Chapter 6: Return to the Empire

As Jason sat in the battleship on the way back to the Empire he thought about the last few days. He had very much enjoyed the time that he spent with Lauren and his family. All his women seemed to get on very well, and there seemed to be no detectable jealousy or ill feelings.

Jason had told Lauren how proud he had been of her and her achievements since he had left and how impressed he was with the children.

Cassius welcomed the family visit, some to tour and others to attend university. Ten of the young people had elected to study on Charassa, and had returned with the Bug fleet. Chloe and Chuck elected to participate with and spend much of the time with a group of family who were wanting to see some of the Empire. There were six children of a similar age with parents and siblings located in family suites on the battleship. Jason was relieved they had some playmates of similar ages. Nearly a hundred people had elected to visit the Empire. Most were young women and children with, a few fathers, and nearly thirty young people intending to attend the University.

Cassius and Alana were very excited to have guests and have young people in the palace, specially as they were all family.

Jason agreed to the strategy of entry and adaptation to the Empire with Ouma Chatzke and Cassius.

Both felt that he would do best by starting at college or University, as it was universally called in the Empire. They felt that he needed to begin in a conventional place and establish a cohort of friends from the major houses. The university was an excellent place to begin life and form contacts. Most young adults in the Empire completed basic schooling in their twenties, then went on to a formal university education. They then went on to the military where they served for ten to twenty years, before making further career choices.

Cassius wanted his intelligence people to first complete their assessment of the Duchy, before Jason took any action. He wanted his beloved nephew - to face as little risk as he could protect him from. He did want Jason to visit and rescue his great-grandfather as soon as was possible, and retrieve him to be looked at by the Bug medical people, but he was a very careful man. Alana assured Jason that her contact said his great grandfather was ‘not deteriorating, but was not in great shape’.

The palace was very close to the University. The Emperor owned the entire university complex. His family had established it in the earliest years of their rule and it had grown to be the most prestigious academic institution in the Empire. Gaining entry was a highly competitive process. The Emperor would have it no other way. Alana regarded Jason’s academic results on the ship more than qualified him for admission, as did the academic recognition committee.

The Emperor insisted that Jason called him Cassius in public, as well as in private.

“Jason, I will have it no other way. Your family is close to ours, and your great grandfather is one of my kings. You have done great deeds for the Empire, and you saved my life. You would have been made a duke for your deeds and been on my inner circle. Alana agrees with me.

“You will have a very large suite allocated to you within the palace in perpetuity. I think you should stay there for brief periods of time. As a young person at University I think you should be closer to the University and if you come back to the palace every day you will attract a group of sycophants,” Cassius said.

“Jason I have a spacious house a hundred yards away from one of the walls of the University. I will give it to you. You will be able to house yourself and all of your people with ease and with spare space ... unless you collect a great many more women,” said Alana, laughing.

Jason blushed deeply.

She explained to Cassius on his return to the Empire in simple terms: “Cassius he saved your life, rejuvenated you, probably saved the Empire and has given us a wonderful ally. I am giving him a house, which I am delighted to do. It’s lovely and he and his many staff and women will enjoy it.

“I love him more than a son. He is a nourishing individual, a star in two galaxies, the light in our lives, a hero of the Bugs and a hero of ours. Above all he is a likable engaging individual, a fine friend and beloved by many. You are a new energized young man who will heroically remove the cockroach fiends who were killing you slowly. You also love him, I love him and would be happy to pay him to go to University and use our house. An imperial shekel for a century is ample in my view. I would be happy to pay him to be there and in our lives. He is a joy and a pleasure and has increased our wealth immeasurably with his companies. If you picked the best nephew in the empire and multiplied him a hundred fold he would be a pale shadow of Jason, so in answer to your question the rent is more than enough.”

For a few moments Cassius had been a little taken aback. Alana was the most highly critical person that he knew and was very reserved in her judgment. She was very careful with her wealth. When he thought about what she said it struck him that Alana loved him. She had been more emotional after the attempted assassination than he had ever seen her. That did not mean that she lost control. She immediately recovered from her shock and went on to ensure that the Empire continued in his absence. She was impressed with Jason the first time she spoke to him, but adored him after he saved her Cassius. She wanted to ensure that she looked after him for both of them. Alana then told Cassius about her first encounter with Jason and how much he had impressed her and his cousin Bertie.

