EMPIRE: Succession

by Richard F. Weyand

  It became clear pretty early on in the returns that the annexation was going to go through. It was a bit longer until it became clear that Prieto’s vice president and protégé the last twelve years would simultaneously win election as the first planetary president of Verano as an Imperial planet.

  “I’ve seen everything I need to see,” Prieto said. “You ready?”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Stimson said.

  They dropped out of VR into the sitting room.

  “Mother, Father, are you ready to go?”

  “Oh, yes. We were just waiting for you, dear.”

  They all went out to the portico, where electric carts waited to take them out to the armored assault shuttle waiting on the bridge. Prieto had said her goodbyes to staff earlier, and had recorded her farewell speech to the people of Verano this afternoon. There was nothing left to pack, no one left to thank or say goodbye to, no more speeches to give. Prieto, Stimson, and the Obertos got aboard the shuttle, their travel luggage was stowed, and the shuttle lifted off the bridge and disappeared into the night sky.

  “Everyone’s aboard, Captain. Shuttle secured. Hyperspace limit approaching.”

  “Set least time course for Center,” Captain Bianchi said.

  “Yes, Ma’am.

  “Transition when we cross the boundary.”

  “Transition in thirty seconds, Ma’am.”

  The Illustrious projected her hypergate, drew it over herself, and disappeared.

  As with the Emperor’s mother, Christine, the Imperial Guard had a motorcade for Prieto, Stimson, and the Obertos that came right up to the Imperial Marina armored assault shuttle that landed on the Imperial Marine side of the Imperial City spaceport. They arrived at the underground portico of the Imperial Palace and were shown up to the Imperial Residence. Parnell was there to greet them, as was Bouchard, now seven and a half months along.

  “Well, we made it in time,” Prieto announced, then hugged Bouchard. She hugged Parnell, too.

  “Thank you for that, Daniel.”

  Parnell nodded. They completed greetings all around.

  “Come,” Parnell said. “Let me show you to your apartments.”

  At dinner that evening, there were eight of them around the table. Parnell, Bouchard, Prieto, Stimson, Christine, Peters, and the Obertos.

  Housekeeping changed the default configuration of the table in their planning from four to eight.

  Jeanette Monique Bouchard Parnell was born ten days later, at thirty-two weeks, the time selected by Bouchard, Parnell, and the doctors. In attendance were the father, Daniel Parnell, and both grandmothers, Christine Whittier Parnell and Morena Prieto. 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.

  Bouchard had two more children in the next four years, both boys – Stephan Phillippe Bouchard Parnell and Edmond Laurent Bouchard Parnell.

  Passing Of An Era

  It was a big occasion, the ninety-fifth birthday of Amanda Peters. It was held in the gardens, of course, and everyone in her extended family was there. That included the current Emperor and his wife as well, as they had adopted her as great grandmother to their children.

  Attending were Daniel Parnell, Marie Louise Bouchard, their four children, including three-month-old Edmond, his mother, Christine Whittier Parnell, her mother, Morena Prieto, and Prieto’s husband, Brad Stimson, and her grandparents, Lorenzo and Adriana Oberto. All of them lived in the Imperial Residence, including Amanda Peters.

  Attending from outside the Imperial Palace were all Amanda Peters’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Dee, now sixty-six, and her husband Rob, Sean, Dee’s twin, and his wife Jessica, and all their kids, their spouses, and their children. Any who were on Center or could make it, anyway.

  All told, there were thirty-five or forty people in the gardens for Amanda’s party. There was no exact count. Children splashed and squealed in the pool or played in the sandbox. The elder adults sat and talked, while the younger adults talked while keeping an eye on their progeny. Palace staff, well experienced now in keeping tabs on children, were on hand, including lifeguards for the pool.

  One of the service elevators on the Imperial Residence floor went all the way up to the gardens. As Peters had grown more frail, the Imperial Guard used this elevator to take Peters up to the Gardens for her daily stroll in an electric cart direct from her room.

