The Immortal Empire – Episode 3: Heifong, Pt. II

"How's Gene taking the news?"

The question was posed by Suzuka, who returned a few hours after lunchtime to Starwind and Hawking Industries.

Jim glanced over his shoulder to the door of the other office—Gene could be heard shouting angrily on the other side into a phone handset.

"Not great. He broke down and called Fred Lou."

"Really?" Suzuka seemed particularly but mildly surprised. "He must be desperate."

"You better believe it. Eighty-thousand on its own isn't enough to get the Outlaw Star all the way across Ban Guild Space, much less through the DMZ into the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, which must be where Aisha is heading." Jim had mad the logical guess: 'home' for Aisha almost certainly meant the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, to whom she was a national.

Melfina seemed to be thinking the same thing. "'Home' could even mean 'Hokiyo', what the Ctarl-Ctarl sometimes call their homeworld in the Nochi-Nochi star cluster."

When Suzuka looked back at Jim, he already had his personal computer out and was accessing navigation charts. "Let's really hope not. The Nochi-Nochi star cluster is almost in the dead center of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, about two-hundred lightyears galactic center of the DMZ." He looked up from his persocom and heaved another of many sighs. "At least we'd have some idea where to start looking."

"And Fred Lou?" Suzuka asked.

"Gene's trying to coax a job out of him that'll cover the costs. I mean, we have to get the money back, even if it costs more just to find Aisha." He put a hand to his head. "Figures Lou Enterprises sells arms to and from everyone but the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. Though I have to admit, it's not a bad idea, every year trade between us and the Ctarl-Ctarl rises at least eight percent."

"Why not just go alone? Or even just by a normal spaceliner?" Suzuka asked. "Pride?" she guessed, with a grin.

"Hardly. You don't know this, Suzuka, since it's before we met, but this isn't exactly the first time this happened," Jim began grimly. "When we met Aisha for the first time, she'd gotten kicked out of the Ctarl-Ctarl Navy and tracked us down to Blue Heaven by herself, looking for the Galactic Leyline. And she came really close to bringing us all in, by herself, or worse."

"Did Aisha never tell you this story?" Melfina asked, surprised.

"Not in so many words," she replied. In truth, Aisha might have but, like many of her longwinded stories, Suzuka may have tuned it out.

"The point is, with barely any money and by herself, Aisha almost took in the three of us," Jim warned. "It took her being half-starved, shot with a No. 12 caster shell, and straddled with a restaurant bill for four to stop her."

He leaned towards Suzuka and beckoned her closer. "Don't tell Gene though, it's not the way he sees it."

"I see."

"Unless Gene lets all of this go, which he won't, and Aisha doesn't just give up the money, which she won't, that's how it's gotta' be. If we can find her, which is a big 'if'."

"And he won't listen to reason?" Suzuka asked. Even as a mercenary, she thought Gene was blowing this out of proportion over 80,000 wong.

"Truth be told, this might all be moot anyway. I'm not even convinced we can find her. If Aisha wants to disappear, as hard as that is to imagine, I bet she's better at it than she'd let on, and we don't even have any place to start," he declared, looking up at Melfina.

"We know she came from a large, well-to-do family connected to the government. It doesn't mean they're on the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire's capital world, but that should be a start," she explained. 'We' was being generous—Melfina was starting to suspect she was the only one who actually listened to Aisha's stories over the years.

"If we're lucky, the Clan-Clans are either famous enough, or the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire is organized enough that we might be able to track her down based on that. If we're really lucky, and the Clan-Clans are rich, maybe they'd be willing to pay Gene off just to get rid of us," Jim speculated, not sounding convinced.

"It's not the worst idea, but you really should make an effort to confront her before she crosses back into the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. The Ctarl-Ctarl take their border security extremely seriously, and hate Pirates and Outlaws. If you can't get an entry visa, that may be the end of it."

"We need your help."

Suzuka took a deep sip of the cup of tea offered to her by Melfina. "I was afraid you'd say that," she said afterwards.

"Come on, you're closer to Aisha than any of us!" Jim pleaded, climbing off the couch. "She might actually listen to you!"

Suzuka gave him an incredulous look that stopped just short of being unkind, something she excelled at. "I think the time for listening has long passed. In a matter of days she'll be in the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire anyway."

"Ugh, that's what I've been telling Gene!" Jim cried out. "But he won't listen either! Those two deserve each other!"

Suzuka chuckled darkly while Melfina looked at Jim, a frown firmly affixed to his face, and was about to offer a suggestion when the door swung open and Gene entered, thumbs resting on his belt. He looked up at Suzuka calmly.

