The Immortal Empire – Episode 16: The Periphery Border

Jim was impressed. Gene Starwind, wearing an almost presentable leather jacket over the black-and-red sleeveless combat suit he'd picked up after finishing his time in state custody, was staring intently at the contents of the desk in front of him: a commercial map of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire facing the galactic frontier, along with the Demilitarized Zone and neighboring regions, and a paper booklet of what Jim identified as average freight hauling costs along the most common cargo space lanes. He could almost picture him with a pencil on one ear.

"I can't remember the last time I saw you concentrating on something that hard that wasn't on the chest or thighs of a humanoid female," Jim taunted him.

"Buttocks don't really attach to women's thighs, James," a stilted, almost academic response came, Gene's eyes not moving from his documents.

Jim cleared his throat. "Yeah, I get that, but the joke doesn't work as well otherwise." Jim plopped down in the empty chair at the desk aboard their third-class family travel accommodations aboard the Oroko Borono, presumably converted barracks for Ctarl-Ctarl marines. "So, how's it look?"

"Sometimes the simplest ways are also the cheapest," Gene concluded gravely.

"That rarely seems the case for us."

Gene's eyes flickered at him for a split second. "They are here." He pointed. "Assuming it doesn't matter how we get to the empire's capital, assuming we can transport them as normal freight and not 'special cargo', much less decommissioned military materiel, it actually won't cost that much to ship the payload back to the border. Our Ctarl-Ctarl guide disagrees, but I think we might even be able to get the Empire to escort us across the DMZ for the transfer back out to Outlaw Star at Midway."

"That's assuming a lot, Gene."

Gene ignored that. "The freight transport costs in the Empire are freakishly low, if these tables are right. We could move enough heavy cargo to completely overload the Outlaw Star at a fraction of the cost."

"Gilliam wouldn't like that." Jim shook his head. "Sorry, go on."

"Aisha screwing us over may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I'll need to finalize the terms with Maron-Go, but thankfully an interstellar phone call isn't illegal."

"No, just expensive." Jim squinted at the star charts and rubbed his forehead. "So, I might as well ask, where exactly in this seemingly reasonable plan do you, sorry, we grab Aisha Clan-Clan and shake our eighty-thousand wong out of her?"

He thought the taunt would work, but Gene was unfazed. "You know, if we can avoid all this crap with the border patrol and not being robbed by former employees, cargo deliveries between the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire and human space might be the moneymaking opportunity we've been searching for all these years. The politically unpopular ones anyway."

Jim laughed, as loudly and abundantly as his pre-adolescent lungs could manage. Gene looked up at him again, giving him an unkind look that lasted a few seconds longer. "Holy cow, you're serious aren't you, bro?"

Gene immediately returned to the table, flipping through the pages. "Why is it every time I talk about the future of Starwind and Hawking, you think I'm joking?"

"Oh, geeze, Gene, I can't imagine why," Jim declared indignantly, throwing his hands up. "Maybe it's that time we went to Tenrei and blew up part of a mountain, I don't know."

"Trouble between business partners?"

Jim frowned at Bethany who entered, her blazer missing and her undersized blouse opened button further, now halfway to her navel. Gene looked like he was about to grunt a reply when his eyes locked on Bethany's considerably-more-visible chest above the strained remaining button above the waistline of her skirt.

Jim sighed on his behalf. "No, this is just how business works at Starwind and Hawking." A thought occurred to him. "Before Ms. Maron-Go hired you, did you work as an office secretary in a Ctarl-Ctarl business? I mean, one owned by Ctarl-Ctarl?"

"No," she announced flatly. Jim waited to see if she would elaborate; she did not. Gene stared at her chest as if attempting to bore through it.

"Okay then," Jim concluded loudly. He turned back to Gene. "Bro, you stare that hard and you're freeze like that." That's a risk he's prepared to take.

"I wanted to remind you to have your travel identification—your actual identification—ready for the authorities on Home. That religious pilgrim nonsense might fool a civilian immigration checkpoint on the border, but be prepared for it not to pass on the capital," she announced, a hand on her hip.

"And if we're checked against the fake paperwork we already submitted?" Jim asked.

"Better than upsetting officials from the navy."

Jim sighed deeply. "Thank god someone's an expert on Ctarl-Ctarl law," Gene replied, finally breaking his stare.

"We better hope the Imperial Navy does change their mind about wanting to sell that equipment to the Social Democrats, or we'll really be screwed, and for lot more than some pocket change Aisha pawed."

"Pocket change?" Gene demanded indignantly.

"Gene, you ever think that maybe if you didn't get so hung up on…"

"Me, hung up?" he interrupted.

Both Terrans were silenced by the sound of Bethany's palms crashing into the study oak table they were sitting at, with enough force to send the charts, Bethany's chest, and Gene's eyes bouncing. "If you two are quite done arguing like an old married couple, I'm going to reach out to my contact on Hokiyo in case you're not competent enough to follow a simple task."

