EMPIRE: Investigation

by Richard F. Weyand

  “All right. Each platoon has their assignment. We’ll break up when we get into the city. Each platoon is to head to their assignment by best means. Remember, everybody. Polite, but firm. You are authorized to return fire only if fired upon.”

  Being media people, most of the arrestees were downtown, in clusters of two or three. There were also a few lone arrestees, likely still at home. And there was a group of six at the spaceport, doubtless hoping to find a way off the planet. The platoon headed to the spaceport peeled off first, as the column drove by the spaceport access road. Most of the rest headed downtown.

  The Imperial Navy MPs knocked on the door of the commanding officer’s residence and were let in by the major domo. The arrest detail was led into the dining room where Admiral Pachner was just finishing breakfast with his wife.

  “I have an Imperial Warrant for your arrest, Sir. Please come with me.”

  Pachner sighed.

  “Very well.”

  He turned to his wife, who was looking at him in alarm.

  “Erik?” she asked.

  “There are some things that must be answered for, Dear.”

  Pachner got up from the table and left with the arrest detail, leaving his wife staring after.

  Pachner’s aide showed up five minutes later with a detail of enlisted.

  “Ms. Pachner? Sorry, Ma’am, but we need to move you to a townhouse on flag row. The admiral has been removed as base commander.”

  Soldiering on through her confusion, Dora Pachner oversaw the moving of their things to a flag row townhouse around the corner.

  When they had finished moving Pachner and his wife to flag row, the detail began moving Admiral Zhang’s things into the commanding officer’s residence from her and her husband’s townhouse in flag row.

  Major General Phillip Daltrey was also arrested over breakfast and moved out of the commanding officer’s residence for the Sixty-Fifth Division of His Majesty’s Imperial Marines. He also went quietly.

  Currently unmarried, Daltrey’s things were moved to flag row without spousal supervision, and General Walsh and his wife were moved into the commanding officer’s residence.

  The check-in clerk checked Joel Edwards with a VR ID scanner at the check-in counter. These were routinely used by first responders to determine the identity of people who were unconscious.

  “I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait while we run a security check. If you could just wait over there, please.”

  She directed Edwards to an area of the boarding lounge where five other people were already sitting.

  Fuck this.

  “Thank you,” he said, and went over to the designated area. When she was looking the other way and no longer paying attention to him, Edwards got up as if to go to the restroom, walking in that general direction, and just kept going.

  “Looks like we got one deciding to try another route, Sir. The rest are in the boarding lounge for Grand Terran Lines,” the platoon sergeant said.

  “All right, Sergeant, let’s grab him as he comes out the door, then go on in and pick up the rest.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The sergeant deployed one rifle company on perimeter security and another to the door. When Joel Edwards came out the spaceport terminal door, he almost ran right into them. He looked around, but one Marine had stepped in behind him to block his re-entry, and there wasn’t an arm span’s gap between any of the rest.

  “You are under arrest on an Imperial Warrant, sir. Come with me please.”

  One Marine took Edwards by the arm and led him to one of their big vehicles. He waved Edwards inside.

  “Have a seat, sir. We’ll be just a few minutes before we leave.”

  The other two rifle squads went on into the spaceport terminal and down the hall to the Grand Terran Lines boarding lounge. They surrounded the five people waiting off to one side.

  “You are all under arrest on an Imperial Warrant. Come with us, please.”

  There was no resistance. It would have been futile. All five were led down the hall and out of the spaceport terminal. They joined Edwards in the back of an APC.

  “Mount up!” the sergeant called out, and the platoon re-entered their APCs. The APCs headed out of the spaceport and into the city.

  Two rifle squads of Imperial Marines exited the elevators on the ninth floor of the Stolits Tribune building in downtown Stolits. They had heads-up displays in VR showing them their arrest targets. They split up and went directly to the four arrestees on the floor, three out in the cubicle farm of the newsroom and one in the windowed office of the editor.

  They all got the same message:

  “You are under arrest on an Imperial Warrant.”

  The four were taken into custody as the rest of the staff on the floor looked on.

  “You can’t do this,” one young woman suddenly shrieked, and she ran up to the nearest Marine and started pounding on him. He watched with a bemused expression, while another Marine moved around behind her. He grabbed her forearms just above the elbows, clamped them to her sides, and lifted her off the floor. She kept screaming, trying to claw and kick at the Marine in front of her. When she tried to kick, he grabbed first one ankle, then the other, while she continued to squirm and struggle.

  The Marine who picked her up shook her like a rag doll.

  “Stop that, now.”

  She tried again, and he shook her again, harder.

  “Stop it, I said.”

  She settled down and the other Marine cable-tied her ankles together. He then pulled her wrists together behind her back and cable-tied them together.

  “Ow, that hurts.”

  “So does gettin’ kicked in the nuts, but you weren’t worried about that a moment ago,” the Marine holding her said.

  He laid her down on the floor, and they cable-tied her wrists to her ankles and cinched it up. She lay on her side on the ground shouting obscenities.

  The big Marine stood up and looked around at the gathered crowd.

