The Immortal Empire – Episode 10: The State Apartments

When Giliam II took control of the Outlaw Star, it gave Jim a chance to bootup his computers and being network raiding. Their little incident on the border hadn't affected network security in his targeted area, so there weren't any new security measures to account for.

The lights in Jim's room died and he immediately rose to his feet only to hit his head on the low ceiling. "Damn it!"

Before he could even demand what was going on, power was restored.

"Must've been a fluctuation in the distribution system," he muttered to himself. Annoying as it was, considering what the border security forces had been firing at them, they were lucky.

Where was I? Right, the navy's little secret server. On one persocom, he brought up the link to the Heifong Chamber of Commerce's network portal for interstellar import/export businesses. The portal had legitimate uses, of course, and legitimate users, but on the backend of one of the pages, behind a specific page in an out-of-date business directory, was the access barrier to a data repository belonging to the United Space Forces' Ninth Expeditionary Fleet HQ.

"I'm online!" he announced to himself. The Space Forces' emblem, a circular, Chinese-style insignia with a star pattern over part of it, flashed briefly before being replaced by line after line of command language instructions.

"What a mess." It wasn't that the Space Forces' files on the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire were particularly well encrypted or concealed, they were just a jumbled mess, carelessly scattered across multiple hierarchies with no discernable pattern.

If this is how they treated their official envoy, in effect the military ambassador to the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire who should've been an invaluable information source, no wonder these people lost the last few wars. He would've been more resentful if it was actually something he or Gene paid taxes for, like the planetary and civil defense forces on Heifong—in lieu of any sort of monetary or human investment in the Space Forces, it just seemed sad.

He began typing with one hand. "Alan…Shekar…Chan-dra-sekhar. Let's go, Admiral Two-Names," he muttered before querying his name. A long list of tagged files was brought up. "Oh boy. Thanks for making your file tagging not suck, Space Forces."

[ALL] DATABASE REPORT SUMMARY SEARCH RESULTS BY [TAG]

R.S. 149.11.3 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.6 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.7 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.9 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.10 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.13 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT
R.S. 149.11.14 CHANDRASEKHAR REPORT

The list of results kept going, filling up the small screen and sending it scrolling unendingly. He stared at the ever-growing number of results going into the three digits.

"Crap," he mumbled, dropping the persocom. He'd need another one to actually search through the results, the first one was nonresponsive.

"Guess now I gotta' search by date, see if I can figure out why the reports ended. God, this better be worth my…"

"JIM!" a voice bellowed over the intercom.

He felt like he nearly had a heart attack. "Damn it, Gene! What?"

"We need you on the bridge, dear James," Gene replied more evenly.

He heaved a sigh and promptly climbed out of his cot, and minutes later found Gene sitting in the pilot's crew position, alert yet relaxed. Melfina was standing next to Suzuka's crew position. Jim was struck by how orderly, even vocational everyone looked, and began tucking his shirt into his baggy pants.

"Taking a little nap?" Gene asked.

He laughed sarcastically. "What's up?" Then he frowned. "What was that blackout?"

"Uh…" Gene began, pointing an unoffending finger at Melfina.

"Newton Reactor fluctuation. Giliam?"

"There was a reactor output fluctuation resulting from white dwarf cosmic dust contaminating ether intakes, well within the safe limits. It did cause the power distribution's safety overrides to kick in briefly from the resulting ether reaction from exotic matter."

"Thanks for the physics lesson," Jim mumbled. "So what?"

Gene grinned. "Company meeting. And unlike the rest of you, I'll be succinct: I fixed the problem."

"You solved the 'Aisha Problem'? I'm impressed, next you can solve the Galactic Depression."

Gene gave a similarly sarcastic laugh, before swapping his expression for the more serious. "So, what've we been hired to transport to the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire?" he asked, taking care to enunciate.

Silence. Jim stared at him before breaking the silence. "What…are you joking? You cannot be this stupid." He looked at Melfina. "Is he this stupid?"

Melfina held back a laugh in that way of hers. "I think he meant that rhetor…"

"We've been hired to transport payment to the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, in the form of gold ingots from Novo-whatever to the empire. Not, for example, tonnes of surplus weapons from the empire to Novo-whatever."

"So we're just going to ignore the second, and arguably, more important half of the job? What is this, thinking on our feet?"

Gene's eyes practically flashed with delight. "I found someone, who can, for a very reasonable fee, smuggle us across the border to the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. With our suitcase. Then we'll make Aisha clear this whole business up and make the return shipment."