Both of them were leaning away from her. "We're finished," Gene concluded, getting a nod from Jim. Bethany stood up from the table, hands on her hips. The sound had brought Twilight Suzuka, who calmly poked her head into the room, the bright red trim on her white kimono visible.

"Anything important being discussed?" she inquired calmly, Bethany turning to face her.

"Not really," Jim assured her.

Suzuka nodded very slightly before looking down at the shorter Ctarl-Ctarl woman as she moved to the doorway, then back up. "Your blouse is missing a button," she announced.

Bethany's eyes flickered down at her own chest for a second. "Oh," she said with that same flatness before leaving the cabin and both Jim and Gene exhaled deeply.

Suzuka waited a moment longer before taking the remaining seat at the small table, and feeling the impressions left by Bethany's open-palmed hands in the oak. "This must be particularly hard for you, Gene," she concluded, immediately breaking out into a tight-lipped smile at her own pun.

"Nah, not really."


"So what else do you know about these 'caster weapons'?"

Aisha heard the question posed by her cousin over the shortwave radio in the helmet of her suit, and cocked her head. "Well, I know they're hard to come by. And I know they're not in any standardized calibers either. Gene…I knew an outlaw who used to use a kind of handmade sabot or something if the shells were too small in diameter."

In the seat in front of her, she saw Kalin shift her larger frame. "I guess you can do that if they're all single-shot weapons. They ever make 'em bigger than small arms?"

She shook her head. "No, not that I saw. Honestly, they're kind of crap as far as weapons go, in most cases. I got shot by a number twelve shell at less than a meter, in the chest."

"And?"

Aisha rolled her eyes. "I blacked out for about an hour."

Kalin laughed and Aisha ground her teeth. "I suppose if they were any good, the Empire would've pursued development during one of the Freespace Wars, or the Terran Space Forces. Instead of just being used by Outlaws and Kei Pirates."

The conversation was boring her, and Aisha gave Kalin's seat a jolt with her left foot. "Hey, how far are we?"

"'End of this jump and we cross the border into the Inner Periphery. One last vector should take us directly into orbit of Hokiyo Prime." She could see Kalin manipulating a bank of physical switches towards the right side of the canopy. "You nervous?"

"I'm nervous about a lot of things, not the least your flying," she retorted smartly.

"You can tell me," Kalin insisted, taking a softer and simultaneously more detached tone as she prepared the Type 2 fighter to depart from ether space.

Aisha pouted under her helmet. "Can I?" She sighed again. "I'd have to start with that time I ruined my whole naval career and lost my command to my executive officer," she announced. She could see Kalin's larger shoulders twitching under her formfitting spacesuit in the seat in front of her.

"At least I don't have to explain that to my family, because they already know and I already did, but I'm nervous about seeing them again after years apart."

Kalin cleared her throat. "I could see that," she managed to say with a mostly-straight face, the shipping rocking with its reentry into subspace.

"And now I'm being invited back to the Imperial court for gods-knows-what-reason," she declared.

Kalin cocked her own head, ears twitching under her helmet. "Actually, that is a little strange. I can't imagine why they'd choose you, no offense, a disgraced captain in the navy and a failed diplomatic officer…"

"Yeah, I know that-zona!"

"No, I mean…" she paused. "Forget it."

"What, can't think of a better way to put me down?" Aisha accused her. After a moment of silence, she grabbed ahold of the seat and pulled herself forward in the long cockpit. "Wait, what is it?"

"It's probably nothing." Her lips twisted. "Well, you know that comm cube you got from…?"

"From Crown Princess Fatima, right?" Aisha finished for her.

"You…you don't think that's kind of odd?" In the cramp confines of her seat, she turned to look over her shoulder. "The heir apparent to the Crystal Throne of the Empire, whom you've never met, personally requested a private message delivered to you?"

"I'm afraid to ask what's on it," Aisha admitted. "I know I've been out of the empire for a while now, but…doesn't Fatima Hashiyo Novo-Novo have kind of a reputation?"

She could picture Kalin grimacing under her helmet. "Sort of? I mean, I doubt you're old enough to remember but she's not the good little girl she was back when her father was still alive." Kalin paused. "God preserve him," she added dutifully.

"God preserve him," Aisha half-mumbled. "You don't think I could just pretend I never got it? Maybe when you file your case report…"

Kalin barked an unhappy laugh. "You have been with the Outlaws too long if you think I'd falsify something like that. As for you…isn't not responding to a message from Her Imperial Highness like, I don't know, treason?"

"Maybe petty treason, she's not the sovereign after all," she grumbled back.

There was a short but uncomfortable silence inside the cockpit. "Aisha, it's probably nothing. If I were you, I'd be more upset about being invited to the Imperial court. I mean, you must've known your career in the navy was crap after that whole Galactic Leyline thing, but this is like…an extended punishment."