  “Anybody else wanna get hog-tied long as we’re here? We’re havin’ a special today. No charge.”

  Nobody volunteered. He shrugged and motioned toward the elevators. The Marines, their four arrestees in tow, headed back down to their APCs.

  With editors and reporters in custody, the publishers were last. Some were in the office and were picked up when the editors and reporters were. The rest were still at home. Most went quietly.

  Third Platoon, First Company ran into some trouble with one publisher. Blake Houghton was holed up in his house, a great stone pile with an iron-bound oak door out in a high-end residential section. They contacted him over VR, pushing an emergency priority through his privacy blocks.

  “You are under arrest on an Imperial Warrant. Come out peacefully,” Lieutenant Clyde Smithson said to Houghton over VR.

  “Fuck you. I’m not coming out and you can’t make me,” Houghton said.

  “Well, we can do it the hard way, if you prefer, Mr. Houghton.”

  Smithson got nothing back but a stony silence.

  “What do you think, Sergeant?”

  “Just getting through that door will be a bugger, Sir. We would probably go in through the windows. Lotsa opportunities for guys to get hurt and all. And we don’t know that he and his retainers aren’t armed. It would be a hot entry, which makes lots more opportunities for things to go wrong. I’d rather pop that door with some osmium hits. Lots easier goin’ in, and maybe he sees reason.”

  “Let me see if I can’t get permission for that, Sergeant.”

  Lieutenant Smithson ran the question past the captain, who bounced it up to the major. Parnell looked at the live feed from the site and reviewed Smithson’s conversation with Houghton. Parnell passed the order back down.

  “Weapons authorized. Pop the door.”

  Smithson passed an acknowledgment back, then switched back to his local command channel.

  “Well, Sergeant, that didn’t take long. Pop the door. Would you think
three rounds on each hinge and three on the latch would do it?”

  “I would say that, Sir. The paddy wagon has a gunner aboard, too, Sir. We can do them all at once.”

  “Get that set up, Sergeant. Let me warn Mr. Houghton first.”

  Smithson switched to his VR channel to Houghton.

  “OK, Mr. Houghton. We’re going to do it the hard way. Uh, don’t stand near your front door. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Smithson could see in his tactical display that Houghton wasn’t near the front door, but he didn’t want him moving there, either.

  “All right, Sergeant. Proceed.”

  All three APCS fired three thousand-grain osmium rounds. Heavy iron hinges and latch shattered under the onslaught, and the heavy oak door fell back into the stone-paved hallway with a crash.

  “Nice shooting, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Godammit!” Houghton shouted over the VR. “All right, all right. I’m coming out.”

  Houghton came stomping out over the smoldering ruin of his front door, spluttering and swearing. Marines dismounted to take him into custody, and he accosted Smithson as he came up.

  “You’re going to pay for my goddamn door, Lieutenant. I’ll see to it.”

  “It would have been much less expensive if you’d simply opened it yourself, Mr. Houghton. But if you find yourself short of funds for the repairs, maybe we can take up a collection.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Marines led him off to the paddy wagon APC.

  “What a piece o’ work.”

  “I can’t argue with you there, Sergeant.”

  “Betcha he bitches about the food in the brig, Sir.”

  “Can I get some odds, at least, Sergeant?”

  The Commanders

  On the other three provincial capitals of the Earth Sector, today was a day of getting ready. Without the benefit of Major Parnell’s advance work on the APCs and equipment, they were under the gun to field an arrest force of battalion size even with a day to do it.

  Motor pools were a blur of activity as they prepped the big machines for operations, while infantry companies prepared their equipment for deployment.

  Some things did get done, however. The Military Police of His Majesty’s Imperial Navy took all the on-base personnel on the arrest list into custody, including the commanders, and moved the new commanders into the commanding officer’s residence. The MPs also took care of a slow flow of arrests from the spaceport as people tried to flee in advance of the pending arrests that had been published by the GNS.

  And an electronics sweep of all on-base buildings was begun, starting with the commanding officer’s residence and working down through flag row and officer’s housing. Offices, enlisted housing, and the Imperial Navy’s deployment buildings would spread out over at least a week.

  Ann Turley and Paul Gulliver got up that morning after a splendid lovemaking session and a full night’s sleep. It was all the more splendid for how close they had come to losing each other.

  “So what’s on the agenda for today?” Gulliver asked over breakfast.

  “While the Marines are out picking up the media people on the arrest list, and the Navy MPs are picking up people here on base, I’m going to have to start dealing with the political situation. I figured I’d start out by interviewing Pachner and Daltrey.”

  “You’re going to ask Pachner and Daltrey?”

  “Sure. Who knows more about local politics than them?”

  Turley shrugged.

  “How about you? What are you up to today?”

  “I thought I would change back to my Paul Gulliver appearance now I finally have some time. You know, shave the mustache off, take all the dye out of my hair, that sort of thing.”

  “You’ve been in disguise for so long now, it’s almost as long as I knew you before the disguise,” Turley said.

  “Not quite, but I know what you mean. I find I miss my more unobtrusive natural appearance.”

