Deborah was sitting next to Bouchard, holding her youngest, the three-month-old Amy.
“Oh, she needs changing again. Their bladders are so small when they’re little. Marie, could you hold her for me while I get her things.”
“Uh, sure.”
Peters was sitting with Dee at one of the picnic tables. Dee, now fifty-nine years old, saw Bouchard holding Amy and pointed it out to Peters. As they watched, Bouchard looked up from the baby, and the look on her face said everything. She looked like a small child who didn’t get their piece of candy. ‘Where’s mine?’
Peters chuckled.
Dee said, “Mom, if that girl’s not pregnant within the year, it won’t be because she doesn’t want to be.”
Peters nodded.
“That would be nice.”
They were curled up in the double chaise in front of the fire pit. It was a weeknight, about a month after the coronation, but the weather had been so pleasant they decided to have picnic dinner at the fire pit, and now were just enjoying the fire as the evening cooled.
“Daniel,” Bouchard said.
“Mmm?”
“I want to have children.”
“Of course, dear. We talked about that.”
“Soon.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t want just one, and I’m getting to the age where I need to get started. It’s just going to get more difficult and more dangerous as I get older.”
“So what do we do?”
“I need to turn off my nanites. Then we should wait a couple cycles and let my body steady down. That means a few days we can’t have sex in the next couple months, though.”
Parnell chuckled.
“That’s OK, Marie. I’ll manage.”
“So when?”
“You can turn them off now as far as I’m concerned.”
“OK. Done. Oh, Daniel. I’m so excited.”
He held her closer.
“Me, too, dear.”
Bouchard became pregnant two and a half months later, on her third ovulation since turning the nanites off. She enjoyed being pregnant, and, if anything, the changes to her body as the hormones kicked in made her even more beautiful.
Bouchard’s pregnancy decided matters for Parnell’s mother, who decided that living in the Imperial Palace with grandchildren about was much to be preferred to living alone in the big house in Blossom.
Parnell had Dillard book his mother a first-class suite from Garland to Imperial City on the Imperial Interstellar Lines premier ship on the route, the IIS Star Empress. Stauss Interstellar subsidiary Household Services Corporation packed her few personal things for transit, auctioned off the house and the contents she and her friends didn’t want, and even transported her to the Garland spaceport for the shuttle up to the Star Empress.
A bit over a month later, she arrived in Imperial City.
It had only been six months since the shootout in Imperial City spaceport, and the Imperial Guard was taking no chances with the Emperor’s mother. An Imperial Palace groundcar, with Imperial Guard escort vehicles running ahead and behind, picked her up directly from the shuttle pad and drove her into the city. Computer traffic control cleared the way for them.
They arrived in the Imperial Palace’s underground portico, on the back side of the Palace from the people mover stop. A pair of Guardsmen escorted her on the slidewalk that ran from the portico to the elevator lobby, then up to the top Imperial Residence floor.
Parnell and Bouchard were waiting to greet her in the elevator lobby of the Imperial Residence.
“Mom!”
“Daniel.”
Christine and Parnell hugged there in the lobby.
“Oh, I was so worried about you,” Christine said into his shoulder.
They separated and Parnell gestured to Bouchard.
“Mom, this is my wife, Marie.”
“Heavens. You’re even prettier than on VR.”
Bouchard dimpled and gave Christine a hug.
“It’s good to meet you, Christine.”
“What do I call you? Empress or Milady or....”
“Just Marie, Christine. In the Imperial Residence, everyone is first names only. It’s the only way Daniel and I can live like normal people.”
“Well, that’s smart.”
“This way, Mom. We’ll show you your room.”
One of the Guardsmen standing watch opened the primary door of the double doors leading into the Emperor’s side of the top floor.
“Those fellows are all over the place, aren’t they?” Christine said once through the door.
“They’re here for me, Mom. They won’t follow you around.”
“Oh, good. It’s been forty years since I had young men following me around. I’m not sure I remember what to do.”
Bouchard laughed.
Christine looked around as they walked down the hallway.
“Well, this sure is a nice place. You’re sure it’s no trouble me being here?”
“We’re very happy you’re here, Christine,” Bouchard said. “It’s what we wanted. Both of us.”
“Here’s the room, Mom. It’s actually an apartment more than just a room. The bedroom is through there. The Imperial Guard will bring your things up, and Housekeeping will unpack them for you.”
“This is very nice, Daniel. All for me?”
“All for you, Mom. Your little boy made it big, as Grampa might say.”
Christine nodded.
“I still miss him so. It’s been less than a year, and living in that house by myself was so lonely.”
Parnell nodded. Bouchard gave her another hug.
“Well, now you’re here with us, and we have another on the way,” Bouchard said. “Life goes on.”
Christine nodded and wiped a tear.
“Thank you, dear.”
“Mom, it’s almost lunch here. Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I could eat.”
“Let me show you the dining room, then.”
They went around to the dining room, where lunch was being set out on the sideboard. They stayed out of the way, out in the hall, when Peters walked up.
