The Last Emperox

by John Scalzi

  “At least allow me to borrow from your armory, then,” Ghreni said. “Inasmuch as the material there is currently resting.”

  “‘Borrow’?” Mount chuckled a bit, discreetly, into his tea. “My dear duke, one does not borrow bullets or missiles. Once they are used, they are spent.”

  “I’ll be happy to purchase what I need.”

  “What happened to that shipment of weapons you rescued from those pirates all those months ago?” Mount asked. “The shipment that was meant to come to the previous duke but found itself waylaid? My understanding was you had liberated it from the pirates’ perfidious possession.”

  Ghreni indulged in a bit more teeth grinding; he knew Mount knew the answer to this question as well, and was additionally annoyed by the bureaucrat’s snide alliteration. “Some of that shipment was destroyed in an attack. Much of the rest was stolen by the current rebels.”

  “That’s unfortunate. That shipment really appears to have been cursed.”

  “I agree,” Ghreni said, and sipped his own tea to avoid an outburst.

  “It’s possible the missile that knocked you out of the sky was part of that shipment, Your Grace.”

  “The thought had occurred to me.”

  “How ironic.” Mount set down his tea. “It was unfortunate that your predecessor was not able to finish off his civil war, and that you therefore inherited some of his troubles, and perhaps added some new troubles of your own. But what stood for him stands for you. The Imperial Marines must remain neutral in this dispute. I am sure you will understand.”

  The door to the (acting) duke’s office opened and an assistant came through bearing a tablet, which she presented to Ghreni. “A high-priority message, Your Grace,” she said. “Encrypted. Your eyes only. It’s meant to be read immediately on receipt.”

  “Something serious?” Mount asked.

  Ghreni looked at the public headers of the message. “Family business,” he said, to Mount. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

  “Of course.” Mount reached for his tea.

  Ghreni confirmed his biometrics and the message opened, in text, from his sister Nadashe.

  Ghreni—

  If you’re reading this then things have gone poorly on this end. What it is I can’t tell you because this was written in advance. But whatever has happened, I’ve put the backup plan into effect.

  Which is: I’m sending you a troop carrier, the Prophecies of Rachela. It is fully armed and carries 10,000 Imperial Marines. Its commander and most of his executive team are ours; those who aren’t probably won’t survive the voyage. It should arrive not long after this message.

  If you haven’t finished up your little civil war on End, the Rachela will help you mop up. It would be helpful if you were the Duke of End by the time the Rachela arrives, but if you aren’t then you will be by the time the Rachela is through.

  Then the commander of the Rachela will take command of the Imperial Marines there, whether the current command structure helps or not. Then the two of you will take control of the Flow shoals and prepare for our arrival, which will happen one way or another.

  You have a lot to do, little brother. Get it done.

  And don’t fuck it up.

  See you soon,

  Nadashe

  Ghreni grinned at the note and closed it, which deleted the mail and then reformatted the tablet, and then bricked it, because you could never be too careful.

  “Good news?”

  “Excuse me?” Ghreni said, to Mount, setting the now-inert tablet on the table.

  “You were smiling,” Mount said. “I was asking if it was good news from home.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Well, good,” Mount said. “You could do with a spot of good news, if you don’t mind me saying so.” He took a sip of his tea.

  Ghreni imagined Sir Ontain Mount as the dead man he would be when the Rachela arrived, and smiled.

  And while he did that several thoughts ran through his head, sequentially rather than plopped there, this time. They were:

  Fucking hell, I’m saved; and

  The Rachela better get here pretty damn soon; and

  How in the world did things go poorly for Nadashe? And, finally,

  What the hell is going on out there, anyway?

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter 1

  “Let’s be clear about what’s going on,” Deran Wu said. “It’s the end of civilization as we know it. And it’s going to be great for business.”

  On the top floor of the Guild House building, in the great conference room set aside for the use of the governing board of the House of Wu, where Deran Wu stood at the head of the immense table and offered this opening line, the governing board of the House of Wu, to a person, stared at Deran as if he had just ripped an enormous fart directly into their faces.

  Come on, Deran thought, that was a great line.

  Deran gave no outward indication that he was displeased his line fell flat. There was no need to. For the first time in his career with the House of Wu, Deran was not particularly concerned with what the members of the governing board of the house—each of them one of his cousins to varying degrees of separation—thought about him, or his plans, or his snappy lines. This was because Deran was now managing director of the House of Wu.

  And not just managing director. That role had been previously contingent on the sufferance of the board of directors, whose opinion about anything, from the competence of the managing director down to what should be served for lunch, could be most charitably described as fractious. Deran Wu’s managing directorship, on the other hand, was immune from board disapproval, because Jasin Wu, the previous managing director, had attempted a coup on the emperox. The emperox, quite reasonably, believed this cast suspicion on the entire governing board of the house.

  At least, this was the excuse.

  More accurately, Deran Wu made board noninterference in his managing directorship a condition of handing over every bit of information he had on said coup, which he had been an active participant in, up to and including the assassination of one of the managing directors of one of the other great merchant houses and the attempted murder of one of the emperox’s closest friends and rumored lover. The emperox, pressed for time and preferring the devil she knew, gave her assent.

