The RIM Confederacy Series: BoxSet Four: BOOKS 10, 11, & 12 of the RIM Confederacy Series

by Jim Rudnick

  All across the RIM Confederacy, news corps had picked up the feed, and it had played for the hundreds of billions of RIM citizens at the same time.

  Somehow, the Duchy d’Avigdor had been able to get this videotape, and now it was showing it to the RIM. The citizens of the RIM were now learning what had been the Tillion secret for hundreds of years.

  On Neria, in the Caliphate, the Caliph smiled to himself as his own information began to pour in at the playing of this news vid across the RIM.

  Citizens were upset—almost as much with the Duchy d’Avigdor for releasing the undercover vid as with the Tillions for their gender war. The word around the RIM was that the Duchy d’Avigdor must be made to answer for this vid and Tillion must be made to answer for its war on the female gender and the deaths of countless Tillion females.

  There was no gender war, but that would only come out after the next big RIM Confederacy Council meeting. “That should be a doozy,” he said to himself, his grin plastered on.

  Until then, he still had almost two full weeks to work on the Duchy d’Avigdor and its Temporary Provisional Government and their ambassador to come to their aid. To help them weather this storm of protest.

  He’d already heard back from the Entiran of Teuku with his own comments about what the vid had done, damage-wise, over on Tillion itself. Student uprisings. Planet-wide strikes in many industries. Their government was at a standstill. The Entiran had smiled at him from beneath the brim of a very green hat and had commented that the current Narrisol was at a loss and his name was already making the rounds with supporters when it came to replacing the current Narrisol. There had been some injuries too, he shared, at the university with those student uprisings.

  All in all, the Caliph thought, just the results we were looking for …

  #####

  Ambassador Bedre pulled the thumb drive out of the console and sat shocked at what he’d just seen. He reached forward and picked up the clear plastic bag that held the original package that had been sent to him.

  It had, he’d been told, been somehow delayed as the Provost guard who had been delivering it weeks ago had been in an accident, and the package had been gathered by the EMTs as a part of the accident and scene detritus. It had sat for that time on a shelf down at the Provost guards building until the accident investigation had been completed. Only then did someone note that the parcel was labeled as needing to go to him—and a Provost guard had delivered it just this morning. The guard who’d been injured was okay but might still lose his left leg, he’d heard, but that was not the shocking thing.

  What was on the drive, the video itself, was what was shocking even though the time code stamped in the corner showed it was now ten years old.

  It was a video of a medical facility on Tillion, and it showed that Tillions were killing their female young. There was no other explanation for what he saw—and it was more than explanatory as to how Tillions treated all females here on the RIM.

  Anyone who viewed this was more than likely to come to the same conclusion that he just did. Tillions killed all women—embryos really—but there was no other explanation for what he’d just seen.

  He was more than aware that this kind of video, if made commonly available here on the RIM, would cause a big uproar and even more.

  And yet while the vid and its contents were shocking—that was not what upset him the most. The voice-over at the end, obviously taped by someone who’d sent this to him, and the credit roll upset him the most.

  “We wanted you to see what will be used to try to discredit the Barony—and this comes from the Caliph …” the voice said as the credits rolled.

  The text scrolled up from the bottom of the screen, disappearing off the top of the screen, and it read, “This is a video captured by a secret EliteGuard foray into an embryo farm on Tillion. This video is now ten years old and shows that the Barony has had knowledge of this killing of females on Tillion and has hidden it from the RIM Confederacy … and it will be shown as an exposé coming from the Duchy d’Avigdor rather than from the Barony …”

  He flinched once again and shook his head, his white hair now plastered with sweat as he realized that this was a shock.

  Whether or not it was true, the time code stamp showed that the Barony had known about this. And they’d sat on that for a decade. That spoke to him more about the Barony than Tillion.

  And yet the person who’d sent him this video said that it was a ploy by the Caliph, which he fully believed.

  He drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought. So … how to ensure that the duchy would not be found at fault was the correct diplomatic question.

  One, he realized in seconds, that he had an answer for at hand. He would EYES ONLY the Barony and speak directly to the Baroness.

  He would offer that the Temporary Provisional Government of the Duchy d’Avigdor—him really—would find that the Barony was the winning name on the list. That the Barony and the Duchy d’Avigdor would merge under the Barony flag and that the Baroness would find herself with a realm that now encompassed sixteen planets—the largest realm in the RIM Confederacy.

  The Barony then would not be able to be blamed for this transgression, as they would be the biggest power on the RIM. The Duchy d’Avigdor would gain the shielding of that new merge with the Barony and also be found not to be at fault by all. And he would have fulfilled the mandate given to him by the duke—furthering the future of the duchy.

  He didn’t smile then, but he did feel like he’d done some good work on this. He dialed the Barony to request that EYES ONLY with the Baroness as he sat at the duke’s desk inside his private study in the residential part of the ducal palace.

  #####

  Tanner punched the pillow as quietly as he could and tried to once again get comfortable—but it just wouldn’t happen. Instead, he slowly eased off the side of the bed and tried not to wake up Helena as he got up and tossed on a robe. He’d slept nude for his whole life—“Well, except for those years when I’d passed out in my uniform,” he said to himself.