"That really is the greatest plan you've ever come up with, Gene."

"Thanks, James."

"Wait, smuggle?" Melfina asked.

"That word has a very specific connotation," the previously silent Suzuka warned.

"Better if I said 'transport'?" Gene asked thoughtfully.

"There's a difference, Gene," Jim warned. "Wait, forget that—did you book transit for all of us with another company?"

"'Course. Don't worry, I can get a pretty good deal."

"With who, bro?"

Instead of replying, Gene's cheeks puffed up.

"Gene?"

"I did it through a third party. Or a…fifth party." Gene shook his head. "What I'm saying is, I don't know the name, but they came through highly recommended."

"Oh, 'highly' huh?" Jim asked Suzuka.

"Highly," she replied with a small smile. "Jim, were you investigating those military servers?"

"Yeah, just to…uh…pass the time."

"Find anything interesting?"

"Not…not really," he replied awkwardly. "Though there's a lot to sort through."

"That's gotta' be a pain, seeing how none of us actually read Ctarl-Ctarl," Gene mumbled, sounding more down-to-earth.

"What're you going on about, bro?"

"The military servers. The Ctarl-Ctarl military servers. The Ctarl-Ctarl Imperial Navy is the biggest around, right, ergo they must have the biggest military network!" All composure lost, he pounded his fists against the furniture. "What the hell've you been doing Jim?"

"I've been hacking the Space Forces servers, what else? Do you think I could hack into the Ctarl-Ctarl military network from the other side of the border? What're you, nuts?"

Now Gene was screaming. "What the hell are you going to find there? The whole point was to find out where Aisha was!"

"Oh, now I know you're insane! Do you think there's anyone here who's capable of that? Let me answer in case you do: no!"

"You ever get the impression these two have a problem communicating?" Suzuka asked Melfina quietly, getting a giggle in response.


Thousands of years ago, the original Victory Square in Home's Imperial City was designed so that from the entrance to the square, the central obelisk obstructed the blue-white supergiant rising in the western sky. In the intervening centuries, Victory Square had been destroyed and rebuilt almost a dozen times—the obelisk was taller and more massive, obscuring more of Hokiyo's sun in the sky.

The commander-in-chief of the Ctarl-Ctarl Imperial Navy watched the day's first deployment of the Empress's Guard, loudly marching in goose-step with rifles and polished armor along the masonry. She followed the procession until a bench with someone sitting on it came into view.

"Your Excellency, good morning."

The navy chief locked eyes with the Imperial Prime Minister, who looked almost stereotypically the early riser, wearing a civilian greatcoat over an ugly suit, a tall vacuum flask in one hand, a briefcase the other.

"Good morning, Jo Kwoto Hashiyo," the prime minister replied from his bench.

"You look like a political cartoon, you know that?"

The honor guard stomped away. Prime Minister Koboro-Koboro also watched them depart before turning back to the navy chief. "Is that a compliment, Admiral?"

"No, not even a little. Here to see Her Highness?"

The honorable prime minister glanced at his large flask, as if examining it for leaks, as he answered. "No, it's rather too early for that I think. Though the way you worded your question does suggest…"

"Yeah, I really don't have time for your antics. Good morning, Your Excellency." The navy chief walked off, leaving the prime minister to stare at her back as she departed, flask still in his hand, with a bewildered expression she hoped.

That's one of his tricks: lure you into long conversations. Doing her best to avoid further distractions, she cleared the square and entered the Imperial Palace's grounds, stopping only to stick her hand out for a biometric scan by a uniformed guard with a sheathed saber, and the admiral was otherwise recognized by enough personnel to enter palace itself. It was a long, winding walk through the various ceremonial halls into the State Apartments, the complex within the complex, staffed not by the Empress' Guard, but by a civilian body: Imperial Household Agency.

Just what I wanted to deal with this morning. It appeared no one in the agency slept, since a suit-wearing official in a sash was waiting for her with an unfriendly look on his face. A rare point of agreement between the military commanders-in-chief and the prime minister was their shared abhorrence of the agency.

"Your Excellency Lady Admiral—what can I do for you?"

The navy chief put a hand on her hip and ran another through her long blonde hair. "Very cute. If she's not awake yet, I'll wait in her sitting room," she told him, reaching for the handle of the tall door behind him. "And don't say the words 'appointment' or 'permission'," she growled at him after one last look.

"Lady Admiral, you really…you can't just…" The official's polite protests didn't stop her from pulling the massive door open and entering the State Apartments, furnished differently than the rest of the palace.

