just like this all across Odessa. Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch…
“Truly inspirational words, Your Imperial Majesty,” the headmaster gushed as he returned to the podium. “We are so grateful that you could take time from your busy schedule to be with us here today. If we may impose on you for just a few minutes more, would you be open to a question or two from our parents?”
This was not in the script. In fact, the headmaster had been specifically instructed not to open the floor to questions. Perhaps the man had simply let his enthusiasm get the better of him, or perhaps he was just dim. As Renata glanced offstage at Ume Yamazaki, another thought passed through her mind—perhaps the headmaster had received new instructions. Whatever the case, he had opened the floodgates. Hands were popping up and people were leaning forward, eager for the chance to interact with their monarch.
Offstage right, Bennett Boyer was making a slashing gesture across his throat and shaking his head vigorously from side to side, but she couldn’t duck questions for the rest of her life. “Well, I am due back in the capital for a meeting,” she said, the smiling faces slowly fading into frowns. “Perhaps we have time for a few questions.” The crowd cheered. Surprisingly, the headmaster did not call on a parent first, but rather a young girl in the front row. She looked like she was only slightly older than the students here at Grenzbach.
“My name is Renata, too—Renata Simon. My little brother Alex goes to school here,” said the girl after giving a slight bow. “I wanted to ask about something in your title. They always call you the Keeper of the Sun. Which sun? Artemis?”
Light laughter rippled through the crowd. Renata smiled and held up her left hand, pointing to a ring.
“Actually, dear, it’s this sun, the one I wear on my finger. This ring is called the Sarissan Sun. You can see it is shaped like the sun emblem on our flag—the symbol of our starhold. The ring is a symbol of our Empire, and it is always with me as a reminder that I have a duty to our people, to keep them all safe.”
“Except for Leo Sanchez,” a male voice near the front muttered not so quietly. A murmur of shock went through the crowd close enough to hear the comment, but Renata pretended as though she had not.
The headmaster was rattled by the taunt and quickly turned to a man in the third row, someone he seemed to know. “Mr. Audley, I believe you had a question.”
A tall man in his late-forties with a graying head of hair stood. “Tucker Audley, Majesty, from here in Olderwall. Ma’am, my oldest son is in the Space Force. I was wondering about the war with the Jangsuvians. How long do you think it will last?”
Renata clasped her hands together and looked at the man earnestly. “Mr. Audley, I thank your son and all of the other members of our military for their service. I want this conflict over as soon as possible, but if we allow Jangsuvian aggression to go unchallenged, we invite more of it. This war will end when we can be sure that every ship of every starhold in the Renaissance Sector can travel among the stars safely.” Well, that was a lot of doubletalk, she thought to herself. As a politician, it was always difficult defending a policy you didn’t really believe in. Actually, I may have just invented tripletalk…
A few seats over from Mr. Audley, another man jumped up suddenly. He wore long hair gathered in a ponytail and a badly fitted business suit—and a scowl. “What about your husband?” shouted the man. “There’s all sorts of talk about him having something to do with the death of Leo Sanchez. What about it?”
A few of the crowd booed, and some people around him were telling the man to sit down. The headmaster stepped forward and started to say something but was stayed by Renata’s hand.
“And you are?” Renata asked.
“A concerned citizen,” the ponytail man answered with a smirk.
The Empress looked directly at the man. “My husband is a good man who did a stupid thing by failing to give up control of Gideon Universal when he was supposed to. He knows he made a mistake and has publicly admitted to it. That being said, there is no connection whatsoever between that particular impropriety and the death of Admiral Sanchez, a man that I worked with for years and knew as a dear friend. The SSB is working on the Sanchez case. I can assure all of you that the killer of Leonardo Sanchez will be found.”
“Just look in the mirror!” someone further back in the crowd shouted. Other people hissed at the person and someone tossed what looked to be an empty drink container in his direction.
From near the front, Mr. Audley turned to the crowd and raised his hands, begging for quiet. She didn’t know exactly who this man was, but it was obvious that he was a well-known and respected member of the community. The crowd calmed down and Audley turned back to the stage.
“Majesty,” said Audley in a loud voice so that everyone could hear. “I apologize for the behavior of some of our parents and guests. In fact, looking around, I’m not even sure some of these people are parents of Grenzbach students. I don’t recognize a lot of the faces here.”
“We’re with you, Renata!” shouted a female voice from the back of the hall, followed by plentiful applause.
“You mean you’re with Renata the Tyrant!” yelled someone else when the clapping had died down.
“Everyone, listen to me!” screamed the ponytail man. “Leonardo Sanchez was trying to return us to democracy, a democracy this woman and her buddy Victor Polanco stole from us four years ago. Maybe we ought to go back and have another look at that Polanco assassination too. People have a right to know the truth!”
