The Phoenix Darkness (15 page)

No
! For now the Royal Assembly was
much better kept aboard the
Indomitable
. It was a
dreadnought that rivaled the power and strength of the
Black
Swan
itself, was a less likely target, better to not keep the
monarch and the Assembly in the exact same place and, most
importantly, was commanded by Sir Rodrigo Cid de la Fuerza, one of
her most trustworthy knights, and crewed by officers and staff
handpicked for their loyalty and skill. So long as the Royal
Assembly remained aboard the
Indomitable
, they would not
only be well-protected, they would be controllable. The last thing
she needed would be for a governmental body she herself had
empowered to go rogue on her and start making decisions which were
harmful to her greater strategy of unifying the Empire.

The Royal Assembly had begun sessions and was
fast in growing both from defectors and appointments. Kalila had
empowered some of her loyal planets whose own representatives
remained on Capital World to nullify those appointments and select
new representatives. Some had arrived and many more were on their
way or due for swift election. Yet despite that, the steady growth
had stalled in one very alarming and suspicious way.

While at first it had seemed to be no trouble
for the various members of the
now-unlawful
Assembly on
Capital World to leave the system and join her, officially
declaring their defection upon arrival, now the flow of such
defections had been stymied. At first Kalila and her advisors
assumed this was because those sympathetic to her cause had left,
and now those representatives who remained on Capital World were
simply choosing to stay aboard a sinking ship.

That was until intelligence gathered by her
spies discovered the number of seated representatives on Capital
World had continued to decrease, at least for some while,
after
new defectors stopped arriving. It would still make
sense if these representatives were abandoning their posts on
Capital World in order to declare neutrality, or to resign them, or
because they’d been recalled by their various homeworlds and were
finally choosing to answer the summons. But upon further
investigation, it was discovered many of these representatives were
simply disappearing altogether, with several of them turning up
dead. Their deaths and disappearances were mostly kept quiet, only
ever reported when necessary, and always getting the facts
suspiciously and conveniently wrong.

Caerwyn Martel and his propagandists were
continually creating the illusion there had been no disappearances;
that, aside from those who had already escaped and successfully
declared for Kalila, none had tried. As for the disappearances the
public had noticed, there was always some story of resignation,
voluntary exile, unrelated criminal homicide, or else, as was most
common, suicide.

Kalila’s informers estimated the number of
representatives who had abandoned their posts on Capital World’s
unlawful Assembly to be over a hundred. Yet the Imperial public
knew only of the fifty-nine which now sat on the Royal Assembly and
some fourteen others. Twenty-seven more were missing without anyone
seeming to have taken notice. And, the more her spies investigated,
the more whispers and hints they’d uncovered that a system of
discreet killings and bounties had been quietly instated. As well
as the machinery, no doubt Intel Wing itself, to disguise the
killings as other things and sometimes hiding them altogether. Hard
evidence was difficult to procure; certainly her spies had produced
virtually nothing Kalila could raise up to prove to the public what
was going on. But among those who continued the investigation,
there was little doubt.

It’s time to call Caerwyn out on this
,
she realized, even though she had little but words to prove the
truth of her allegations. The people deserved to know what was
going on, even if they didn’t believe it to be true. And if nothing
else, by making the allegation public, Kalila would at least be
giving some warning to any current representatives on Capital World
who might, in the future, choose to defect to her just and rightful
side. That way they’d at least be on notice to do so with extreme
caution, thus bettering their chances of success.

And so she made the arrangements and began
her broadcast, sending it across the Empire, using all available
channels, frequencies, and technologies: kataspace, short-range,
piggy-backed signals, everything possible, to every system,
Empire-wide. She'd done this before, with great success, as there
was little means of jamming and intercepting all possible
communications across such a spectrum. Unfortunately, that meant
her people had to endure the same tactics from Caerwyn. Hopefully,
however, her words would resonate far more and reach far deeper
than any rebuttal he may cobble together in response.

As the cameras activated and the mic turned
on, she put on her most dignified and assertive face, used her most
regal and authoritative tone, making sure not to sound overly
superior but still strong as iron, and relied on the noble efforts
of her make-up staff, eye drops, film crew, camera filters, and her
sheer force of will to hide even the tiniest sign of weakness or
vulnerability on her part, including the mountain of fatigue which
made every muscle in her body scream out at her for sleep. She
would be strong for her Empire, now and always. The least she could
do was look and sound the part.

“Citizens of the Empire,” she said, making it
clear this broadcast was meant for their benefit and not directed
at Caerwyn Martel, whom she did not want to legitimize in any way.
“Loyal subjects, my loving people, and humans everywhere, I address
you as your queen and protector, both to rally your hope and to
provide you with warning about a terrible evil that is a crime
against us all, and is taking place under our very noses.

“Since I announced the reformation of the
Imperial Assembly as the Royal Assembly, many worlds have answered
my call for unity and sent their representatives to sit upon this
legal Assembly and help to defend and create the rules of law upon
which our security, our liberty, and our very Empire is predicated.
Already fifty-nine representatives have abandoned the unlawful
Assembly on Capital World and taken their rightful places here, as
part of the Royal Assembly. And other worlds have come with them,
abandoning their neutrality or their loyalty to the insurgent state
which holds our dear Capital World captive. Worlds as diverse as
Vega Major, Furud Three, and Zavijada have seen the wisdom in
rejoining the Empire and standing together as one people and one
nation.

“This is but the beginning of a new hope for
reunification and a symbol of the will of the people, of us, as one
people, and one Empire, to be united once more brother with
brother, father with son, to stand tall and proud, securely, as
Imperials and citizens of the greatest nation this galaxy has ever
known.

“No more must we hope for unity through sword
and slaughter. Let there never again be a Battle of Apollo, where
friends were forced to slay friends and families broken apart by
the cruelties of civil war. The conflict
can
be brought to
an end through peace and diplomacy and respect for the law, as ever
more worlds continue to join with us, choosing unity over division
and loyalty to the crown. The same crown that has always protected
and defended us from alien threats afar and enemies at home, since
the moment our first king, my great-great grandfather, put it atop
his head. Now it is I who wears the burden of that crown, with all
its duties, responsibilities, and promises. And I promise you now,
all of you, we can be one people again. Peace is possible, if we
but stand up and choose it.

“To all governments on all worlds, and all
their people, to each and every magistrate who took an oath to
follow my father, our late king, I implore you, if your world
remains neutral, to choose the side that wishes to end this
conflict. Declare your loyalty for the Empire once again, to the
crown, and rally to our banner of unity, that we may stand strong
once more, united against all of our foes. Through the strength of
our union we shall cause all who would do us harm to instead fear
us, and leave us to our peace.

“And to all governments on all worlds, and
all their people, and to each and every magistrate who remains
affiliated with the corrupt and broken state that would oppose us,
I urge you to break your chains and choose the side of freedom and
loyalty, to choose to rejoin the Empire once more. Cut those
shackles that anchor you to that sinking ship of state, whose
skipper is the corrupt
so-called
Steward of the Empire, who
would steward each of us into our own graves, which is the only
promise on which he has delivered. Come to me instead, choose
re-unification, choose the crown, choose the Empire. And be
delivered from that corrupt villain who would use you and control
you and force you into war against your brothers, friends, and
comrades. A war our dear Empire so desperately cannot afford, as
our enemies abroad continue to mass their fleets and prepare their
invasions, we must unite to foil their plans before it is too late,
before we lose the strength to defend ourselves.

“That is why we may yet have hope, because
there remains time. We
can
unite. We
can
end this
conflict peacefully. By choosing the crown over the chaos. By
choosing the queen over the traitor.

“And now I must tell you of this insidious
evil that is rotting at the core of Capital World itself. A crime,
still happening, which is so vile it sours the tongue to even speak
of it, and yet I must. For you, my beloved people, noble
countrymen, and honored citizens, you
must
know of it.

“I speak of that black crime of murder, but
not of homicide. For it is one kind of evil for a man to kill
another, but it is a far darker, far more perverse evil for a
captain to kill his own lieutenants, or a shepherd to slaughter his
own flock. The victims I speak of are your own representatives on
Capital World, and the murderer is none other than Steward Martel
himself and the henchmen who do his darkest deeds.

“Already you know fifty-nine representatives
have abandoned Capital World to join the Royal Assembly.
They
are safe, I am happy to tell you. But I am mournful to
announce many of their cohorts, fellow representatives, who also
left Capital World to join the Royal Assembly to seek unification
under the crown and peace and all that is right, they have been
discovered and hunted and slaughtered by Caerwyn Martel, murdered
to prevent them from adding their support to reunification.
Slaughtered like savage animals by savage animals to help that
villain Martel keep a tight grip on his power so he may continue
his war and, if he has his way, doom us all. He would mercilessly
and extra-judicially kill any representative who now tries to
abandon the Assembly on Capital World in favor of the Royal
Assembly, which seeks to establish nothing but peace and a return
to order.

“My informants have uncovered this foul truth
about Caerwyn Martel, and the fates of those who chose the right
side, to leave him and seek to reunite the Empire, and how he had
them tortured and killed and brought to ignominious ends. He even
offers contracts and bounties and pays from the coffers of the
state treasury itself a king’s ransom to any who would hunt down
these representatives who leave his side, who seek nothing but
justice and peace for their people, and then bring the corpses and
prisoners to him, where he vanishes them away from the sight of the
public forevermore.

“If you do not believe me, then ask yourself
about the fourteen disappearances of representatives you do know.
If you haven’t heard of them, then I implore you to search your
news and your records and databases and I promise you, you will
find news of them. Representatives Horowitz, Lori, Truslow, Sayre,
Merikoski, Tecilla, Genthner, Gale, Chamberlain, Rowland, Bhagat,
Ch’en, Wang, and Ivchenko. Search their names and you will read
tales of murders, suicides, alleged resignations and supposed
voluntary exiles, but ask yourself this: can that be so for all of
them? Representatives of the Assembly? So many to meet such
ignominious ends? And over such a short amount of time? Or is there
not something more suspicious at work? Is that not more likely?

“I tell you it is more than suspicion; it is
fact! Sad and sorry truth, of the foulest and most bitter taste,
but one which cannot be denied! This is the handiwork of the man
who would claim to lead you, steer you, guide and protect you. The
man who calls himself Steward and pretends at being your king, but
is not more than a glorified and selfish lord, a corrupt
bureaucrat, a gilded death merchant.

“And I must tell you his unlawful execution
and sponsored assassination of your beloved leaders did not stop at
fourteen, as another twenty-seven, and possibly
more
of your
representatives have vanished without a trace. You have not heard
it in your news, which is forced to keep it quiet. You have not
heard it from their families, which are bullied or paid to help
cover it up, or who also wind up mysteriously missing, but they are
gone! If you find yourself with pangs of doubt…that is
understandable. To doubt such foul treachery is the natural
response, when the crime is an extreme and malicious attack against
justice itself, and against the Empire, and even against us
personally as her citizens. And yet doubting a thing cannot make it
untrue. Ask yourselves, when have you last seen or heard from
Representatives Abasi or Van Zyl? To name only two. Search for
them. If they live, then they can be made to appear and discount my
claims. But if they do not appear…you must expect the worst.