Cassius told Alana he recalled a conversation that he had with Ouma Chatzke one day while they were touring Charassa.

“Jason has many memories about Alana the Empress. What is she like from your point of view?” Ouma Chatzke asked.

“Our marriage was an arranged one intended to cement the future of the Empire by bringing two very powerful families together. Neither of us had any choice about the matter. We had met each other a few times at formal functions and at the University. She was known as a very brilliant young woman, who had a great future in both mathematics and physics, had profound understanding of economics, was in line to run her house, had a caustic abrasive manner, was very beautiful but very cold. She was known to be behind her families’ intelligence division and was thought of by many to be frighteningly perceptive.

“Her family and my family reached agreement, which meant that I was expected to commence a courtship. I was undertaking my studies at the Imperial War College, and she was busy with her second PhD in mathematics while doing postdoctoral work in physics.

“I was expecting the worst, but I found her very personable and charming but a little on the cold side. In all the years I have known her she has never been nasty or unpleasant with me. We have had many arguments over the years, but I have come to realize that many of those arguments were attempts to change her into something that she is not and will never be. Over the years I have come to appreciate her.

“In her own way I find her very warm and pleasant. She is a great hostess and was a very fine mother. She is probably the most balanced individual and one of the most impressive individuals I have ever met.

“I think it took me many, many years to love her. I always liked and appreciated her, but it took a long time to love her. She is an extraordinarily loyal woman. She has supported me through some very difficult times and in many cases her interventions have been critical. She has an amazing instinct and impeccable judgment. I have come to value judgment increasingly as the years have passed. Her judgment in many situations is impeccable.

“She used her own resources to investigate what was happening with Jason’s great-grandfather and I believe that it is her interventions that are keeping him alive. It was her idea to bait the trap for Papa Zora by sending his battleship to fetch Jason. She knew an extraordinary amount about Jason, about his younger years, but neither of us realized that the people that we had sent to Earth had families who had such a short lifespan. I am gravely embarrassed that we simply forgot. That battleship got to him in the nick of time. I am so sorry that we could not save his wife, or for that matter his parents.

“Fundamentally, Alana appreciates most people of ability long before anyone else realizes their skills. She is most critical of people with ability, who use bad judgment. When she is critical, the person facing the criticism has a very bad experience. She will tolerate errors in people she respects, and she is much more gentle with them when she corrects their errors.

“When I look at her and think about her and the essence of my wife, I believe that she is the epitome of an intelligence general. It may be true that she is the Chancellor of the University and is a great academic who continues to teach and to research, but at the same time she runs her house intelligence and oversees its commercial activities. She is a very good businesswoman, an excellent academician, and an excellent Chancellor; but she is a superb general of intelligence, and an analyst with frightening skills. She has known for a long time there is something seriously wrong in the Empire and in the general intelligence services. She goes along with me to meetings and tears many of the analyses apart and has been very frustrated. We simply could not find out what was going on. She has known for centuries about Papa Zora but he was a slippery customer that she could not catch. Jason did that for her, very neatly and efficiently, but of course at great cost to himself.”

Jason spoke to Cassius a number of times from Earth. Cassius told Jason that he had contacted the head of intelligence to visit him at the palace on his own and had presented him with the information about what was occurring. This was reasonably easily done as the Bugs had prepared an extract from the Emperor’s memories to provide a presentation. The fact that he could show the head of intelligence a device well beyond their technology was in itself persuasive.

Cassius had known General Ogden Sebastian Van Buren since they had spent time in preschool together and knew his entire family who were well connected. Cassius was confident that he was not a cockroach. Cassius made the presentation to Ogden a few days before Jason was to arrive with three thousand intelligence operatives supplied by Ouma Chatzke.

Cassius asked Van Buren to bring his senior team to the palace, to allocate an entire day to Cassius and Jason, and meet the intelligence operatives that Jason was bringing along.

He also asked Van Buren to select a few people he trusted to investigate Jason’s estate.

Cassiopeia looked beautiful as they exited trans-dim at a similar distance as that of Earth from the moon. The ratio of land to water was higher here and it was a slightly bigger planet with a higher gravity than Earth. The continents looked lush and green and the sea a slightly green/blue, reflective of a slightly different colored sun. The battleship was well known and recognized on the planet and had the appropriate electronic identification, did not warrant a challenge but did receive a Royal escort. The ship docked at the large and impressive space dock, shipbuilding and repair facility. Jason and his group were welcomed by some of the Emperor’s staff who arranged to shuttle them in the royal shuttle to the palace in Laomedeia.

Jason was accompanied by three very senior Bug operatives: a general and two colonels. They were dressed in appropriate uniforms replete with medals. He and his group were barely accorded any interest as they accompanied the Emperor’s staff to the yacht that Jason had given the Emperor. Cassius had simply told his staff that his nephew who had visited recently had returned from distant parts of the Empire and he would be bringing some of his staff with him. Each Duchy had its own fleet and military forces and each had its own uniforms. They had appropriate identification from Cassius if challenged, but decided to create their own showing how they could penetrate allegedly secure systems. Identities were created for the entire Bug entourage as well.

Cassius welcomed them and introduced them to the Empress and two princesses living in the palace. Alana was even more strikingly beautiful in person, despite her age; but most women and men hardly aged in the Empire. The Empress Alana was known as ‘The Alana’ by the people in her role as the religious matriarch. She was, in Jason’s view, a warm and loving woman who made him feel welcome.

Jason was surprised that the first Princess Julie looked very much like Lauren. She later blushed deeply when she saw a holo pic of Lauren on Jason’s pad. Julie was also very friendly and welcoming to Jason and his colleagues. The second Princess Claire was shy but friendly as well. They were both very striking women much like their mother. Jason and the Bugs were provided with rooms. Jason took possession of a very large suite for his long-term use. They all had an opportunity to refresh themselves and change into casual clothing and have a half-hour to relax before a sumptuous dinner with the family.

Jason did not know quite what to expect, but it was a comfortable and enjoyable family meal. The princesses were very amusing and were excellent mimics. They played a few hilarious scenes of the vizier and secretary interacting with Cassius. The other women were superb actresses and comics also, and provided great amusement at the table. Jason enjoyed the meal enormously and asked if he could thank the chef. It turned out that the chef knew Robert, Jason’s chef, very well. He was very pleased that someone enjoyed his food and took the trouble to tell him. The Bugs also complimented him but in a more restrained way even though Jason noticed they ate as if it was the last meal they would ever eat.

After dinner Cassius took Jason and his team to his study to tell them the plans for the next day. He suggested that Jason show the short version of his history before they commenced discussions with General Van Buren and his two colleagues.

Jason was not entirely comfortable about the next day. He told Cassius that he had the feeling that all would not be right at the meeting and that he wanted Cassius to be aware that Jason might need to act. Cassius had spoken to Ouma Chatzke about Jason and increased his guards in the room. Jason decided to after a brief discussion to bring down two of his Marine AIs.

Cassius then relaxed and brought out an aged whiskey. It turned out that the Bugs were more than a little influenced by alcohol and rapidly became uninhibited and merry. Jason and the palace staff needed to help them to their rooms. Jason also alerted Gamma and Philippa to his concerns and premonitions. Philippa immediately flew down to join him.

They met General Van Buren, General Daniel Mephisto and General Arthur Harris the next morning at breakfast. Cassius already knew Philippa well, but was surprised when she joined them. Cassius knew Jason and accepted his judgment. Jason knew there was something fishy with Arthur Harris. Not wishing to waste any time he rose from the table moved behind him and captured him in his ring and returned the ring to the ship. Jason was taken aback that Von Buren and Mephisto did not seem to be surprised. It seemed that they wanted to set up a little test of their own bringing along a colleague about whom they had a concern.

He had an appropriate background, but they were suspicious about his behavior. He worked for one of the senior Generals who was under investigation. They decided to bring him along in order to assess his behavior.

After breakfast both groups met in a conference room next to the Emperor’s study. Jason was asked by Cassius to provide his background. The presentation was made to take an hour and a half on the holo-projector. Cassius insisted that the meeting be conducted on a first name basis even though the content was formal. He said that they were going to have to work very closely together for a long time and should start off as they wished to continue. Cassius asked the Bugs to brief them.

General Grommet Rikkel the allocated Bug head of Intelligence provided a presentation that gave the history of the intergalactic war with the cockroaches and the problems that they had faced with them in their own galaxy. He showed the history of The Mob and what had happened including the information received from the capture of Nimrod Khong. He showed the images of the history of Nimrod and his beginnings and his relationships with the cockroaches. He showed the images from the group that had been captured from the palace.

Van Buren had seen the events unfold on the palace surveillance cameras but not the results of the interrogation of the cockroaches that had been working in the palace. General Grommet Rikkel was soon apprised of the information from the brain of Harris.

“Arthur Harris has been placed in a difficult position. His wife and son have been kidnapped by his immediate supervisor Superior General first class, Leonard Bergstrom. He was blackmailed to keep his superior informed and to act as spy for him, said Rikkel.

By this time both Cassius and Jason could see that they were now redundant to the conversation and the working relationship of the intelligence group. Cassius suggested to General Grommet Rikkel and Ogden Van Buren that they continue to use the conference room and he would rely on them to continue to make arrangements as to how they were to proceed but that Cassius, Philippa and Jason would now move on to other matters.

The departure of Jason, Philippa, and Cassius was hardly noticed by the others in the conference room.

Jason called Alana; briefly updated her on what happened and then she took Jason to see his new house.

The house was surrounded by a lovely large garden and had a thick high wall with a shield seen glimmering above it.

Jason brought his security group down to the planet and they would continue to be with him even on campus. They had been unobtrusively with Jason on Earth as well. There was ample room for the six of them to stay with Jason at the house, and the rest in an apartment complex next door also owned by his aunt and leased to him at a peppercorn rent. Approximately forty of his security team joined Jason on Laomedeia and rotated with his larger team on the ship. While in the palace his guards shared duty with the Emperor’s security and some stayed in a small garrison in the palace.

Alana showed Jason around the house. It was a lovely five story home, with a substantial kitchen, several entertaining areas, eight large studies and a massive bedroom for Jason with a bed that could sleep ten. It was two hundred yards to the entrance to the university. It was a very substantial home with fifteen large suites of three bedrooms each and several independent entertainment areas, plus one further study in each suite.

Those guards to be located in the house, were shown around their separate facilities in the grounds by one of Cassius’ guards. The level of security in the home was in itself very impressive.

Robert and Marie made a delicious Japanese lunch for them all which they enjoyed in the large dining room that could easily seat seventy-five people. They were joined by Andrea, Linda, Felicia, Celia, Norbert, Gamma, Jonathan and Sgt. Sophie Stone Jason’s chief bodyguard. It was a lovely room with delicate hidden lighting. The walls were paneled and covered with old tapestries and ancient looking paintings.

“Alana, this is a magnificent house. It is a palace in its own right. I truly appreciate the opportunity to use this house. I will remember your generosity for the rest of my days,” Jason said emotionally.

“Jason it is wonderful to see this place come alive again with family. This house belonged to my father’s family, before his house and my mother’s merged. I have many memories of my grandparents in this house when I was a small child. For me this was not a big decision. You are the first and only tenant of this house. No, rather, you are the recipient of this house as a gift for as long as you wish to keep it in the family. You gave me my Cassius back and are such a fine nephew. Please use it and enjoy the house as we have done today. The food was delicious and so unusual. I would love to enjoy more of this style of cuisine. Bravo Robert and Marie this meal is a triumph!

“Now ladies of Jason’s fleet, what are your plans now that Jason is going to be studying?” Alana asked.

“We have a considerable amount to do that has been planned for us by Jason and Philippa,” said Andrea. “A very small fleet will rotate into service here for Jason in case he wants to travel somewhere quickly and safely.

“Porquenta wishes to refit some of our fleet and has some of his training machines available for training, though he says they are not yet up to the standards he requires.

“We will all rotate to Charassa for training and some fleet refitting. We are also helping protect the Jumo as they rebuild their fleet, though much work is being done for them on Charassa and Porquenta as the asteroid is refitted for high speed shipbuilding. We also rotate a small fleet to protect Earth,” Andrea said.

“For the next six weeks we have our work cut out for us. We will spend a few days here with Jason, before we move on as vacation tour participants and part time guides. We are taking Chuck and Chloe with the big group from Earth to visit Porquenta. He has a week of entertainment and training for them all,” Andrea said

“They’re all going for three weeks to the Collective for some touring and also for training as Bugs. Then they’ll return here for the last two weeks to spend some time with us and you guys then we visit the Jumo. We will visit Yimza and stay in the palace, then we’ll take them to Earth in one of our newest ships to return them home,” Philippa said.