  “Is that your natural appearance, though, or is it yet another disguise?”

  Gulliver started, then stared at her.

  “That’s a perceptive question,” he said. “I don’t know, actually.”

  To interview Pachner and Daltrey, Turley decided to physically go to the brig, not simply interview them in VR. In the Empire, VR was omnipresent. It was the only way to get things done across the thousands of light-years through which humanity had expanded. But she preferred actual meetings if she had the choice. Besides, she should visit the brig and check out how things were going with the sudden influx of people anyway. That they were imprisoned humanely and properly was her responsibility.

  Turley thought carefully about what to wear. She only had two choices, her investigative reporter clothes, which she thought of as a disguise, and her olive-drab MCU. All her expensive business wear was back on Alexa. In the end, she wore her MCU. It had been procured by Lieutenant Vincennes, and had properly embroidered stars on the collar, as well as the black fourragère of the Imperial Guard.

  Turley decided to start with General Daltrey. He was also a Marine, and she thought the mental gap between them was probably less. She waited in the interview room until they brought him in. He had been picked up at the commanding officer’s house just after breakfast, and had only been in the brig an hour. He was wearing a brig jumpsuit, all of which were medium blue. She stood when he entered.

  “Good morning, General Daltrey.”

  “Good morning, Governor Turley.”

  They shook hands and, at a gesture from Turley, sat down across from each other at the interview table.

  “I thought I would ask you first about brig conditions, General Daltrey.”

  Daltrey shrugged.

  “It’s a brig. For all that, it’s clean and comfortable as far as that goes. They offered me breakfast, but I had already eaten.”

  Daltrey paused, then continued.

  “I’m surprised you’re extending me courtesies, Governor Turley.”

  “It’s a simple matter, General Daltrey. I have an Imperial Warrant to detain a list of people. The Emperor, as far as I know, has as yet made no disposition with regard to anyone. You have been removed from command and are being detained, but you retain your rank.”

  “For the moment, at least,” Daltrey said.

  Turley nodded.

  “I see. So how can I help you today, Governor Turley?”

  “As acting sector governor, I need to replace the four provincial governors who have been tainted in this matter, with at least acting provincial governors. The planetary governors as well, for that matter. I thought to get your input on the political situation here to aid me in that decision, General Daltrey.”

  “Very well.”

  “I had thought to name as acting provincial governors the party leader of the opposition party on each of the provincial capitals.”

  Daltrey was shaking his head.

  “That won’t work, Governor Turley.”

  “Why not, General Daltrey?”

  “Because both political parties are corrupt. This isn’t a good-guys, bad-guys scenario, Governor Turley. They’re all corrupt as hell.”

  Turley sat stunned. That was one she hadn’t thought of. As a combat commander, there was her side and the other side. That’s it. Good guys and bad guys.

  “You see, Governor Turley. It’s like when a restaurant closes. Someone buys the building, what’s he going to put there? Another restaurant, that’s what. The kitchen’s in place, the freezers and refrigerators, the cash registers. You put in the other party, they’re going to take up business where the first bunch left off.

  “Sector Governor Gerber wasn’t a member of one party or the other. He didn’t care. The provincial governors who were in place were simply the people who bid the highest for the concession. The corruption concession, if you will. Gerber didn’t care what party they were a part of, just what his share of the take was. They bid for it.”

&nb
sp; Turley stared at him while her thoughts raced. How the hell did you fix that?

  “That’s how business is done here, Governor Turley. That’s how it’s always been done here. All the way back through the Democracy of Planets. They know no other way, have no culture of there being another way. For a thousand years and more, the place has been open for business, and the wealthy own the store.”

  Turley shook herself.

  “And your role in all this, General Daltrey?”

  “I had a job to do, Governor Turley. Command the garrison. Be prepared for the sort of jobs for which the Imperial Marines are suited. We are a blunt instrument. There are some situations for which that is appropriate. I stood ready to do that. The corruption was not my mandate to fix.

  “I’m not a sector governor. I can’t call the Emperor and say, ‘Hey, did you know you have a big problem out here?’ You can. And Gerber could. That was part of the problem. If I don’t play along, at least look the other way, Pearson goes to Gerber and tells him I’m a problem. Then either Pearson or Gerber contacts the Commandant of Marines and tells him I’m not working out, they can’t work with me, and he replaces me before my tour is up. Which would destroy my career.”

  “Does that really happen, General Daltrey?”

  “It happened to the last two Marine commanders here on Dalnimir, Governor Turley. Look it up. I decided to turn a blind eye to the situation instead.”

  “And the money, General Daltrey?”

  Daltrey shrugged.

  “You have to take the money or they know you’re not on board, Governor Turley. They know you’re going to be a problem. Then they work to have you removed. As for the money itself, I gave it all to charity. Veterans organizations mostly. You can look that up, too.”

  When Turley interviewed Admiral Pachner, she got pretty much the same story, but she also got an earful.

  “I have to tell you, Governor Turley, I’m pretty chuffed about this whole issue. The service sends us out here, makes us responsible for our commands, and gives us no support against this sort of thing.