Planetrise and Moonfall Ch. 04-06

'Then their wishes will fall on deaf ears, my dear Lilian, and they will no longer be my friends but potential enemies and true enemies indeed should they show their hands against you. I love you as my cousin, my sister and as my Empress and I will remain fighting by your side until your last enemy has been vanquished.'

She sticks her chin out. 'Then kiss your wife goodbye for now, your young family must stay here safe, while we fight for their future.'

I grin and turn, pulling Velda and my baby daughter that she held into my arms. 'I am so sorry that this visit is so brief after so long, but we will converse through Pippa as often as my duties allow, and will return as soon as I can, or send for you when it is safe to do.'

'I know, my husband, you have much to catch up on, but we will talk through your own Pynom; I know the plan was for her to destroy herself in one of the suns on the edge of the Milky Way, but she told us about the art of stasis and we sealed her in a stasis pod, so she has been awake for the last twenty days with no ill effects.'

'Truly?'

'Yes, Ivan, so you must hurry and remeld with her, she moans that she misses you as terribly as we do.'

'I never thought —'

'You couldn't know, or the first zulon you melded with would discover us all. Now, go! Trust your Vice-Admiral Alana Turiq, I attended the War Council this morning and she impressed me as much as she has the last few years that I have heard her speak about the smooth running of your flagship.'

'Thank you, my love. Take care of our babies.'

I kiss the sleeping Jeneve II, who protests her unwillingness to open her eyes to the bright lights, and starts to cry.

'I will, darling,' Velda says, 'my craft awaits me at the next dock. I think it is going to be lonely with just mothers, children and those too old to fight or serve left behind on Treasury.'

I bend my knees to get level with the face of the bewildered Ivan II, to say my farewell, 'Take care of your mother and sister, Ivan, you are the man at home now, do you understand?'

'Yes sir,' he stiffens up his back, 'I will take care of them both.'

And he salutes me, a fair salute as he has only been awakened 20 terranhours, but then he has probably been surrounded by saluting Imperial officers and troopers ever since he awoke.

Planetrise and Moonfall

Chapter 6

Epilogue

New Imperial date 7962 NI

My learning curve in becoming an Admiral, a Rear Admiral in fact, after leaving my last Imperial service as a Second Lieutenant, and Militia as a Lieutenant-Commander, as my father Duke Jolyon was never one to promote even his own family members until time and experience served, was an extremely steep one. Fortunately, as Velda had so astutely assessed, my Vice-Admiral Alana was supremely efficient, ever-ready with advice, and she actually made me look good on the bridge.

I made sure, on Alana's advice, that I allowed the Flagship's Captain, a young officer called Valerian, to run his ship without any interference from me, while Alana and I controlled the movements of my Fleet, which was only a fraction of the enormous force of battleships, cruisers and destroyer-carriers that Mylon, Pynom and Pippa and any number of off-grid clones that Pynom, with zulon hierarchical approval, had bred in secret to wipe the Rebel scum from their bitter and divisive rule and restore a political system that in its well practiced and civilised way was able to impose a rule which was layered, true, but owed benefice to all levels of society and allowed mobility of advancement within a lawful system that was fair to all, denying excess through privilege and encouraging progress of betterment through effort and honesty.

All twelve of the well-trained and organized Imperial Fleets swept through their assigned sectors with minimal fuss and very little actual fighting. Often warlords were overthrown by subordinates who wished to embrace the new and restored Imperial order.

Other warlords who were more sensitive and had been more responsible and caring in their dealings with their people were able to capitulate and benefit in the long run from the electoral system which had proved to effective and popular in Como Prime under the Merciant Noble family, and the fact that the Empress-Elect-in-Waiting, Lilian bore the Merciant surname following her mother's legal marriage to my late father, had much to do with reducing any challenge from surviving Nobles, to not a single one with any chance of popular success.

Lilian was challenged twice by families who wanted to promote me to Emperor, but their swift reduction to ordinary citizens by abolishing their noble qualifications for sedition by not approving the most eligible candidate, totally evaporated any other possible opposition to Lilian's claim as Emperor in her own right. Was that fair? Well, they knew the law and, if they were worthy, the new political system was flexible enough to allow the cream to rise and the dross to sink, given time and a reasonable amount of effort.

Within a terranyear of the launch of the New Empire, every single system had surrendered with barely a couple of hundred planets or moons that held out under siege by a few madmen who couldn't accept what was happening, while most of the resistance was by true republics who did not want to join the New Empire, but were open to negotiating a peace with relative autonomy to decide their own method of government. Lilian and I agreed that in the new order we wanted to bring in, there was a valid place for more than one kind of government, so all viable star systems, whether nobles-led or minor republics, all planets were given a similar degree of autonomy, provided they all joined the Imperial Federation and paid the taxes due to keep the administration, military, police and judiciary in place to maintain law and order.