“Mom, I want you to meet Amanda Peters.”
“Oh my gosh. You’re–“
“Amanda. It’s good to meet you, Christine.”
“Everybody here is so famous. I feel out of place.”
“Well, you’re the mother of the Emperor, Christine,” Bouchard said. “That’s not nothing.”
When staff was set, they all went in and had lunch. There was salad, and fruit, and a variety of hot sandwiches, in small sizes so you could sample more than one.
After lunch, Parnell and Bouchard rose from the table.
“Mom, it’s a workday, and Marie and I need to get back to work. Perhaps you and Amanda can find something to do for the afternoon.”
“I think I should show you the gardens, Christine,” Peters said. “Even though you’re the mother of the Emperor, that doesn’t mean you have to stay shut up in the building. Come along, my dear.”
Christine was walking, while Peters, thirty years her senior, drove her little one-man electric cart.
“My, but that pool looks inviting, Amanda,” Christine said.
“Tomorrow there’ll be suits in your size in the cabana behind those bushes.”
“But how do they know my size?”
“Housekeeping is unpacking you right now, Christine. By the time you get downstairs, you’ll be all moved in. And they’ll know your sizes. So there’ll be suits for you tomorrow morning, if not before.”
“My, they really are efficient, aren’t they?”
“Never underestimate Housekeeping.”
Suzanne Nichole Bouchard Parnell was born at thirty-two weeks, the time selected by Bouchard, Parnell, and the doctors. In attendance were Parnell and Christine. It was a normal vaginal birth, induced prematurely to reduce stress and damage on both the mother and the baby, as was current medical practice.
Suz
anne spent four weeks in a NICU that had been installed in one of the family apartments in the Imperial Residence. That apartment was then converted to a nursery, with the bedroom being the nursery itself and the living room of the apartment being the staff room for the nurse on duty. As with Amanda and Bobby’s kids Sean and Dee sixty years before, Suzanne was given swimming lessons from a very young age, as well as lessons in sign language, so she could communicate with her parents and caregivers well before she began talking.
Eighteen months after Suzanne’s birth, after Suzanne had been weaned, Bouchard was pregnant again.
Return Of The Illustrious
Morena Prieto was not happy.
“Here I am, stuck here on Verano, and Marie is popping out grandchildren like potato chips.”
Chad Stimson, colonel in the Imperial Marines, laughed.
“One grandchild is not popping them out like potato chips,” Stimson said.
“She just told me she’s pregnant again.”
“OK, that’s moving toward potato-chip-hood. Still a ways to go yet.”
Prieto paced up and down in the sitting room of the main house on Il Refugio.
Ann Turley and Paul Gulliver, invited to the main house for dinner this Friday night with Prieto and Stimson back in residence for the weekend, entered the sitting room as Prieto paced.
“Oh, this doesn’t look good,” Turley said. “What’s happened.”
“Marie is pregnant again, and grandmother is unhappy she can’t be there,” Stimson said.
“Ah,” Turley said. “Well, the annexation vote and presidential election are only four months off, right?”
“Yes, and then it’s over two more months to Center. She’s two months along, and she’s only carrying for eight months,” Prieto said.
“She can’t make it in time, even if she leaves right after the election,” Stimson said.
“Why not?” Gulliver asked.
“The timing doesn’t work out,” Stimson said.
“Why not have Daniel send a carrier? Direct flight to Center is five weeks. He could probably send the Illustrious, for that matter.”
Prieto stopped in her tracks.
“He can’t send a carrier just for me.”
“The mother of the Empress? Sure. Why not?” Gulliver said. “Don’t forget, the reason you’re hanging around is the annexation vote. You’re not running for president again.”
“Truth be told, the annexation will probably go through. Who wouldn’t vote for annexation to the Empire when the Empress herself is from here? Hometown girl as Empress gave us fifteen points.”
“And Julian voted for annexation last year by a solid margin even without that extra bump,” Gulliver said.
Prieto considered, then shook her head.
“No, I won’t leave before the annexation vote. And I won’t leave before my term is up. But the carrier idea is an interesting one.”
“They do have to go out on operations from time to time no matter what,” Stimson said. “You can’t have them just sitting around all the time, doing nothing. People need to build habits, practice skills. They’re always spacing around. And to keep gravity on board, they’re always running the engines at one gravity anyway. They can do that just as well in hyperspace as in regular space.”
“And if we get them here soon enough, they could relocate us as well, before they need to head out with you,” Gulliver said.
“Relocate you?” Stimson asked.
“Well, we can’t stay on Il Refugio,” Gulliver said. “It’s not Morena’s. It goes with the presidency. So we have to relocate anyway. No sense limiting our considerations to a single planet.”
Turley narrowed her eyes at him.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” she asked.
Gulliver smiled.
“Probably.”
Parnell, Bouchard, Peters, and Christine were sitting around the dinner table that evening over coffee.
“I got sort of an out-of-the-ordinary request from your mother today, Marie,” Parnell said. “She wants me to send a carrier to pick her up from Verano and bring her directly to Center so she can be here for the birth.”