  “Wonder how long it’s been since that happened,” he said, thinking back. He thought it was more than four years ago, but he couldn’t be sure; time had a way of running fast in the future and slow in the past, he thought.

  Don’t know—but walking around his palace bedroom fully nude was not something that a lord would do, he thought as he went over to the balcony doors and opened one quietly. He stepped out on the cool deck and silently slid the door closed behind him. Ahead, over the palace gardens and walkways, there lay the big band of the galaxy at full-blown summer shine. Summers on Neres meant that the band of the billions of galaxy stars was always overhead. Fall and winter, as the planet rotated, meant the edge of the RIM appeared, and the darkness was overwhelming at times.

  But now, the starlight seemed like it was bright enough to read by, but he had nothing to read, and he dropped into a patio chair.

  “AI … drone me up an iced tea,” he said, and he heard the chime of the reply back to him.

  Several minutes later, as he studied the big swath of stars above him, a small drone air-bot appeared coming up and over the balcony rail to land on the table before him. There was a large pitcher of iced tea and three glasses holding ice cubes and sprigs of mint—just as he liked it. He took the pitcher, poured himself a glass, and took a healthy swallow of the tea.

  Cold. Tea was strong and even a bit warm before the ice took over. Mint was fresh and added a hint of flavor too.

  “My future. What is it I want?” he said to himself for the umpteenth time tonight.

  That question hadn’t let him get to sleep.

  That question made him toss and turn.

  That question had forced its way into his consciousness for the past ten months.

  That question made him think back on his life and what he had accomplished so far … and what he wanted to do with the rest of it.

  “Royalty. Is that something that I really want? I am alre
ady married to the next Baroness. And if we have children, they will be Royalty too,” he said, thinking out loud.

  “But me? Is it for me?” he asked himself, sucking on a leaf of mint as he drained the glass.

  “Being a Royal does have some advantages and I do like them. Can’t evade that truth.” He grinned and shook his head.

  But hadn’t being a plain captain of a starship been enough? That may be the whole underlying theme here, he thought as he poured himself one more glass, the pitcher now almost empty.

  All I need do is to decide—the Duchy d’Avigdor or not?

  No matter what he chose to do, Tanner knew it would certainly make some ripples here on the RIM. It might cause some issues with the few remaining realms on the Duchy d’Avigdor’s short list too.

  The Caliphate would cause him no worry at all. The Barony itself should also not be troublesome, but there was the great unknown—the Baroness—which he could not figure out how to add to the equation in order to come up with an answer. He smiled as he realized that he seemed to be more concerned with external factors than what he wanted personally.

  Tanner sighed. Of course, I don’t know is the answer tonight ... as it has been every night so far. Good thing I still have time to think on this. He sipped the final dregs of iced tea in his glass, stood, and stared up at the sky again.

  “Stars. Billions of stars, and I’m just a small, small mote,” he said to himself. “Motes matter, but until I can come up with a personal answer, not as much as one might think …”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On the Barony Hospital Ship, Maddie sat with her pen poised over her notebook. Today, one of her tasks at the sanity conference meeting for Gia Scott was to record notes for the meeting. “Then there’s no doubt, Doctor Trystan, is there? After almost eleven months of group sessions, your most updated diagnosis of the patient is that she is sane. And, as a result of those sessions, she now is what a layman would call better?” Doctor Etter asked.

  Doctor Trystan, the head psychiatrist whose area of specialization was group sessions, nodded. As he combed his hair back with a hand, the white locks fell back to hover above his ear. “That’s true, Doctor Etter. After almost eleven months—well, you know how it is. Most patients sit in the group but outside the general exploration of their own troubles for a month or so. Gia did that too, but she joined in as soon as the topic of justice came up one day. She ranted—quite well, I’d add—that justice must always be the goal—no matter if it was done by the government or citizens. Since those days, however, she has realized that vigilantism is something that is not an acceptable part of being a citizen, and that is a good thing, we all know. Add in that about five months ago, when the group delved deeply into parental love and authority, she made some great strides in beginning to understand about her own mother. And the belief in the guilt of her brother, being the major factor that she admitted only two weeks ago, had been faulty. Stored in her psyche by a parent, and in fact, as she said just yesterday, not true.”

  Doctor Trystan leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Getting that kind of a new thought, from any patient, is a wonderful thing to a psychiatrist. Yes, we worked hard at showing her the ways to think about Lord Scott, and yes, she went down the typical hatred paths—but now, I do fully believe that she is no longer blaming Tanner for her sister’s death. She was Tanner’s sister too, she said out loud just a few days ago like it was a revelation to her—though it’s been true forever,” he added.

  He looked over at Maddie and smiled. “She had some help too, I understand, from our best nurse practitioner—Maddie Nelson—who dutifully reported back on her state of mind and all of those unanswered questions too. Thank you, Maddie,” he said.

  Seated across the table from him, Maddie smiled and blushed.

  Doctor Etter smiled too. “Doctor Nelson, anything to add, GP-wise?” he asked.