  So the Imperial Guard knocked on her door once everyone had arrived and the party was underway. She came out and got in the cart, the Guardsman giving her a hand in.

  When he was back behind the wheel, she pointed ahead with her cane.

  “All right, Guardsman. Off to the party.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  He drove down the hall of the Imperial Residence and around the corner to the service elevator, which another Guardsman was holding. They rode it up to the gardens, then drove around the path to the pool.

  Looking out at all the people surrounding the pool and on the nearby lawn, Peters remarked, “Good heavens. What have I done? All these can’t be mine.”

  “By birth or adoption, yes, Ma’am.”

  He inched the cart through the crowd to the chair they had for her in the center of the lawn. It had a four-legged canopy set up over it to protect her from the sun. Parnell helped her out of the cart and to the chair.

  “Happy birthday, Amanda.”

  “Thank you, Daniel.”

  Next to Peters sat Bouchard, who was breastfeeding Edmond. She was keeping to the canopy as well, keeping the three-month-old out of the direct sun.

  “Is that your latest, Marie?”

  “Yes, Amanda. Edmond Laurent.”

  “He looks big and healthy.”

  “Yes, once he tanks up all the way, he’ll be happy for hours.”

  “Are you planning any more, dear?”

  “No, I think four is fine, Amanda. Two girls and two boys. A nice symmetry there.”

  Amanda gestured to the party all around them.

  “Yes. I only had the two, but over the years, they really add up.”

  Bouchard laughed.

  Peters stayed at the party two hours, about the length of her endurance for so much noise and activity. She had a hot dog. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. She had a small piece of her birthday cake. And all her brood, adopted or not, stopped to pay their respects to she who had been Empress, but now was simply Gramma Amanda.

  When she tired, she signaled the Guardsman, who brought the cart by to take her back to her room. Her nurse helped her into the living room to her favorite chair.

  Once in her chair, Amanda logged into VR, back into the recording of the gardens Bobby had given her for their fiftieth anniversary almost twenty years ago. She walked to the meadow, bright with summer flowers, and she danced.

  The years passed, the Empire prospered, the children grew. People were happy with the rule of the Emperor Trajan II, and they loved his wife, the Empress Consort Marie. It was a new era of success and prosperity, a continuation of the reign of the Emperor Trajan.

  Amanda Peters lay in the bed, the tray table across her lap. Marie Louise Bouchard spooned the soup for her. Peters had grown increasingly frail over the last month, and Bouchard had been nursing her personally the last two weeks.

  She was ninety-nine years old. Had been Empress for sixty-three years. Had toppled a would-be Emperor, using his own good sense as her weapon. Had seen the rightful heir restored, and served as trusted adviser to that new Emperor for over a decade. She had brought two children into the world, from whom sprang dozens more.

  She had loved, and been loved.

  All her family had been through in the last week. Short visits, at her request. It was her time, and she knew it.

  “It’s not long now, Marie.”

  “Yes, Amanda. I know.”

  “Tonight, perhaps. Or tomorrow. I go to be with Bobby, in whatever lies beyond.”

 
; She took another spoonful of soup. Marie wiped her chin.

  “I’m rather looking forward to it.”

  That night, Amanda Peters passed away in her sleep.

  The Emperor Trajan II declared four days of mourning, and made the day of her funeral an Imperial holiday. So many people throughout the Empire wore black armbands that black cloth was impossible to find. People took to scavenging their wardrobes for black cloth, or dyeing other colors with black ink or markers.

  The body of Amanda Peters, First Empress of the Galactic Empire, lay in state in the apse of the gothic Throne Room, before the Throne she had saved from ruin. Her body lay in state for ninety-nine hours, one hour for each year of her life.

  Over half a million people filed down the nave and past her open casket during those four days. They waited in line throughout the day and night for the chance. Hundreds of trillions more observed the body in VR.

  During those four days, Bouchard had an argument with General MacFarland, the Commandant of the Imperial Guard.

  “But, Milady Empress, you can’t.”

  “Oh, General MacFarland, indeed I can. And I will.”