Together, almost immediately the last of the major warlord systems fell, leaving just these few anomalies. Lilian and I stood up in the inaugural meeting of the Imperial Chamber with representative of these minor republics and argued for their integration into the New Order as a new category of 'Minor Republics' within the Imperial system, with Elected Presidents, rather than Earls, Archdukes, Dukes, Viscounts, Barons, and Interim Governors, appointed by the Empress and her Privy Council or promoted from lower houses by the Elected Senate of Systems, who represent the masses of humanity.

For the last three terranmonths, since peace reigned across the majority of our Galaxy, Velda and my family joined me once more on Como Prime, where I was overseeing the rebuilding of our modest palace, while still flying off to the Empress' Palace on the ancient capital of Teteran Tertio.

Teteran Tertio was a moon of the Terran system, which had previously served as the Empire's capital a terrancentury or more ago. It had been a relative backwater which was peaceful and largely undamaged, although it was now undergoing a process of modernisation which incorporated modern thoughts of maintaining a representative Senate of Systems as well as provide a small but safe environment for an Empress to raise a family of heirs to carry on the process of Empire.

Then came the request, from the vast majority in the first elected Senate, for the Empress to take me as Empress Consort, or even as co-Emperor.

I was hardly in a position to sack the majority of the Senate, as I had promised Lilian I would, especially as when the announcement came through to me, it was brought privately by a delegation of Velda, my mother and Aunt Gillian.

'Sweetheart, this hardly affects us at all,' says Velda, already sitting down as she is seven months' months pregnant with our third child and Teteran Tertio has a gravity of Terran 1.2. 'You have proved how effective your seed is, not only with me but Selene has had to take leave from her police chief job on Decimo Quattro in the Urbbryon Sector as she is over eight months' gone and fears she will burst if she goes full term without early inducement.'

'And this wouldn't be like so many other consorts in the past,' Gillian insists, 'when Ruler and Consort were often unacquainted or even hated each other, you both have love between you.'

'And when I had to disappear from Como Prime with Shonola and Velda, your father Jolyon and my sister Gillian settled down together very well as man and wife, once Gillian's programming had been largely overriden even though they were too old to have any more children.'

'It is true, Ivan,' Gillian agrees, 'Jolyon was a perfect gentleman but we both knew that any pretence at a marriage of convenience would have advanced the chance of assassination earlier than any of us were ready. So we made an effort to fall in love and found that it took no effort at all, our three years together were the best years of all my marriages. My F3 hybrid conditioning by the rebels enabled me to wake in time to avoid the fatal blow from Sylvan and allowed me to warn Ivan before that viper reached him, but I would have willingly sacrificed myself to save Jolyon.'

I can do little more than protest with empty words as the inevitable was going to happen. The two women ahead of me in the Imperial rankings were both much older cousins, neither of whom were competent to rule. They were still maintained in rank as Crown Empress and Princess Royal respectively for appearance's sake, while their own territories were largely unable or unwilling it to promote either to compete with Lilian over the title.

'I agree to the betrothal,' I say, realising I have little choice, 'and to its universal announcement to the Empire, which may satisfy the few critics of being ruled by an Empress, but I will insist that the actual nuptials are delayed until my child with my wife Velda is born and Velda has recovered from the birth enough for us to renew our marital life together. Then, once I am satisfied that our marriage is strong I will come to the Imperial Palace for the marriage to the Empress and spend up to three terranmonths until we confirm that The Empress Lilian I has indeed missed her period and is with child.'

***

New Imperial date 7963 NI

So it is that I jump through the wormhole that Pynom has created for me, just outside the orbit of Teteran Tertio to dock in the arrivals station in orbit around Como Prime, and I arrive by shuttletaxi outside my home on a bright spring morning, just after the sun has risen but before the ducal residence has truly awoken from its slumbers. I surprise a couple of palace maids, about their early duties, as none yet know of my homecoming, the news from Lilian their Empress unlikely to be announced outside family circles for some months to come. They wave a greeting before poorly disguising hiding their giggles as they continue past me as I press onto my bed chamber, once my father's.

Julie, our third child, is still dozing in her cot in our bed chamber, but I know from regular messages from home that the baby is now sleeping through the night, mostly.

My beautiful Velda sleeps on her back, her mouth fallen open and she's snuffling very quietly. I unzapzip and shed my suit and slip under the covers and she barely stirs, the slight disturbance merely interrupting her breathing pattern and she turns over away from me without waking.

I warm up next to her and patiently await my true love's waking.

The End