"Suzuka, you're back. Did you find anything?" He remained calm, to Jim and Melfina's surprise.

"Nothing yet, sorry." Suzuka had searched Aisha's 'apartment'—or more accurately, the room at the youth hostel in Heifong City where Aisha'd live after their company moved back to Heifong. They'd returned after Gene was released for time served on the destruction of public infrastructure charge on Sentinel III, after the conclusion of the whole Leyline incident. Aisha had carved out a small niche as most famous Ctarl-Ctarl working in food delivery in Hugo, the planet's largest city, while waiting for a trip home that had been promised to her by the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire when some government agency or another actually managed to get ahold of her.

After it became apparent they couldn't pay back the 200,000 wong they owed Fred Lou to pay Gene's fines, on top of the million or so wong they already owed, they decided to skip town. Gene planned to take a job in Oracion. Suzuka declined to join them, since she'd already been, and in an uncharacteristically thoughtful decision, Aisha preferred to stay on Sentinel III, making end's meat by delivering pizza. Halfway to Oracion, the Outlaw Star had broken down thanks to all the corner-cutting they'd down on Munchausen reactor maintenance. To their surprise, both Suzuka and Aisha hitched a ride with the repair ship and joined them on their way to Oracion anyway. It was the start of Aisha's narrative about the recompense owed to her, and how the Outlaw Star and its equipment was part of the security towards that payment.

Jim was surprised how clearly he remembered that week—Gene's hair was still short-cropped from his time in jail, a look he'd kept on and off since then. He even remembered Aisha having chopped off most of her knee-length braids into a more modest ponytail before she grew it back. The Oracion job, unsurprisingly, was mostly a bust like everything else they did, though it at least managed to not put them any further in the red, so long as they completed ignored Aisha's claims, which they did. Continuing to avoid Fred Lou and Sentinel III, they settled on Heifong afterwards. Aisha went back to food delivery and other odd jobs, and started living at the hostel. The dorm room that she shared with three other Ctarl-Ctarl women was a natural fit, and also served as a home address when she needed one, which most jobs in Heifong City, being less sketchy than Locust or Hugo, demanded.

Come to think of it, if that Oracion job had panned out, and Aisha and Suzuka hadn't snuck onboard, we probably would've fallen out a lot faster. We might not even have paid Aisha, he speculated quietly.

"What about her roommates?" Suzuka asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"None of them were in. I think they're all students during the day."

"I thought two of them were strippers, and one was a waitress," Gene pointed out. Jim gave him a look before shaking his head.

"That doesn't exclude that possibility."

"Great. Just great."

Suzuka finished her tea. "I also wouldn't recommend going back—spooking Aisha's roommates into calling the police won't help us."

"What about the food delivery service?"

"It's worth a shot. They ranted and raved about her from what I remember," Jim pointed out.

Once again, Gene looked less disturbed and angry than he expected, and he was becoming suspicious. "So, why're you so serene? Fred Lou forgive part of our debt?"

"Hardly. And he didn't help with a job either, but he did jog something up here that might help us if worst comes to worst," he said with a grin, pointing at his head.

Jim didn't even begin to believe him. "What?"

"Remember Novo-whatsitsname?" he said, still grinning.

Jim and Melfina turned to him in unison, with a look of disdain and confusion respectively.


"Her Imperial Majesty is here, sir."

Tomas Koboro-Koboro looked up from his papers, quite surprised. He usually knew when to expect his sovereign would pay him a visit, even if Empress Kasara clearly made an attempt to catch him off guard. This was a rare victory on her part.

He wasn't worried—there was nothing really to be worried about. Just because the sovereign tried to surprise him, and usually failed, didn't mean there was any malice towards him. He put his pen down and addressed one of his secretaries, the one who'd peeked into his office with the news. "I see. Please tell Her Highness I'm ready."

'Highness' was actually the form of address the sovereign preferred, even if 'Imperial Majesty' was the correct one and part of her formal title itself. 'Highness' could apply to anyone in her family in actuality, like the Princess Fatima or the Empress-Dowager. It might even apply to the sovereign's great-grandfather, the ancient Lord Zubayr Tovarl-Tovarl, a former prime minister but never sovereign himself, though before he'd very much stopped saying anything at all, he'd preferred the title of 'Excellency' traditional to the premiership.

So many titles to remember, names too. Not very long ago, Tomas Koboro-Koboro had just been Tomas Koboro, as he had been all his life. Then for the 'accomplishment' of being elected prime minister by the victorious political coalition, he'd received the honor of a reduplicated name. Repeating surnames were one of the last vestiges of the peerage system, granted to the ancient Ctarl-Ctarl nobility before war and revolution had made them an honor for great accomplishment instead of great ancestry. Technically, he was 'Lord Tomas Koboro-Koboro' or even 'the right honorable Lord Tomas Koboro-Koboro', but he quite disliked those.

As expected, a pair of women entered the room before the sovereign did, and no doubt there were a pair of very similar women who remained outside. All gorgeous young beauties, roughly the same age as their mistress, dressed in expensive finery. Some would argue they were more attractive than she was, which was sort of the point: the young empress kept a number of ladies-in-waiting nearby, the daughters of families closest to the Imperial family and the Imperial Household Agency too. They served a variety of purposes. Many were part of the Imperial Household Agency's bodyguard unit, separate from the military. At least one of them, with the same delicate features and complexion, served very infrequently as a double. They were a guaranteed sight if the sovereign wasn't traveling with a bodyguard detail from the military.

Kasara IV took her time entering, a habit of hers: she had a very delicate, elegant way of moving, like a porcelain statue brought to life. She looked just about as fragile, even if she shouldn't be, taking a seat in the chair in front of him and putting her hands together in her lap.

"Your Highness, is something the matter?"

She took her time responding, a stern regard on her face. She wore one of the 'normal' glamorous dresses that made up a large chunk of her wardrobe, nothing too revealing that didn't show her navel or chest, though her shoulders were bare. "I was told something by the Chief of Staff that worried me very deeply, that the government was doing something I understood to be illegal."

Oh, the Chief of Staff. He did a good job masking his irritation. It was actually a fair complaint on Her Highness's part, though he couldn't help but blame the Chief of Staff for sending her down here, unexpected, in a tizzy. Kasara IV had been gradually replacing the older men and women who'd served the last two sovereigns—her father and aunt respectively—with younger faces she found more amenable. That too was normal.

He took his time answering. The urge to rush was counterproductive, it would just upset his empress. "I'm sure it's nothing so serious, but I'd be happy to review it for Your Highness."

She put a finger to her head. "That new law from last year, from the Foreign Ministry, it's…number…" she began, closing her eyes and concentrating. Despite her appearance, she was actually a very capable, intelligent woman in her own right—"brains and beauty" one might joke. He wouldn't. "Public Law 215-3-110-FM…"

He knew it immediately. A public law passed in year 215 of the Third Dynasty, the reign of the Hashiyo-Hashiyo. Law number one-hundred and ten. 'FM' indicated its origin, that it had been submitted by the Imperial Foreign Ministry, which suggested it was something concerning diplomacy. Seldom more than nine-hundred and ninety-nine laws passed in a year, after all. "The Public Law on the Sales of Military Arms and Equipment to the Terran States," he recounted its formal name. "It replaced Public Law 199-3-429-ITM, passed by you aunt, Marianna IV, but said the same thing: that all respective ministries and industries were forbidden from selling equipment and hardware classified as 'weaponry' to the Terran empires or other governments."

She nodded, a rather un-majestic thing to do. "Yes, that one precisely. I was in attendance in parliament when it was passed, I remember."

She probably did—as young as she was, Kasara IV had probably personally witnessed dozens of laws passed through parliament, possible more than a hundred. Attending parliament was one of her most regular responsibilities. Again, she was smarter than she might appear.

"Indeed you were, Your Highness. And may I ask about your concern…?" he began, leaving it open ended, even though he suspected he knew what she'd say next.

He was right. "I was told by my friend, the Chief of Staff, that we've sold at least eighteen-hundred tonnes of terrestrial military weapons like missiles, rail guns, artillery to a Terran state, the Republic of Novo…Novo…" she began, struggling with the name.

It wasn't an easy one, he agreed. "Novokhabarovsk, Your Highness," he said, taking care to sound very modest and subdue, almost to the point of indifference. He was the tone he took in private with Her Highness to appear as nonthreatening and faithful to her as humanly possible. His voice was relaxed and a little grave, as though he was ordering lunch at a pub.

"Yes, that's it." She leaned towards him, less composed. No matter how she tried, the sovereign felt deeply passionate about things, enough to provoke a reaction. "Why is that happening, Mr. Koboro-Koboro? Isn't that quite illegal?" she asked, her face locked up in a statue-like visage of nobility but her curvaceous form trembling in the chair. She kept her hands together.