“You’re going to know the truth of my fist if you don’t sit down and shut up!” yelled Tucker Audley. The crowd loved that and cheered wildly. Meanwhile, two people produced a hand painted sign which read ‘Arrest Prince Karl.’ As soon as they held it up, someone behind them grabbed the banner from their hands and a scuffle ensued.
Several constables were heading into the crowd to try and restore order as a series of shoving matches broke out. Some parents had started to move toward the stage to retrieve their children, but they were being confronted by Kaskian Guards and constables who were asking them to return to their seats until the event was over. No parent ever takes kindly to being told they can’t have access to their own child, so now upset parents began turning their anger toward the security personnel.
Renata turned to the school children on stage behind her. The angry voices and adult conflict had m
ade some of the youngsters start to cry, with a few of them wailing loudly. Others were trying to break away from the group and move into the crowd to find their parents. Most of them were being corralled by the teachers, who were now trying to herd the children off stage and back to their classrooms.
She suddenly felt someone take her hand. Looking around, she saw Captain Vickery.
“Ma’am, come with me—quickly,” he said as the hall descended into bedlam. As they moved stage right, something flew out of the crowd toward them but was knocked down by another Kaskian Guard. An egg splattered harmlessly against the guard’s arm. Renata was now surrounded by Kaskians, all of them moving at a quick pace toward her shuttle. The last sounds she heard from her ‘nice, safe venue’ were the screams and shouts of chaos.
* * * *
There was little comfort in a three-olive martini, so Renata downed it quickly and asked for another. Perhaps there would be more relief in the next one.
As the Imperial shuttle flew north to Esterkeep, she closed her eyes and listened to the quiet hum of the cabin. No one was talking since there was little to say. Ume Yamazaki had set her up, mixing provocateurs into the audience and giving the good folks at Grenzbach a show they wouldn’t soon forget.
“Well, that was probably the best drama ever produced in the Grenzbach Primary auditorium,” said Renata, the martinis beginning to kick in. “On second thought, it was more of a comedy.”
“A bloody fiasco, that’s what it was,” said Flood. “Majesty, I am so sorry about this. The local SSB checked the IDs of every person in that auditorium. They all showed to be parents and family members with a few local VIPs mixed in.”
“It’s all right, Ardith,” said Renata munching on an olive. “It’s over now.”
Bennett Boyer turned to Flood. “If they were all supposed to be parents…”
“My guess is that some of the local SSB personnel were co-opted,” speculated Flood as her mobile chimed. “Excuse me,” she said turning away from the group.
Renata stretched out her legs and pushed back in her chair. “It was my fault, Professor. You told me not to take any audience questions.”
“Well, it was the headmaster that put you on the spot.”
“I could have declined. All I had to do was beg off, but my politician’s ego wouldn’t let me. Actually, something else bothers me more.”
“What’s that?”
“What if it wasn’t staged?” Renata asked. “What if there were no provocateurs planted in the crowd? What if these were honest citizens who hate their government? Who hate me…” Feeling a headache coming on, she rubbed her temple. “Oh, well, it’s all over now.”
“I’m afraid it may not be,” said Boyer nodding toward Flood, who had just put down her mobile. “I know that expression, Colonel. What is it? What’s happened?”
Flood’s was incensed, her typically white Odessan face was flushed red with rage. “Ship, show ONElink on the wall.” A portion of the bulkhead came to life, flashing a video of what happened an hour ago in the primary school auditorium.
“That bitch, Yamazaki,” said Flood through clenched teeth. “She fed it right out onto the Nets for the entire starhold to see—unedited, as is.” The Colonel balled her hand into a fist. “By the Gods, someday I’m gonna kill that woman.”
As the chaos of Grenzbach played on the bulkhead, Bennett Boyer tried to put a good spin on it. “She might have actually done us a favor. Surely people watching this will see that there were instigators in the crowd, folks there just to cause trouble.”
“Bennett, you know better than that,” said Renata. “They will see me and they will see violence. People will inevitably start to link the two together. Ship, turn off the netcast.”
The image on the wall disappeared. The trio sat in gloomy silence for the remainder of the trip until the stillness was broken by the sound of the shuttle pilot’s voice coming over Flood’s comm badge. “Colonel, ETA to the nest is one zero mikes.”
Flood titled her head and softly responded. “Copy that.” Looking up at the others, she mustered a weak smile. “Almost home. Ten minutes now.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” said Renata as she turned to Bennett Boyer. “Chief of Staff, as soon as we touch down, I want you to make personal contact with Fleet Admiral Maxon. You are to arrange for her to meet with me at Koenig Manor tomorrow evening. I don’t care how you do it, but I want her in the Ryouta Room tomorrow night at twenty-hundred hours sharp.”
“It will be done, Majesty,” acknowledged Boyer.
Flood hesitated, then spoke up. “Ma’am, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to correct a mistake.”
The Sarissan Empress leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes.