  He tried to argue further, but Milady Empress wasn’t listening.

  As for Parnell, he knew better than to argue with Bouchard.

  At noon on the fourth day, Amanda Peters’s casket was closed. The Palace Mall held well over a million people, there to see the funeral procession of the woman who had been the Empress Amanda their entire lives.

  A murmur ran through the crowd when, in the great arched doorway of the Throne Room, a single figure in white appeared, leading the pallbearers. The Empress Marie led the funeral procession down the center of Palace Mall, between the two lines of Imperial Guardsmen who kept the path open.

  Bouchard wore a white dress similar to the one she had worn at the coronation eleven years before. She had fought herself back into shape after each of her four children and was still an impossible beauty, but she was now forty years old, and a funeral was not the place for a dress that blatantly revealing. Accommodations had been made, and the Seamstress office of the Imperial Residence was more than up to the task.

  She wore the crown jewels of Sintar on her breast, the real ones, not one of the imitation sets. She had received complaints about that, too.

  “Perhaps for a funeral for an imitation Empress, I will wear the imitation jewels,” she had said, with the hauteur and air of command that had only grown with experience.

  Her hair was up, entwined with multi-colored roses in the fashion Amanda Peters had favored for public events, and which Bouchard had borrowed. As she walked down the Palace Mall, however, Bouchard pulled the roses out of her hair, one at a time, and dropped them on the ground in front of the casket.

  When they arrived at the Imperial Mausoleum, Bouchard stopped across the path from the doorway, her hair down now, one last rose in her hand. As the casket passed her, she knelt on the edge of the path and bowed her head. People near her took it up and it spread through the crowd, until all million-plus people on the Palace Mall were kneeling. They knelt and bowed their heads as the body of the Empress Amanda was carried into the Mausoleum to its final resting place.

  The pallbearers took the casket inside and slid it into its niche, next to Bobby Dunham, on the other side of him from his first wife, Cindy Newberry. The marker plate was affixed, the Guard withdrew, the Mausoleum was sealed again.

  When the Guard had sealed the Imperial Mausoleum, Bouchard stood and walked across the path to the mausoleum doors and dropped the last rose from her hair on the threshold of the doorway.

  She walked downcast back up the path to the Imperial Palace, the Imperial Guard holding open the way.

  She would never wear her hair entwined with roses again.

  The era of Trajan the Great, Robert Allen Dunham IV, First Emperor of the Galactic Empire, and his Empress Consort Amanda, Amanda Joy Peters, the Barefoot Empress, had drawn to a close.

  From The Encyclopedia Hominum

  Galactic Empire – also known simply as the Empire. Capital: Center (was Sintar, a variant of Slavic ‘cintar,’ meaning center). The Galactic Empire was the first political unit in history to unite all humanity under one central government. The foundation of the Empire is usually dated to the accession of the Emperor Trajan to the Throne of Sintar, though it would take ten years of war and annexation to unite all humanity under his rule....

  The Year of The Three Emperors – The year 64 of the Galactic Era (64 GE). The year began on the sixty-third anniversary of the accession of the Emperor Trajan to the Throne of the Sintaran Empire. Trajan’s death early in the year precipitated a succession crisis, with Emperor Nerva taking the Throne, only to abdicate in favor of the Emperor Trajan II within months. The entire story of the succession crisis will likely never be known, due to the behind-the-scenes machinations of both sector governors such as The Five Musketeers and court figures such as the Empress Amanda and the Co-Consul Sanford Hayes....

  Robert Allen Dunham IV – Reign name: Trajan. Also known as the First Emperor. Emperor Trajan founded the Galactic Empire through a series of wars and annexations that extended throughout his first ten years on the throne of the Sintaran Empire. At his re-coronation, the words ‘Sintaran Empire’ in the Pledge of the Emperor were replaced with ‘Galactic Empire and all of humanity.’ Dunham was born into poverty on Travers World, a planet in Ostrova Province, Colinas Sector....

  Amanda Peters – Empress Consort Amanda. Also known as the Barefoot Empress. Peters was the second wife of Robert Allen Dunham IV, the Emperor Trajan, and Empress throughout his reign. Little is known of her from official records, the Imperial family being traditionally kept out of the limelight, but contemporaneous accounts credit her with an insight into human affairs that illuminated much of Trajan’s reign....

  Jerome Albert Goulet – Reign name: Nerva. The second Emperor of the Galactic Empire. Ruling for barely four months, Emperor Nerva stepped aside in favor of Daniel Whittier Parnell, Emperor Trajan II. The Provence Sector Governor, nominated to the Throne by a majority of sector governors, Emperor Nerva found himself ill-prepared for the Throne. Through a series of behind-the-scenes moves, the Empress Amanda (the widow of Trajan) made Nerva aware of his manifest failings as Emperor and precipitated his abdication....

  Daniel Whittier Parnell – Reign name: Trajan II. The third Emperor of the Galactic Empire. Named by the Emperor Trajan as Heir to the Throne, Parnell was on Garland at his grandfather’s funeral when Trajan died. In his absence, manipulation of the succession by a clique of sector governors (see: The Five Musketeers) resulted in the accession to the Throne of Jerome Albert Goulet (Emperor Nerva), who ultimately abdicated in favor of Parnell within months....

  Marie Louise Bouchard – Empress Consort Marie. Bouchard was the wife of Daniel Whittier Parnell, the Emperor Trajan II, and Empress throughout his reign. Bouchard was already a successful politician on Verano, then a colony planet, when she met Parnell during the height of the succession crisis of 64 GE. She had a doctorate in history and government, and was well prepared for her role as Empress....

  Man Of Honor: Emperor Nerva and the Succession Crisis – An inside history of the succession crisis of 64 GE written by Marie Louise Bouchard, PhD (Empress Consort Marie). Bouchard takes the position that Jerome Albert Goulet (Emperor Nerva) was an honorable man who was manipulated into accepting the Throne by a clique of sector governors. He stepped aside for Daniel Whittier Parnell, Emperor Trajan II. It is widely considered the authoritative account of the succession crisis, although it does not disclose all the actions taken by various inside players, actions of which Bouchard was certainly aware....

  The Five Musketeers – Five sector governors who were involved in the political machinations surrounding the succession crisis of 64 GE. They were Stanton Sector Governor Bryan Hawking, Fremd Sector Governor James Thornton, Vandalia Sector Governor Elizabeth Sounder, Lauda Sector Governor Joshua Lewis, and Mantua Sector Governor Teresa Mont
efiore. All were found guilty of treason by the Emperor Trajan II shortly after his accession to the Throne and executed....

  Please review this book on Amazon.

  Afterword To The Succession Trilogy

  Stephanie Osborn and I wrote the Imperial Police Trilogy and the Succession Trilogy in parallel with each other. We had to plotstorm how the two trilogies fit together and their relationship to each other before we started. The first thing we came up with was Section Six, the Emperor’s personal and secret intelligence service. The Imperial Police Trilogy then became the story of the police career of Nick Ashton. At the end of EMPIRE: Inspector, Nick Ashton becomes the founder and first head of Section Six. Stephanie will also write the Section Six trilogy, which will come out in the spring of 2021.

  The Succession Trilogy was always going to end with the death of Bobby Dunham and his replacement on the Throne of the Galactic Empire. I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but that’s where it was headed from the start.

  The first book set up the two main characters of the trilogy, Paul Gulliver and Ann Turley. Paul Gulliver was originally going to be the hero of the trilogy, but he and I both fell in love with Ann Turley during EMPIRE: Intervention. This first book was set eleven years before Bobby’s death.

  The second book had Gulliver and Turley become the leaders of Section Six at the end of the book, ten years before Bobby’s death, which is where I needed them for the Succession Crisis in EMPIRE: Succession. There was also a lot more interaction with Bobby and Amanda, bringing them back to the fore of the story arc. In the second book I introduced Marie Louise Bouchard and Daniel Parnell.