He took his time answering, as he thought she'd prefer. Answer too quickly, and you'd risk upsetting her. She might think you were angry at her, and that would upset her. As long as it was clear she had your attention, you could take all the time you wanted. In truth, he knew the answer to her inquiry while she was still asking it. "I'm quite sorry this matter troubled Your Highness. It shouldn't have, it's not reasonable to expect you to manage all the day to day business of the military industry, much less the Imperial economy."

"But-But I'd like to know, all the same," she insisted.

He nodded very plainly. "I'll do my best to explain, of course: earlier this year we passed an amendment to that law. Naturally, Your Highness doesn't attend to every amendment passed through parliamentary subcommittees." This was true: there were often many amendments to a given public law, and by contrast they did not need to go through a full session of parliament. A subcommittee of the upper or lower assembly were typically enough. "The proviso was very specific in its nature, I can assure you, as I reviewed it personally myself."

He stood up and touched the intercom on his desk. "Please have someone bring up a copy of Public Law Amendment 215-3-110-FM-1 for Her Imperial Majesty's consideration," he instructed. By giving Kasara IV nothing less than an official legal copy from his office, he was demonstrating how seriously he took her inquiry. "In the meantime, I can recite the gist of it, if not the exact words, from memory, Your Highness"

"Please do."

He could probably recite the whole amendment from memory with some effort—he had a brain for this sort of thing, it's the reason he'd trained a lawyer before the Navy's bureaucracy. But that would take a long time, and it'd probably just upset the sovereign further. "It makes a very specific exception for the sale of equipment and arms classified for terrestrial army use only—no warships, spacecraft, aircraft, or nautical vessels—to the government of Novokhabarovsk, to be delivered to their capital world, Einsteingrad," he said, managing with the tricky names. It helped that he spoke Terran.

Kasara's blue eyes were open wide, shimmering like gems. "Please go on."

"Novokhabarovsk, you may be unaware, is a very small, new country carved out of space between the Pyotr and Einhorn Empires. It came about as a result of the overthrow of the Pyotr Empire's monarchy prior to the last war, and the failure of the Provisional Government that took its place. That government ejected and attempted to purge a leftist faction, the Social Democrats, from their nation and ultimately they took a part of it on the frontiers for themselves. Now they are a pariah state, hated by their neighbors and distrusted by the rest of Terran space in general. That they've lasted so long is somewhat surprising."

There was a knock at the door. "Come in!"

A very smartly-dressed aide in a double-breasted tunic entered and bowed deeply to her sovereign, who glanced back at her. Tomas snapped his fingers. "Come now, Her Imperial Majesty is a busy woman. Just bring the document," he ordered.

She presented an almost beautifully-printed and notarized white document, emblazoned with the Seal of the Prime Minister's Office, an exact copy of the enacted amendment for her review. Kasara IV took it and began staring at the long body of printed text.

"It's long been accepted in the Assembly of the People and the Assembly of the Empire that the continued survival of Novokhabarovsk is in our best interest. After all, should Einsteingrad fall, that will be it—there will be no undoing it. The Social Democrats, as their rulers call themselves, were almost scattered to the wind before."

"What are they like?"

"The Social Democrats? Well, they're a Terran political party who played a small part in the war. I would say they are most like our own political parties, including the conservatives, but that's 'leftist' by Terran standards. Except for their hatred of Terran monarchies, of course, but they'll take help wherever they can get it."

"I felt very strongly about the original law of course," she said, a little quietly. Tomas dismissed the aide with a gesture as she kept reading.

"Of course, it was a replacement for a very important law. Arms proliferation has been a major concern since the war ended, His Highness your father felt the same way," he replied, his voice also soft. "The amendment was to ensure that we obeyed both the spirit and the letter of the law, while making this particular exception."

He chuckled at the justification, in a very harmless, incidental manner, but immediately stopped himself anyway. The sovereign probably wouldn't appreciate his lame attempt at legal humor. My son's the same way.

Kasara IV's eyes were still darting back and forth along the document when she snapped out of the chair, legs straightened. The prime minister had a new thought. "Your Highness, I thought you might want to know about…"

"That'll be all, Mr. Koboro-Koboro," the sovereign chirped rather sharply, not taking her eyes off the document. The first indication of her intent to leave came when one of her ladies-in-waiting reached for the door to his office and opened it and without a further word, strolled out of the office, completely absorbed in the document.

"Good day, Your Highness," he announced quickly before clenching his jaw softly. …know about the status of Clan-Clan, he thought. He received a notice from one of his own secretaries: the long-overdue travel permit had been approved, along with transportation arrangements.