  Doctor Nelson, the general practitioner, smiled and didn’t open a folder or his tablet. “Not a thing. She’s as healthy as a horse, and I might add that those horrible scars on her back and lower rear thighs are all perfectly healed—older scar tissue too. We did offer to remove them with cosmetic surgery, but she rebuffed any of that. Said that she needed those reminders of days gone by. No amount of questions or pleadings by me would get her to spell out how she’d been hurt that way,” he said as he looked around the room.

  Everyone else shook their heads as well.

  “It’s as I thought—an event that I think may well never come to light. But, she seems to not be bothered by same. Physically, she’s as lithe and flexible and strong as any athlete I’ve ever treated. She’s a clerk on leave from Gallipedia—which in and of itself is a whole new issue. But she is healthy beyond her peers, and by quite a margin.”

  Doctor Etter nodded and glanced over at Maddie. “Let the record show that she is healthy—I think maybe we’ll leave off the clerk part, agreed?”

  All the heads in the room nodded, and Maddie said, “Acknowledged, Doctor,” and she made notes to the meeting minutes.

  Doctor Etter then looked down at his folder and picked up a paper. “Then, if we all agree, we will notify the courts that one Gia Scott, after almost eleven months of treatment and study, has been judged sane. Since she has been determined to be compos mentis, as the courts term it, we will need to notify them later today, Maddie—normal channels, please.”

  Maddie leaned forward now. “Doctor—do I also send notice to her legal counsel too? That attorney Jordan Alpert has been messaging me every single week, awaiting the sanity conference results—do I tell him too?” she asked.

  Doctor Etter nodded. “Yes, both the courts, which will handle the prosecution of the patient, and her defense counsel should receive the same notification at the same time,” he answered.

  “We all realize, that now being found sane, this means that she will face a trial for those two murders,” Maddie stated.

  Again, all the heads in the room nodded.

  Doctor Nelson, addressed that point. “Yes, but our report will include that in our opinion—a medical opinion—that she was delusional up until recently. Because brainwashing is such an invasive form of influence, it requires the complete isolation and dependency of the subject, which is why you mostly hear of brainwashing occurring in prison camps or totalistic cults,” he said.

  Doctor Etter followed up on that point too. “The agent—Gia’s mother—had complete control over the target—in this case, Gia—so that sleep patterns, eating, using the bathroom, and the fulfillment of other basic human needs depended on the will of the agent. In the brainwashing process, the agent systematically breaks down the target's identity to the point that it doesn't work anymore. The agent then replaces it with another set of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that work in the target's current environment. It was this way that Gia’s mother used her position of being the only parent to inflict on her surviving daughter the belief that Tanner had killed Nora …”

  “And,” Doctor Trystan added, “it was that delusional indoctrination that we eventually were able to get Gia to see was untrue just recently. She is sane. And, yes, there will be consequences for her crimes but all mitigated by her delusional state at the time. I’d think that she may well get a year or two—suspended, of course, as others we’ve been involved with have been found guilty before,” he added.

  That too got nods.

  With the full medical diagnosis of Gia’s delusional behavior, not one of them thought Gia would receive much of a sentence when she was found guilty.

  #####

  She threw the whole glass, wine and all, over her shoulder, and the smash on the fancy marble floor was loud.

  “Piss off, AI,” she spat.

  The robo-vacs that had jumped out of the wall sconces returned to their location in seconds. The Baroness was mad, and the simple housekeeping AI had responded as quickly as they could.

  “Seal the room, Baroness code W-3,” she barked.

  The palace-w
ide AI made a note, and the doors to the room were locked and sealed. No one would be allowed to enter—as long as her body vitals read within acceptable standards.

  She rose, trooped over to the console, and said, “Replay at seventy-five percent speed.”

  There was an almost imperceptible hesitation, and then the screen darkened once more. She watched the entire vid for the third time.

  She watched the white-coated medical lab tech as he went from embryo tank to embryo tank, making notes on his tablet, it seemed.

  She watched as some of the tanks in the rows that lay ahead seemed to have an alert light flashing. Nothing indicated what the emergency might be.

  With the sidebar display included in the video, it was apparent to her, and she was sure to billions here on the RIM, that these were tanks growing Tillion males. Only males. No live females as the sidebar noted there were hundreds of tanks with deceased embryos—all female. Tillions were selectively killing their female gender embryos.

  She couldn’t care less. But she, like the other billions who were watching this vid, could see that this vid wore the telltale icon of a Barony EliteGuard vid editing suite, via the time-stamp that dated this video ten years back.

  She had never seen this, but she would get to the bottom of this vid and its camera crew soon, she knew.

  The closing credits were what really angered her though. The closing credits read, “This is a video captured by a secret EliteGuard foray into an embryo farm on Tillion. This video is now ten years old and shows that the Barony has had knowledge of this killing of females on Tillion and has hidden it from the RIM Confederacy …”

  Never mind the Tillions. Why had someone labeled this as a Barony-run project? Her foot tapped harder on the floor. Why … and more importantly, who …

  The Baroness sighed. Now she somehow had to arrange to get back into the good graces of the Duchy d’Avigdor as the short-list favorite.