She always did like bright colors. "Your Excellency!" he called out.

There was another official in the same dull grey suit waiting in the room. Clara shoved her out of the way. "If you want to be useful, send up another pot of coffee with her breakfast. Black." She cocked her head, now aware she'd skipped breakfast to do this. "And a bagel or something."

The shoved junior official took this as an order, going "Yes, Your Excellency!" before scrambling off.

Looks like the morning shift is easier to bully. I'll have to remember that. Up the stairway and passing through blue-wallpapered room after room, she stopped at one that stood out: the curtains were drawn and a pair of motionless women stood flanking the double doors in formfitting tunics, leggings and hoods, all spotless white. Not the same suit-wearing agency officials, but two of the Her Majesty's personal attendants, women of the Handmaiden detachment.

The navy chief pulled her cloak over one shoulder and flopped down on one of the two couches in front of her, grinning at the handmaiden while listening for the agency official's incoming footsteps. "The army, the household agency, and yourselves. We're able to pay you, right? You're not interns, are you?" she joked.

One of the handmaidens gave her a faint smile. "Good morning, Your Excellency. And no, we're not."

"She awake?"

"Not yet, Your Excellency."

"I'll wait," she announced, just as the agency official and his junior stormed in, looking particularly displeased. The two handmaidens made no acknowledgment of their presence, which only pleased the admiral further, but the two grey suits waited there out of protest until a third dressed like a domestic came in with a serving tray, which the admiral immediately descended upon.

"You want some?" Clara asked with a bagel already in her mouth as the server poured her coffee. The agency officials kept looking displeased, so she turned to the nearest of the two handmaidens. "I'm sure you can't tell me if you are, but are you one her doubles?"

The handmaiden raised an eyebrow.

"I only ask because…well…I mean, I've known her since we were children. You do look like her." She took another cup of coffee. "Take it as a compliment, the empress is a beautiful woman. You look just like her."

In response, the handmaiden reached up and to the admiral's surprise pulled off her own hood, revealing a head of shoulder-length blonde hair.

"Except for the hair. You've definitely got the face and chest down."

The official made one last protest. "Let me remind Her Excellency, the commander-in-chief of the navy, that this is not the Admiralty, with your big, useless tattooed ship floating at the pier. We have rules in the palace."

She finished the cup. "I'm sure you do," she replied in the most patronizing voice she could manage.

Twitching, the official looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel and stormed off, the junior official following behind him. "That almost made this whole trip worth it," Clara announced, putting the cup down and turning to the two handmaidens. "You two don't talk much, do you?"

"No, Your Excellency."

She turned away. "You people better speak to the Empress's Guard. They're already doing that whole 'silent sentry' thing outside," she warned as the other handmaiden, responding to some unseen signal, slipped quietly though the door.

"She's awake then?" she asked. "Right, of course, you can't actually answer any of my questions." The handmaiden gave an almost patronizing smile as she fell back onto the couch, and started counting the flourishes in the wallpaper from the ceiling downwards.

She missed the other handmaiden opening the door back and whispering something into the hood of her comrade. "Lady Admiral, if you'd like…"

Clara was through the doors even before she finished, entering the brightly lit room. Empress Kasara IV was sitting on her bed in a silk nightgown suspended from one shoulder, her bright red hair still in disarray over her head.

"Clara? What are…"

The admiral had already taken a deep breath. "Good morning, Your Highness!" she nearly shouted.

Kasara IV blinked her half-open eyes. "Good morning, Clara. Do you know what time it is? What're you doing here?"

The navy chief sat down at the foot of empress's bed, taking in the surroundings. "Wow, lavish. Soban-Soban wasn't joking."

Rin Soban-Soban was an elderly friend of them both, and the deputy war minister, appointed by Kasara IV. She also paid Her Highness approximately three surprise morning visits a month, at random times, which she didn't care for. "Did she put you up to this?" the empress asked coldly.

"She might've given me the idea, Kasara."

Through her messy red bangs, Kasara's large blue eyes narrowed. "What do you want, Clara?"

"The Secretary for Kata-Kata Affairs, under the Foreign Minister."

The two paused when an actual maid enter with a serving tray that, with a handmaiden's help, she arranged on a nearby table. The domestic offered Clara some tea, which she declined, feeling her stomach full of coffee.

"What about the sub-minister?" she asked, holding a centuries-old teacup with care.

"Sack him."

Now she looked surprise under her messy hair. "Excuse me?"

"Fire him."