  And here we were, at the first full House of Wu board meeting since the recent unpleasantness, with Deran, previously not necessarily in line for the managing directorship, ever, now running things, whether the board liked it or not.

  Standing there, it occurred to Deran that they probably didn’t like it at all. Which might explain why the line went over so poorly.

  “Why are we here?” came a question, from far down the very long table at which the directors, the cousins of Wu, sat.

  “Pardon?” Deran said, looking down the table to see which cousin it was.

  It was Tiegan Wu, who ran the small arms division of the House of Wu armaments concern. “I said, ‘Why are we here?’” she repeated. “You are now the dictator of the House of Wu. This is the governing board. Former governing board, I should say. Now it’s powerless. What was the purpose of calling us here?”

  “Besides to gloat,” said Nichson Wu, who ran the automated security concepts division, i.e., robots with guns.

  “Yes, the gloating part had occurred to me,” Tiegan said, staring at Deran.

  “My cousins,” Deran said, gesturing in a way that he hoped conveyed reassurance. “I remind you that these are extraordinary times. Jasin, our former managing director, tried to overthrow the emperox. She was not convinced that the governing board was not complicit in the coup attempt. She does not know you as I know you.”

  “Does she know you’re completely full of shit?” asked Belment Wu, who ran warship construction. Belment had never been Deran’s biggest fan.

  “She knows I, at least, can be trusted,” Deran replied. This got a snort from Belment.

  Proster Wu, to the immediate r
ight of Deran, cleared his throat. Proster was arguably the most powerful person in the room because, among other things, he oversaw the entire security division. Which meant, quite literally, that he had the most guns. Traditionally, the Wus who headed up the security division never stood for the general directorship. They didn’t have to. They were the powers behind the throne, as it were. When Proster cleared his throat, everyone, including Deran, shut up and looked at him.

  “Deran,” Proster said, “let’s not waste each other’s time, shall we? You’re managing director because you betrayed Jasin and blackmailed the emperox into giving you the job. She also let you cut all of us”—Proster nodded to the board—“out of the decision-making for the House of Wu. Well played. But don’t pretend that we don’t know that, or that we don’t know you were just as complicit as Jasin in that stupid attempted coup. Don’t insult our intelligence. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Deran said, after a moment.

  Proster nodded and turned to face the rest of the table. “As for why we’re here, it’s simple.” He pointed at Deran. “Our new managing director is not entirely stupid. He knows that even if the emperox has given him complete control of the House of Wu, that ‘control’ is an illusion. He doesn’t have a power base in this room. He doesn’t have enough allies outside of it. And as he correctly notes”—Proster swiveled back to Deran—“the end of human civilization is coming. He doesn’t have time to wait us out. Not if he wants to implement the plans he so clearly has and needs our cooperation to realize. Accurate?”

  Not quite, Deran thought. He was not nearly as unprepared as Proster thought. Deran had quite a little list of people, mostly other Wu cousins, who would be delighted to cut throats if it meant they were put in charge of an actual division at the House of Wu. Hell, Proster’s head was first on the chopping block if it came to that. There wasn’t a Wu cousin in this room who wouldn’t strangle their own grandmother—and several other grandmothers, why be stingy—in order to run security, especially now that the managing directorship was locked up for the near future.

  Proster had been in his directorship too long; he’d forgotten how hungry an ambitious cousin could be. He should have remembered this. He’d railroaded Finnu Wu, the previous security director, right out of her chair, and well done that had been, too. Finnu ended up retiring to another system entirely, so as not to be reminded, on a daily basis, of her ignominious unseating. Deran knew more about Proster’s own set of vices and missteps than probably anyone else, Proster included, and would be happy to share that information with whatever Wu cousin would step up.

  So, no, Deran was not quite as without a power base or allies as Proster was attempting to posit. More accurately, Deran was confident he could acquire both, in time.

  But time wasn’t on his side. Proster was right about that.

  Time wasn’t on anyone’s side, anymore.

  So Deran nodded at Proster and said, “Accurate.”

  “We all understand each other,” Proster said. “Good. Then tell us, Deran, how the end of civilization is somehow going to be good for the House of Wu.”

  “It’s simple, really.” Deran said. “The House of Wu has monopolies on shipbuilding and armaments and security. What are the things that are going to be needed as the Flow streams continue to collapse?”

  “Food,” Tiegan Wu said.

  “Water,” said Nichson.

  “Medical supplies,” added Belment.

  Deran waved these away impatiently. “You’re missing the point.”

  “People starving is not the point?” asked Tiegan.

  Deran pointed. “Close. People starving is not the point. People who are afraid of starving is. Over the next few years the Flow streams are going to collapse. People are going to be scared. This empire is called ‘the Interdependency’ after all. Every human habitation is by design dependent on others. This was fine when the Flow was stable. As it becomes less stable, so do the political and social systems of the Interdependency. Those systems are going to need to be propped up.”

  “By security forces and arms,” Proster said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Until the security forces get scared too, because their food is running out like everyone else’s,” Tiegan said.