19: Tezrina
City of Twelve Palms
Planet Tezrina
“I feel like I have weights in my shoes,” said Sanchez as she lugged her bag through the Municipal Spaceport.
Her tall companion scoffed at her. “Surely in all of your travels you’ve been to a heavy gee world.”
“Not like this.”
“Trust me, you’ll get used to it.”
Dorham was right—she would get used to it if she spent enough time here. For now, however, Tezrina’s gravity was downright unpleasant.
“I take it you’ve been here before,” Sanchez said, laboring to keep up.
Dorham halted his long strides. “Sister, I married a Tezrinan woman. We lived on this rock for two years.”
The SSB inspector was looking around for something or someone and failed to notice the surprise on Sanchez’s face. She had only known him for a few days, but he’d quickly grown on her. Ellis Dorham might lack professional ambition, but he was smart, funny, and resourceful. The man was comfortable to be around. She felt so at ease with him that it took gems like this one to remind her that they were still relative strangers.
“You were married?”
Dorham brushed off her question as he was preoccupied with his mobile. “An old colleague of mine, Inspector Cascadden, was supposed to meet us here. I don’t expect we will get a lot of help from the native constabulary, but I still have one or two solid contacts in the Twelve Palms SSB. Unfortunately, Cascadden sent me a message that he’s been delayed.” Dorham rubbed the back of his neck, considering what to do next.
“This Cascadden, will he be able to help us locate Auric Banks?”
“He will be a start. Understand that you’re not on Sarissa now. Tezrinans have a certain way of doing things—it’s called slow. Pretty certain it’s got something to do with the high gravity here. C’mon.”
Grabbing their bags, Dorham took the lead as they walked toward the terminal exit.
“Hey, we’re going downtown, right? The QuickTram is back that way,” Sanchez said pointing over her shoulder.
“Yeah, but we aren’t taking it. We’re going old-school and grabbing a ground taxi.”
Sanchez rolled her eyes. Why do men always have to do everything the hard way?
“And we are doing this because…”
“I want to go straight to SSB headquarters. Besides, taxi drivers see and hear things, and they love to talk,” Dorham said as they walked outside.
A burst of hot, gritty air broke over Sanchez’s face. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from bright sunlight filtering through a thick haze.
“Gods, I expected the heat, but not the smog,” she said. “The air is filthy—I can barely see across the street. Why would anyone live in a place like this?”
“It’s where the work is,” answered Dorham as he moved toward the taxi stand. “And as far as the pollution, well, it’s a mining town. There are smelting plants and factories all over the city. By the way, did you pack a coat?”
“I just came from a tropical planet and now I’m on a world that’s mostly desert—why would I have a coat?”
Dorham pointed toward the binary sun, twin balls of light setting low in the sky. “Because this rock�
�s orbit and rotation are all screwed up. Daytime on Tezrina lasts the equivalent of four standard days, but so does nighttime. Right now, the Bonnies are just about to set.”
“The Bonnies?”
“What the locals call their binary star, Bonaventure A and B. In a few hours, it will be dark on this side of the planet—for four days.” Dorham smiled at her. “Trust me. We need to buy you a coat.”
As the taxi slowly weaved through heavy traffic, her companion chatted with the driver. Twelve Palms was the economic center of the planet, a robust city of several hundred thousand. Even so, no building in sight was over ten stories high save one—an obscene edifice known as the Ziggurat. The grandiose stepped tower stood over seventy meters tall at the center of town and looked completely out of place, as if someone had placed a water bottle in the middle of an anthill. The Ziggurat was headquarters of the Shurpali Mining Corporation, the real masters of this desert world. The Empire might run Tezrina’s government, but Shurpali ran the planet.
“Good talking with you, my friend,” said Dorham to the driver as he closed the taxi’s privacy partition and turned back to Sanchez.
Sanchez had been half listening to the mundane conversation. “Guess you picked the driver that didn’t know so much,” she said with an acerbic grin. “So, the original Twelve Palms—where are they?”
Dorham laughed. “Long gone. The original settlement grew up around a molybdenum ore deposit surrounded by…”
“Twelve Palms, I get it,” she said looking out the car window as they passed yet another large e-board displaying the face of Fleet Admiral Channa Maxon. “They should call it Maxon City considering all the signs and banners on the streets.”
Her companion gave out a small sigh. “Oh, yes, Tezrina’s pride and joy. They can’t get enough of her around here.”
“This place doesn’t exactly strike me as a paradise. Why would Auric Banks come here?”
“Shurpali Corp paid Banks those consulting fees for four years, almost from the minute he retired as a Marine. Even as he and your uncle were building the Reform Party, his financial records say he was getting money from Shurpali. We know he boarded a starliner to travel to Twelve Palms. As to the why…” Dorham paused for a moment, unable to answer his own question.
Keeper of the Sun (Starhold Series Book 3) Page 18