“From mother?”
“Well, indirectly. It came from Colonel Stimson.”
To Christine’s raised eyebrow, Parnell said, “Her mother’s husband.”
Christine nodded.
“Why don’t they just come on a liner?” Christine asked.
“There’s no direct service, and she has to stay through the end of her term,” Bouchard said. “But that means she can’t make it in time. My fault. I sort of botched the timing on this one. But a direct spacing by a carrier would make it to spare. Cut out all those doglegs and planet stops and ship changes.”
“Yes, but can I justify sending a carrier out there to pick her up?” Parnell asked.
“Why not?” Peters asked. “They’re always accelerating for gravity in the crew compartments anyway. And they need to do operations once in a while if they’re not going to get rusty. Besides, there’s another mission they can do while they’re out there.”
Peters raised an eyebrow at Parnell. He looked at her blankly for a few seconds, then his eye got wide.
“Of course,” Parnell said. “That makes sense. All right. We can bring her and Brad here. Then what? Do they stay here?”
“Don’t forget my grandparents,” Bouchard said. “They’ll come with her as well.”
“OK. Same question. Do they stay here?”
“I think my mother will want to stay, and that means my grandparents will as well,” Bouchard said. “And why not? We still have family apartments available.”
“Fair enough. I’ll talk to Admiral Steinmetz tomorrow.”
The next morning, Parnell asked Imperial Admiral Jason Steinmetz, the Chief of Naval Operations, and Imperial General Russell Jones, the Commandant of the Imperial Marines, to meet him in channel 22, the simulation of the Emperor’s office.
“Be seated, Admiral Steinmetz. General Jones.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Admiral Steinmetz, I have a couple of missions for an attack ship carrier out in the western colonies in several months time.”
“Very well, Sire.”
“This will, of course, involve its Marine complement as well, General Jones.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“There will be an initial assignment from the president of the planet Verano, which is coming up on its annexation vote. Her military liaison is Imperial Marine Colonel Brad Stimson. The carrier will place itself at her disposal when it arrives.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“The planetary president of Verano is not running for reelection. Her term expires in four months’ time. She is also Milady Empress’s mother. The second part of the assignment is to bring Morena Prieto and Brad Stimson here, to Imperial City, by the most direct route possible. She wants to be here for the birth of her second grandchild. I recommend you not disappoint Milady Empress in this matter.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Admiral Steinmetz. Where is the carrier HMS Illustrious?”
Steinmetz consulted his VR.
“In Jasmine, Sire.”
“Who is her current command team, Admiral Steinmetz?”
“Admiral John Stevens, General Cosworth, and Captain Bianchi, Sire.”
“The same people as two years ago, Admiral Steinmetz?”
“Yes, Sire. Those are normally four-year billets, and they were in their first year when they brought you to Center.”
“Would Illustrious be able to be in Verano in, say, a month’s time?”
“Yes, Sire. Easily, I would think.”
“Very well. I think the mission would be more likely to be successful if HMS Illustrious were assigned to it, because of Colonel Stimson’s relationships with the current command team, but I leave that up to you.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“That is all, gentlemen.”
Parnell cut the channel.
Steinmetz didn’t have any trouble reading between the lines, either. He cut orders for the HMS Illustrious to move to Verano.
Rear Admiral John Stevens, Brigadier General Clyde Cosworth, and Captain Julia Bianchi were meeting in the flag briefing room of the HMS Illustrious.
“So what do you make of our current orders,” Steinmetz asked.
“They seem straightforward enough,” Cosworth said. “Go to Verano, do whatever the planetary president wants, per Colonel Stimson, and then take the two of them to Center.”
“I’m getting a sense of déjà vu, here, Sir,” Bianchi said. “Remember when we were put under the orders of General Parnell, then it turns out he’s the Emperor?”
“Exactly,” Stevens said. “And where are we going? Verano again. And one other thing I found out. This particular planetary president is Milady Empress’s mother.”
“Is there an official protocol for that, Sir?” Cosworth asked.
“No, so we stick with Madam President.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Are we topped off on supplies, Captain?”
“We’re just adding the extended-mission restocking, Sir. We’ll be done within two more hours.”
“Excellent, Captain. Prepare to space.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Two hours later, Illustrious was making one and a half gravities toward the hyperspace limit. Eight hours later, Illustrious projected its hypergate, drew it over itself, and disappeared.
They were sitting in the living room of the guesthouse on Il Refugio.
“Well, the Illustrious is on its way,” Turley said.
“It’s going to have to make two round-trips, you know, so we both aren’t in hyperspace at the same time.”
“Yes, I know. It also means three weeks apart.”
“Bang me good before I go,” Gulliver said.
“Don’t I always?”
Gulliver held up his hands in defense.
“Yes. Yes. Always. Forget I said anything.”
Turley laughed.
“But you go first?” she asked.
“I don’t know that it matters. Have you found what you’re looking for?”
EMPIRE: Succession Page 25