Kasara stared at her older friend, military cloak rumbled over the bedsheets. "Is there a specific reason I should dismiss him, Clara?"

"Sack him, and until Koboro-Koboro appoints another one, your sister can be acting sub-minister."

Surprise was replaced on awareness on the empress, whose face had a naturally innocent quality about it, even when just awake. "Did Fatima put you to this?"

Clara laughed at the suggestion, throwing her head back.

"Clara!" Kasara almost shouted, equally sincere and unamused.

"Fatima couldn't put me up for a private tour of the Orta Yamano. And I'm not pretty enough to catch her interest," she teased her sovereign. "What I'm suggesting is that you sack the minister, tell Old Tom to find a replacement, and in the meantime give full authority to your little sister as acting sub-minister or secretary or whatever. While, coincidentally, she's negotiating with the Kata-Kata. It's works out well for everyone!"

Kasara IV yawned, politely covering her mouth. "Except for the current sub-minister."

"Well, that's the thing about government, isn't it? You can't please everyone," she said with a wink.

"You don't even know his name, do you?" Kasara IV asked suspiciously.

"Why would I need to know his name? He has an adversarial relationship with the Crystal Throne's envoy to the Kata-Kata government, that's all I need to know." She glanced over one of the handmaidens, the chesty one who was convenient standing by the nearby comm-handset. "Call your sister if you don't trust a childhood friend."

Kasara IV was visibly resisting the urge to roll her eyes and instead forced one of her overly-kind smiles. "I don't think that's necessary."

The navy chief mentally congratulated herself as Kasara began to delicately pick at her breakfast pastries. "Very well then," she said finally.

The other handmaiden stepped towards the empress subserviently. "Your Highness, there's a visitor requesting your presence. People's Assemblyman Vtori-Vtori is waiting for you in the Hall of Prisms."

Other monarch business, Clara thought.

The sovereign yawned again. "Wait, who?'

"Logan Vtori-Votri is member of parliament in the Kaiga Ctarl-Ctarl, used to be chair of the Conservative Society Party. One of the senior-most MPs."

"And you know his name?" Kasara asked, getting a shrug in response. "What's he doing here this early? Is this going to become a normal thing, morning visitors?"

Clara just shrugged again. "God, doesn't he have something better to do?"

"No, Your Highness, but you do—your duties as Lady Chancellor?" the handmaiden reminded the sovereign.

She stared at the hooded woman blankly, before a look of understanding and dismay eventually rose on her face. "God, is that today?" She just remembered her duties as Supreme Chancellor of State Religion of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire.

"Yes, Your Highness, it most definitely is."

"We can't reschedule?" she asked hopefully.

"Not without contacting the chancellor and the executive college, I would imagine." The handmaiden paused. "And by that, I mean Your Highness, no, you absolutely cannot reschedule. The executive college is convening specifically for this event."

Kasara IV's lip trembled for a moment. All three women in the room immediately recognized the look. For a fraction of a second, the empress had felt like crying.

"I'll leave you to it…" Clara muttered softly, rising to her feet with exaggerated caution.

The sovereign abruptly leapt up from her large bed, two long, brown legs emerging flashing from under her gown, jaw clenched. "What does the assemblyman want from me?"

"Didn't he started that awareness campaign to raise birthrates throughout the empire, with the dumb-sounding name?" the navy chief muttered while eyeing a pastry. "The Child Crisis? The Baby Crisis?"

"The Family Crisis, Your Excellency," the handmaiden explained.

Do you think he's going to complain why you're not married? Or pregnant? The navy chief kept that to herself. It was a bad time to bring that up, as if there were ever a good time.

"Is he nice?" Kasara IV asked, pulling off her nightgown. Immediately, a handmaiden interposed herself between the navy chief and the sovereign, holding a what passed as a casual gown on a hangar, that the sovereign took.

"Excuse me, Your Highness?"

"MP Vtori-Vtori, is he nice?"

"I…don't think so, Your Highness."

Kasara IV frowned again. "Why can't we have more nice MPs? I mean, why can't we generally be kinder to one another? The Terrans at least pretend to get along in their parliaments, why can't we do that?"

Clara cocked her head. "Well, you can do that, but then everyone in parliament has to smile at everyone else, and they have to pretend to be friends, and then they have to pretend to enjoy each other's company, and before you know it everyone hates everyone else and parliamentarians try and kill one another and passing condolence cards for the wife of whatever senior pervert had a stress-induced heart attack."