  “Well, actually, we have that covered,” said Nichson, i.e., the “robots with guns” cousin.

  “The point is, unrest is coming,” Deran said. “Heightened unrest. Sustained unrest.”

  “And we want to make money off the chaos,” Tiegan said.

  “We want to offer the ability to hold off chaos as long as possible,” Deran replied. “The unrest will happen. It’s already happening. It’s inevitable. But ‘inevitable’ doesn’t have to mean immediate. We can buy time for system governments. Or more accurately, they can buy that time from us. Because, yes, we want to make money off of that.”

  “For as long as the money is good,” said Lina Wu-Gertz, near the far end of the table. Lina ran the resale division, which sold used spaceships or the ships that were built but never used because the intended owner never took delivery. “When civilization ends, money’s not going to be any use.”

  “Civilization isn’t going to end,” Deran said.

  “Did I miss something?” Belment said. “Did you not just stand there and say civilization is ending?”

  “I said, ‘civilization as we know it.’” Deran reached down to the table, picked up a remote, and pressed a button on it. The wall behind him came to life, showing a green and blue planet.

  “That’s End,” Proster observed.

  “That’s civilization,” Deran corrected.

  Proster chuckled at this. “You haven’t been to End, then.”

  “End is where our civilization is going to survive,” Deran said. “It’s the one system in the Interdependency that has a planet that’s capable of sustaining human life on its own. And from what the emperox’s scientists tell us, it’s the last place that will have a Flow stream going into it from Hub. Civilization will continue there.” He looked down the table to Lina Wu-Gertz. “Along with its money.”

  “Civilization will survive there,” Proster said. “As long as it can get there.”

  Deran smiled at this. “Rumor is, we build starships.”

  “Not that many starships,” Belment said.

  “We need to save civilization. Not every single person in it. Although I’m sure everyone in this room, and all the people they care about, will find their way to End, sooner or later.” This comment gave everyone a momentary pause.

  “So your plan is spaceships for some, and riot control for the rest,” Tiegan said, after the moment had passed.

  “I’m not the one who is making the Flow collapse,” Deran replied. “I’m just aware of what comes because of it. And no, the plan is not about the spaceships and the riot control. The plan, and what I need this board to support me on, is to start building the spaceships and riot control now, on a massive scale, before the orders come in.”

  “That’s presuming the orders come in,” Proster said.

  “They’re coming,” Deran assured him. “And we don’t have to wait for governments and the rest of the merchant houses to realize the end is near. We have a sales force. They will remind them. I want to build the ships and arms now, so that our salespeople can say to our clients that we have the stock ready to go. No delay between order and delivery except shipping. These days that will make the difference between a sale, or not.”

  “Offer them easy terms on the sale and they’ll take it,” Belment said.

  Deran shook his head. “No. Cash on the barrelhead from now on. For everything.”

  “That’s crazy,” Belment said.

  “It’s not crazy. It’s the end of civilization as we know it; we don’t have time to collect on installment plans.”

  “That’s showing our hand,” Proster observed.

  “The point is to show our hand,” Deran said. “If they think we don’t think the
re’s time for installment plans, they’re going to prioritize the short term, too. They have the money; they just have to decide they need to give it to us, first.” He looked over to Lina Wu-Gertz. “And if they think civilization is ending and money is going to be worthless anyway, they’re not going to mind as much giving it away. They’ll think they’re getting one over on us.”

  Proster nodded. “So we build ships and arms now—”

  “While it’s still cheap and easy, because as more Flow streams collapse, it will be more expensive to get materiel, and harder to source as well,” Deran interjected.

  “—and take as much as we can get up front, and then as the Flow streams collapse, move our base of operations to End, where the money will still have value and the remainder of civilization will still need arms and spaceships.”

  “That’s the plan,” Deran said. “Basically. Broad strokes.”

  Proster nodded, and then looked down the table, where there were other nods, even from Belment and Tiegan. Then he looked back at Deran.

  “Looks like you’re right: the end of civilization is going to be good for business,” he said.

  “Yes,” Deran said. “I think so.”

  “That was a good line, by the way.”

  Deran beamed. “Thank you, Proster.”

  The door to the conference room opened, and Deran’s assistant Witka popped her head in to announce lunch; the rolling tables came in, stacked with food and drinks. The board got up and served themselves, talking to one another as they did so. Deran’s assistant came over to him with a cup of his favorite variety of hot tea, which she kept for him in a stash at her desk.

  “How did it go?” Witka asked, handing him the cup.

  “I think I may have just pulled it off,” Deran said, and took a sip. “They seemed to understand what I wanted to do with the plan.”

  “Well, it’s a good plan.”

  “I thought so,” Deran admitted.

  “I’ll get you something to eat.” Witka wandered over to the tables of food.

  Deran took another sip of tea and basked in his accomplishments for the day. He didn’t need the board to do all the things he had outlined to them—indeed he had already started the process of moving much of the house’s financial holdings to End—but having their agreement made things better. Easier. Simpler. He wouldn’t have to fight them as much, and he wouldn’t have to replace as many of them in their jobs as he’d suspected he would have to. Not yet, at least. He did have a little bit of time. Or at least he did now.