Aisha groaned loudly. "It's Towards Star One-Sixty. Why do we even have an Imperial court still? The Empress should herself with her royal cabinet and the general staff and that should be good enough-zona!" She buried her helmet in her gloved hands. "At least it'll make mother and father happy."

She looked up. "You're not disgraced yet. Don't your parents ever bother you about leaving the Imperial Navy Fighter Corps and getting a position in the court, where things, you know, actually matter?"

"Don't even joke about that," Kalin grunted. "If Admiral Chandrasekhar could hear you, he'd roll over in whatever shallow grave they left him in."

Aisha raised her hands, irreverently feigning fear.

"Speaking of Her Imperial Majesty's womanizing younger sister, shouldn't the first day of the summit with the Kata-Kata be over by now?"

"The one Princess Fatima is leading?" Aisha asked.

"Actually, she's just the throne's envoy," Kalin corrected her, reaching for a different bank of controls. "Some old geezer's got the reigns. There must be something on how it went."

Aisha rolled her eyes. "Yeah, let's listen to how the Foreign Ministry screwed up once again. Preset three?"

"Four," Kalin corrected her as Aisha turned a small knob on the side of her helmet. "Here it is."

The broadcast, garbled and distorted in the usual manner after being conveyed faster-than-light over the Empire's domestic ether space communications relay network, came through to their helmets in an audio-only format. Aisha continued tweaking the manual controls on her helmet, until she could clearly hear a posh-sounding radio host speaking clearly.

"…marking the start of a new round of negotiations between the Empire and the government on Harvest. Fears about a late arrival of Secretary Dom-Dom of the Foreign Ministry turned out to be unwarranted, as he exchanged the customary fraternal greetings with his counterpart, Foreign Minister of the Kata-Kata, Artim Kolob. But the guest of the hour was none other than Her Highness, the Crown Princess Fatima, acting as envoy for Her Imperial Majesty."

Aisha frowned again. "You know superluminal radio isn't popular with the Terrans? Only local."

"What do you mean?"

"They just don't listen to it. I think they think it's old fashion."

"Well, I've heard nothing good about Terran media."

The old fashion-sounded program host continued with his play-by-play explanation.

"So, the Traveler's foreign minister, Kolob—he hasn't met with the actual foreign minister, whats-his-name? In person?"

"No, he hasn't. Presently, that's reserved for real countries, like the Terrans." Kalin then abruptly barked out a laugh, leaving Aisha wondering what part of her joke was so funny.

"With the conclusion of the first day of the summit, Foreign Minister Kolob was bullish, reporting to the attending Kata-Kata press that while there were no planned liberalization of trade policy between Harvest and the empire, he was particularly grateful to the Crown Princess for personally attending the negotiations and for the good will of Her Imperial Majesty."

There was a barely-audible switch in the audio, and the voice of a young woman took over. "As the personal representative of my beloved sister, it is my great honor to contribute the reconciliation between all Ctarl-Ctarl everywhere."

"She almost sounds sincere," Aisha noted.

"If you want to catch the rest of this, I can hold off on the next jump to the capital," Kalin announced. Aisha hadn't even noticed her transmitting their credentials.

"Nah, don't bother, I'll just read it in the papers," she grumbled back. She stretched out in her seat, her spacesuit shifting awkwardly. "You don't think…the comm cube has to do with the Kata-Kata Travelers, do you?"

"You've been out of the country for two years. What the hell do you know about the Kata-Kata?" Kalin shook her head, the helmet exaggerating the motion, as the radio broadcast ceased. "Get that foolish idea out of your mind immediately."

Aisha muttered something under her breath. "I'm not even joking, cousin!" Kalin repeated, looking over her shoulder as much as she could manage.


Terms to know:

Ctarl-Ctarl mass media – As the largest unified polity in habitable space, the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire has a wide variety of mass media, both in physical print and electromagnetic broadcast, which has fallen out of disuse in Terran space. All must operate with license from the Ministry of Communications, and a substantial portion serves the military. Though there are some constitutional guarantees of a "free press" in the empire, the extent to which is true is debated.

- Superluminal Broadcasting – Also called faster-than-light broadcasting or radio, based on the complex and expensive mechanisms of interstellar electromagnetic transmission through ether space, thereby surpassing special relativity.

Harvest – Also sometimes incorrectly called "Kata-Kata Prime", the largest moon of the gas giant Deitros Carinos; the agricultural world where the Kata-Kata were forcibly exiled to and the center of their democratic polity. Harvest's geographic closeness to the older core of the Ctarl-Ctarl space empire was offset by the political isolation of the Travelers, leading to distinct political, cultural and linguistic differences.

Reconciliation – The name for the "Ctarl-Ctarl Joint Declaration of Reconciliation and Unity," a long-term proposal originating under Emperor Anton I of peaceably assimilating the Kata-Kata into the rest of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire.