“Your Majesty,” Mieland said, and bowed his head.
Which was correct per protocol because, though he was nominally a head of state, the western colonies operated under Imperial charters.
“President Mieland,” Dunham said. “Let’s be seated, shall we?”
Dunham waved to the two club chairs and they both sat.
“You requested this meeting, Mr. President. Please, go ahead.”
“Your Majesty, are you aware of what is happening on Julian?”
“I took the liberty of bringing myself up to date on the situation in response to your meeting request, Mr. President.”
“Then you know Julian is under attack by rogue elements of the Imperial Marines, Your Majesty.”
“No active-duty Imperial Marines are present on Julian, Mr. President.”
“Retirees, then. They might as well be Imperial Marines. They have all Imperial Marine equipment. They’ve attacked my planet.”
“I was unaware the planet had been attacked, Mr. President. I thought it was only your government that was attacked.”
“Same thing, Your Majesty.”
“No, it’s not, Mr. President. As far as the equipment goes, that equipment was delivered to the people of Julian, for their best use. Perhaps they consider the removal of your government its best use.”
“I am the duly elected president of Julian, Your Majesty.”
“As I said, I am aware of the situation on Julian, Mr. President. Your electoral mandate expired five years ago.”
“It did not. I ran on a platform of a twenty-year transformation of the colony’s economy. I was elected on that platform, Your Majesty.”
“And you believe that gives you a twenty-year term, without standing for re-election during that time, Mr. President?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“I see. And what if the people have reconsidered their initial vote, Mr. President? Do they have no way to change course? For example, on the five-year boundaries specified in the planetary constitution.”
“No. Not in the middle of a twenty-year program, Your Majesty.”
“I see, Mr. President.”
“All of this is besides the point anyway, Your Majesty. By Imperial Charter, Julian’s internal affairs are its own business.”
“That is exactly correct, Mr. President, and I have not interfered with your, er, unilateral extension of your term.”
Mieland waved that away and bore on.
“The question is, Your Majesty, what are you going to do about this attack on Julian’s sovereignty?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re going to stand by and let off-world rogue elements of your Imperial Marines overthrow a colony planet, and stand by and do nothing?”
“I believe the majority of the personnel involved in this morning’s events on Julian are Julian colonists, Mr. President.”
“But the Imperial Marine tanks and assault shuttles are crewed by off-worlders.”
“You mean, Julian’s tanks and assault shuttles, don’t you, Mr. President? I believe most of the materials delivered to Julian were at your request.”
“Yes, but not to be used against the government by civilians. Those were for the use of the government.”
“Yes, against the civilians. It seems the worm has turned, Mr. President.”
Mieland turned an alarming shade of red, and then visibly struggled to calm himself.
“And you will do nothing, Your Majesty?”
“No, Mr. President. As you say, I am bound by Imperial Charter not to interfere in Julian’s internal affairs.”
“Then what am I to do, Your Majesty?”
“You might negotiate an arrangement with Brigadier General Turley, Mr. President. You have served the equivalent of two complete terms, which is the term limit of the presidency under the constitution. You might simply retire, and become the former president of Julian. Write a book or something.”
“That Turley woman has no authority and no rank. She’s not even an Imperial Marine. She retired years ago.”
“I believe retired members of the general staff in the Imperial Marines remain in the reserves for life, Mr. President. She retains her rank on retirement in the reserves.”
“Ha! Then you can order her to withdraw and leave Julian.”
“No, Mr. President. She is not on active duty, and is not under my authority outside the borders of the Empire. I have no authority to order General Turley to do anything.”
Mieland turned red again, and threw his arms up in the air. He attempted to cut the channel, but learned one more prerogative of the Emperor and found himself still in the Emperor’s presence. He stared at the Emperor in shock.
Dunham’s white-blue eyes went icy cold as he held Mieland’s gaze.
“This audience is over when I say it is over, Mr. Mieland, and not before. The resistance forces, including those under General Turley, have enough firepower on Julian to lay waste to the entire capital. Your Government Center complex and all the staff therein cannot protect you. I suggest you negotiate an honored retirement with General Turley.
“In any case, I will do nothing to interfere.
“Good day, Mr. Mieland.”
Dunham cut the channel.
Dunham was back in the private living room with his wife and empress.
“So how is President Mieland today?” Peters asked.
“Oh, I think he’s been happier.”
Peters chuckled.
“I shouldn’t imagine. He wanted you to interfere, didn’t he?”
“Of course. It seems that having the Empire interfere is OK as long as it’s on his terms.”
“And you refused, of course.”
“Yes,” Dunham said. “That’s when he turned an alarming shade of puce. He really should retire. I worry about his health.”
“And the likelihood of him retiring?”
“Increases by the hour, I suspect.”
“So is that it for this evening?”
“No, I don’t think so. El Presidente Elizondo is yet to be heard from.”
Mieland’s Decision
President James Mieland popped out of the VR channel to find himself back in his office.
“Fucking bastard,” he said to his empty office, then called Minister of Security Hubert Land.
“Is our counter-offensive ready?” Mieland asked
“Yes, sir. So the Emperor will do nothing?” Land asked.
“No. He says he can’t interfere. Like he isn’t already interfering.”
Land nodded. He had expected as much.
“You may proceed with the counter-offensive when you are ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You asked to be informed when Mr. Mieland dropped the QE link, Ma’am.”
“Yes?” General Turley asked.
“He’s off the QE, Ma’am.”
So what is it going to be, Mr. Mieland? The easy way or the hard way?
Turley immersed herself in the tactical map, and opened her mind up to see all of it at once, and no part of it in particular. If Mieland completed his conversation with the Emperor and wanted to resign, he would do that with a call to her. But if he decided not to, what would happen next?
There. The Secret Police units in her rear were getting reorganized. That they started nearly simultaneously meant they had restored communications, likely through the public VR, which Turley had not shut down.
There. People and vehicles were congregating in the shadow of that building over by the breaching charges she had seen them place against the wall earlier. What building was that? The Security ministry. Hmm.
There. There were some people scurrying from the Security Ministry building toward buildings over on this side of the compound, facing her forces. It looked like they were carrying grenade launchers.
Looks like the hard way. I can do that.
Turley considered the tactical map, and started selecting weapons and tagging targets.
>
“Shuttle Flight Bravo, stand ready to receive targeting coordinates.
“Shuttle Flight Charlie, prepare for early rotation.
“Shuttle Delta One, stand ready for target coordinates and prepare for take-off.”
“Shuttle Delta One, you are go for liftoff and cleared to altitude one-zero-zero miles.
An armored assault shuttle took off from the spaceport. Instead of heading into the city, it kept gaining altitude. As the shuttles were capable of being dropped from and returning to Imperial Navy carriers in orbit, it continued gaining altitude long after an airplane would have hit its service ceiling. The engines, now being fed oxidizer as well as fuel, kept thrusting as it passed into space.
When it reached the designated altitude, it dropped a single weapon from its belly rack. The weapon was mounted with the nose pointed aft on the shuttle, so the shuttle dropped the weapon as it was still climbing.
The shuttle then cut its engines way back, and started its descent back to the spaceport.
About a quarter of Turley’s armored assault shuttles were in the air at all times to respond to calls for air support. There were three such flights of shuttles, Flight Alpha, Flight Bravo, and Flight Charlie, making up three-quarters of her assault shuttle assets. The remaining quarter, Flight Delta, included hot spares and several shuttles with special ordinance load-outs.
Several of the current flight in the air, Flight Bravo, fired rockets toward the city. Over a dozen rockets made their way across the city, seeking their programmed coordinates.
Flight Charlie took to the air at the spaceport, relieving Flight Bravo, which landed at the spaceport for rearming.
One never knew when the next call for air support would come in, or how big it would be. Fully armed shuttles in the air was the safety play.
The various Secret Police companies to Turley’s rear had joined up into three main groups. They would move up three adjacent streets – Second Street, Third Street, and Fourth Street – so they were close enough to reinforce each other. The flanking groups were meant to protect the center group, keeping the resistance forces farther left and right from similarly concentrating in the center, and allowing the Third Street group a better chance of breaking through the defenders there.
They were being coordinated out of the Security Ministry using public VR channels. The attack from the rear was a diversion for the Security Ministry, to draw the attention of the resistance forces to their rear, before hitting them hard in the front.
“We’re ready, sir. We just need your go ahead.”
“The attack force in the rear is ready?” Security Minister Land asked.
“Yes, sir. And the main force here, as well as several groups of grenadiers.”
“All right. You may begin, General.”
“There’s the order. Let’s move out,” Major Harvey Mendel said.
His troops had gotten up and were preparing to move down Second Street when a Wide-Area Anti-Personnel (WAAP) rocket came in and caught them out in the open.
Similar rockets hit the Third Street and Fourth Street groups.
“Nice of them to concentrate their forces like that, Ma’am. Expends less ordinance,” Command Sergeant Major Gordon said.
“Indeed, Sergeant Major,” Turley said. “I wish they would do the same with their grenadiers.”
“Well, you can’t have everything, Ma’am.”
Turley nodded, then spoke in VR in another channel.
“They’re maneuvering around, Hank, and we’ve seen grenade launchers deploying in the compound. Let’s make sure we keep eyes front on those buildings. Don’t wait for a firing order. Weapons free. Defenses active.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Colonel Henry Jensen said. “Weapons free. Defenses active.”
Jensen passed on the orders to his platoon commanders, and tank crews across Turley’s formation enabled the M15’s active defense envelope.
The Security Ministry’s main strike force was gathering in an open area behind the Security Ministry building. When the east wall was breached, which should be in about fifteen minutes or so, they would move out and through the breach to confront Turley’s force on its left flank. Secret Police forces were boarding vans and the few APCs they had.
There was very little warning when they were hit with two WAAP rockets. Four follow-up Medium Armor-Piercing (MAP) rockets targeted the APCs.
Twelve windows in the top floors of the buildings immediately over the wall of the Government Center complex broke out simultaneously, and rocket grenades fired from them. The front osmium impellers of the first two tanks in each column opened up on the buildings, chewing holes in the buildings where the windows used to be and even penetrating out the roofs of the buildings. The ceilings of those rooms collapsed in on the grenadier teams.
Of the twelve rockets fired by the government grenadiers, they proceeded without active targeting from the launcher. Eight were near misses, hitting the street near their targets. Four hit lead tanks in Turley’s columns. The active defenses attempted to disrupt the armor-penetrating rounds when they hit, and most were at least partially successful.
“Status, Colonel Jensen?” Turley asked on her armored channel.
“Four hits, Ma’am. Two functional, one disabled, one lost with all crew.”
“Understood. Keep your eyes open, Hank. We don’t know that’s the last of them.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“And rotate your leads on those columns.”
“That’s already under way, Ma’am.”
The thing about active armor is it was only good once. The areas of the tanks that had been hit were now without active armor in that spot. The columns had stopped in staggered rows – left, right, left, right – so taking out any one tank wouldn’t bottle up the street. The second tank in those columns now moved to the front, alongside the first in line, and the two which were still functional backed up into the second position.
For the disabled and dead tanks, the second tank advanced to the lead position, while the crew of the third in line moved up behind the former lead tank and, without dismounting, latched to it with the front hitch. It pulled the lead tank back to second position, once again to make sure a hit on the lead tank did not bottle up the street.
There were multiple, quick explosions nearby, and the windows in Hubert Land’s office shattered under a hail of small projectiles, some of which deflected off the ceiling and bounced around his office. Some hit Land, seated at his desk, but the force was gone out of them and, while they stung, none penetrated the skin.
Land went to the empty window casings to look out over the parklike area that was the view from his office. Below, the mustering area for his strike force was a desolation. The parklike setting was gone. The landscaping was chewed up, trees and bushes shattered and broken. The dead and wounded lay everywhere, thrown about by the explosions, some intact, others in pieces strewn about the area. The four APCs were gutted and smoking.
It was a scene out of hell.
One of the dead lay on his back, his empty eyes staring up at Land in accusation.
The explosions had shaken the Executive Building, and President Mieland called his Minister of Security.
“Bert, what’s going on? What were those explosions?”
“They hit my strike force. My men are all dead or next thing to it. They can see everything we do, sir, and they just pick us off from the air. We can’t do anything against them.”
“What about the grenadiers?”
“We’ve lost touch with them, too, sir. I assume–”
The VR call went dead, and then the world heaved.
There was no sound. The Gravitic Demolition Projectile (GDP) came in at hypersonic speed, outrunning the sound of its passage.
Turley saw it coming. Her ‘see everything, focus on nothing’ view of the battlefield gave her a heads up, and she watched the white condensation trail behind the shockwave of the GDP as it came in.
Turley hit the all-hands
channel.
“GRAVITY BOMB!”
All across her forces, people hunkered down, grabbed handholds, and covered up.
The five-ton tungsten cylinder came in at over four thousand miles an hour and hit the Security Ministry dead center. Even epoxycrete was no barrier to an impact like that, and the projectile punched down through the roof and the multiple floors of the building with ease.
But it was a specially designed, expanding round. Rather than being designed to remain intact and penetrate a hardened bunker a hundred feet under the ground, the nose of the Gravity Demolition Projectile expanded with every impact, and it punched bigger and bigger holes through the floors as it went, until it hit the basement floor.
Programmed for the number of impacts it took to reach the basement, the fuzee on the weapon detonated the demolition charge when the projectile had reached the basement, and hundreds of pieces of heavy tungsten shrapnel sleeted across the basement, taking out the supporting columns of the building.
With the floors shattered and the supporting columns broken, the building slowly collapsed into itself, the crumbling center pulling the outer walls with it as it fell.
President Mieland struggled up off the floor. He had been thrown from his chair onto the floor behind his desk by the ground shock, which saved him from most of the shower of window glass that sleeted across his office when the air shock hit.
Mieland picked a piece of glass out of his face, and another out of his arm. He staggered to his feet and stumbled to the empty windows. He watched as the shattered Security Ministry building collapsed into a smoking ruin in front of him.
EMPIRE: Intervention (EMPIRE SERIES Book 13) Page 14