No sovereign ever cares about the details for long anyway, he thought, sitting back down at his desk when the last lady-in-waiting left with a knowing, even smirking nod towards him. A lot of upper-class women and men were not impressed by him, with his dull-colored suit and general humility. Humility did not serve the Ctarl-Ctarl, he supposed.

Emperor Anton I certainly had not. He was the supreme big picture man, with very grandiose, even unrealistic dreams that he made sure were shared with all around him.

"The universe is ours, Koboro! They won't stop us this time!" That was the sort of thing he used to say. His sister and predecessor, Marianna IV, was different: she had a military mind and understood military minutia better than most, even if she kept that fact to herself. No wonder she'd been most at home during the two Terran Wars. If anything, Kasara IV, had a prodigy-like orientation for details. What other sovereign went out of her way to read laws? That was what lawyers were for. Certainly not her father, or her aunt, or her grandmother, or her great-granduncle who'd proceeded her in the Hashiyo-Hashiyo line. Beautiful and a prodigy. How fortunate we are.

Another knock at his door, one clearly not of the Empress of all Ctarl-Ctarl. "Come in."

One of his legal clerks entered, Mr. Risley, a young man the same age as Her Highness. His face suggested he knew what had happened. "How did it go?" he asked, dispensing with the pleasantries.

"Our empress had a lot on her mind. Hopefully I gave her a little assurance."

"So you don't think this was just about the arms sale law, sir?" he asked.

He was actually very fond of Risley, an upper-crust lad of a better family then his own. Considering he'd come from the previous government, a junior clerk under Lord Zubayr and his deputy, probably to spy on Tomas himself. Originally, anyway. "No, I don't think so," he began in his calm, almost tired tone. "I think she wanted, in part, assurances that she was not being left out of the loop." He liked Risley enough to refer to the sovereign just by 'she' in his company.

"She can't attend every parliamentary subcommittee after all."

"God knows why Her Highness would want to," Risley muttered. "The Empress-Dowager didn't."

"Her Highness's mother was a woman racked by grief," the prime minister reminded him. 'Was' because she wasn't dead, but quite alive and probably much less full-of-grief since her eldest child ascended to the throne, ending her regency. "Parliament's not the place for a grieving widow."

Smartly, Risley said nothing. He was a sensitive, compassionate lad, he liked that about him. "So the empress didn't ask about Clan-Clan's daughter?"

"No she did not. I don't suppose she's forgotten it, you can never tell with prodigies. Her mind's always racing from one idea to another. The burden of genius I suppose."

"Genius, huh?" Risley said, wisely stopping there. On the street or in a newspaper he could criticize the sovereign however he wanted, there were laws that allowed that, but the Office of the Prime Minister was not a free speech zone. Without the Hashiyo-Hashiyo monarchs, Tomas would probably still be a junior MP, if that. Risley knew the limits, another reason Tomas liked him.

"So, what else do we know about this Lady Aisha-slash-Captain-Lieutenant Clan-Clan?" he asked. More titles, always more titles.

"Goodness, where to start…"


Terms To Know:

Einhorn Empire (Einhorn Reich) - The smallest and most Europeanized of the four Terran states, located past the Pyotr Empire and USSA from Earth as shown on Outlaw Star supplementary materials.

Hashiyo-Hashiyo - The third royal dynasty to rule over the Ctarl-Ctarl's interstellar empire. It ascended in a "bloodless coup" that removed the short-lived predecessor dynasty, the Notok-Notok. Empress Kasara IV is a biological descendant of its founding monarch, Lena I. The Ctarl-Ctarl calendar is based on the beginning of this dynasty (rather than the current sovereign).

Lou Enterprises - The large conglomerate owed by Fred Lou that deals primarily in arms sales, including small arms and personal weapons, and bankrolls much of the Outlaw Star's antics. They had a headquarters in the city of Hugo, a commercial hub on Sentinel III.

Oracion - Mentioned in the final episode of the TV series and in passing in Angel Links, a major world in the USSA (one of the four Terran Empires).

Sentinel III - The adopted homeworld of Gene Starwind (himself a native of Earth, as mentioned in the final episode of the series), terraforming classification level-4 and mentioned possessing two cities, Locust and Hugo.

Social Democratic Party (Социал-демократическая партия) - The political party that founded the Novokhabarovsk Republic on the edges of Pyotr space. Prior to their split with the rest of the Pyotr government, they contributed ships and officers to the anti-Ctarl-Ctarl war effort.