Kasara IV stared at her. "Or so I heard, Your Highness. I'll let you get dressed and good morning," Clara said, making a directly line for the double doors. "Oh—and there was a minor security alert at the demilitarize zone, on the Terran side. Nothing to concern yourself about."

"Lady Clara!"

One hand on the door, the navy chief stopped and turned to her sovereign, standing next to her sovereign bed, examining the dress itself, while a handmaiden meticulously dressed her in expensive undergarments. "There's a charity ball tonight, isn't there?"

Averting her gaze, Clara stared blankly at the handmaiden while fumbling for an answer. She wasn't even planning to be on Home that evening, she was boarding a carrier in orbit for a surprise inspection.

"Yes, Your Highness. For stimulus spending for Cordoba 5, hosted by the deputy prime minister," the handmaiden answered, snapping a bra shut. She was referring to the fifth planet in the Cordoba 32416 planetary system, which was enduring a local recession.

"Wow, you even keep a schedule. I need to get one of you," Clara muttered.

The empress put a demure hand in front of her mouth and looked away. "I…don't feel like going, I think. Would you please take my place?"

Can I do that? Is it even legal? Clara wondered as the handmaiden fitted the sovereign's underwear.

"Rin, would you please see that the commander-in-chief of the navy receives an invitation?" she asked, glancing at the one Clara suspected was a double. Was Rin always a common name?

"Of course, Your Highness," she said, now standing by the door.

"Thank you," the sovereign announced in the other direction, to no one in particular, as she dismissed the handmaiden next to her and began putting on the dress herself.

That had been unexpected. "Of course, Your Highness, it'd be an honor. If you'll excuse me."

With less pomp than she'd arrived, the admiral left the room, a handmaiden shutting the door behind her.

"One of my childhood friends," Kasara IV explained apologetically.


Terms to Know:

Admiral of the Fleet of the Hashiyo-Hashiyo Nation (Jo Kwoto Hashiyo Ctarl-Ctarl) - The highest uniform rank of the Ctarl-Ctarl Imperial Navy awarded by parliament, traditionally held by the appointed commander-in-chief of the navy, or by the sovereign instead.

Ctarl-Ctarl Imperial Maritime Military Fleet - Sometimes called the 'Royal Navy' to distinguish itself from its spaceborne counterpart, the naval arm of the Tomoyo-Tomoyo Empire during the Warring States Period. Purely a planet-confined force predating space travel, after the Tomoyo-Tomoyo victory and interstellar expansion of the empire, it largely became a ceremonial force, and bears many aesthetic similarities to the pre-Toward Stars naval forces on Earth.

- Orta Yamano - The flagship of the eight Orta Yamano-class fission-powered battleships. Unlike in Earth history, the battleship concept did not become obsolete among the Ctarl-Ctarl due to the lagging development of naval aviation compared to advancements in metallurgy and propulsion, and the willingness of the Tomoyo-Tomoyo Empire and others to justify their construction. Designed just prior to the shift from ballistic to missile artillery towards the conclusion of the Warring States Period, they displaced over 90,000 tonnes and were over 300 meters in length at the waterline, with a main battery of four triple-turret 52 cm naval guns. As with the Pyotr Empire's cruiser Aurora on Earth, it is maintained as an operational museum ship by personnel of the Maritime Fleet.

Empress's Guard - Formally known as the Imperial Guard's First Division, the contingent of elite army personnel deployed to the royal residences and the surrounding neighborhoods as well as providing security for the Imperial Family. Called the Emperor's Guard during the reign of Anton I, the most visible cadre of the sovereign's labyrinthian legion of bodyguards and attendants.

Home (Hokiyo) - One of the common names for the Ctarl-Ctarl home planet, orbiting a blue supergiant towards the center of the Nochi-Nochi Star Cluster, and the center of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire.

Imperial Household Agency - A powerful and controversial government agency dating back to the First Dynasty, intended to serve the daily needs of the sovereign and the Imperial Family, but long criticized for being obstructive and making the Imperial Family less easily accessible.

- The Handmaidens (Sondaiya) - Another cadre of attendants to the sovereign, an exclusively female unit originating during the reign of Empress Marianna IV of unknown size and scope, wearing unusual white hooded uniforms. It was revived by Kasara IV shortly after her coronation.

Imperial State Religion - The official faith of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, part of the wider Imperial System, devised by the Tomoyo-Tomoyo Empire during the Warring States Period. Lacking a pantheon of deities and a creation myth, its philosophical elements and ceremonial practices largely focus on ancestor worship, fulfilling civic duty and demonstrations of loyalty to the state.