“Jason’s larger fleet is still loading everything they can carry from Earth. A small portion of the fleet is to remain in the solar system for the foreseeable future along with a similar small fleet of the Bugs. Many from both the Bug group and from Jason’s group elected to stay on Earth until the next visit. Jason’s fleet were then to unload - or more accurately - disgorge their supplies on Mars and Porquenta. Many Bugs will remain on both of those planets to work on existing farms and then they will start their own farms with their own products. They are taking enough to start farms on Mars and Porquenta and have placed future orders of a staggering proportions for almost everything grown on Earth,” Andrea continued.

“The Bug ships are laden with prepared foods and simple cooking equipment,” said Philippa. “The foods included every kind of frozen product known to man and beast. They intended to test the markets first getting the Bugs used to reheating food. Anything that you could find in the biggest supermarket in the biggest city was taken back.

“Every electronic recipe was taken from the Internet and every electronic recipe book was purchased online. Every food preparation of every type that was available on the Internet and especially on YouTube was also taken. They obtained hundreds of thousands of hours of television cooking shows. Multiple examples of every type of machine or device that could be used in cooking as well as their fuel was taken at the same time. Every demonstrated device on all of the advertising TV programs was purchased in bulk. All of this was done quickly on the Internet with the products delivered to their warehouses, and shuttled to the ships. The enthusiasm for cooking had spread throughout the fleet. They rented further warehouses to stage the purchases for their own goods and no doubt for their own families. Most of the Bugs spent time on Earth and loved the food, the clothing and the type of life people led, but were horrified by the pollution and the sickness they saw. The societal inequities were also hard to stomach for most.

“The Bug fleet purchased many years’ worth of food for their own consumption. They, as had the cargo fleet, took along simple ingredients to begin to learn to cook recipes that Robert had selected, and had provided cooking instructions.

“One of the consequences of the visit was war between the selected rival criminal groups worldwide. The Empire and the Bugs confiscated most of the assets of a proportion of the criminal gangs. They have left some for future trips. Criminal groups and gangs found buildings that they owned were mortgaged to the hilt. They found even their own homes mortgaged. Their bank accounts were denuded. All of the evidence pointed to rival criminal gangs,” said Philippa.

“Valuable intelligence was leaked by the cyber warfare people to the police in all the countries involved. As the cyber warfare people in both groups had time on their hands they put it to use in exposing corrupt police, politicians, corporations and any and every group that they had found had linkages to the criminal gangs,” said Linda.

“All of this did not happen instantly. It is being drip fed to those with power and integrity at a manageable rate. The information appeared to come from informants within the criminal gangs and this engendered a further climate of gang paranoia and gang assassinations,” said Philippa.

“Much of Jason’s fleet is going to return to Charassa. Porquenta did not have sufficient facilities to upgrade the massive fleets that Jason acquired, quickly enough.

“We decided to continue to upgrade the fleet and provide Jason’s forces with opportunities for further high level education in a variety of educational institutions and then further opportunities to work with the armed forces of the Bugs,” Philippa said. “Ouma Chatzke wanted them to be a core of highly trained humans who could also assist the Empire, when the Empire was ready to be updated and provide a reserve for the Collective.

“Emperor Felix accepted an invitation to send millions of his armed forces for training. He sent his entire intelligence service for training and requested Ouma Chatzke to help restructure his universities. She invited all his professors from all his universities opportunities to spend three months at a university in the Collective first. Absorbing them in the Collective is not a difficult task. Jason’s fleet quadrupled in size due to captured ships after fighting the priests, The Mob, Cockroaches and the people of Dhoom. Many of the captured ships were severely damaged,” Philippa concluded.

Jason meditated before dinner.

“Jason, my boy, you are meditating very well. Those Bugs improved your mind a lot. I have a suggestion for you to start off this chat. You have plenty of ships for your own use. You have more ships than you have people to run them,” Porquenta said as he connected to Jason. “I can connect to you now even without you being in a meditative state.”

“Many of the Jumo ships are of an older generation of ships, and would be more work to upgrade than they are worth. I have fixed up many of the old Mob ships so that they operate. Take it from me, you don’t want to waste more effort on them.

“Send them back to Emperor Felix as a gesture of goodwill, and include the damaged ones as they have two big repair docks fixed. I have given him better engines and shields and one cannon each that is a ghoul killer. I will send him a supply of those cannon for the busted ships.

“He can send the ships for his people on Charassa if he wishes and then you can bring your ships back here. I am going to build a new generation of ship on his asteroid which he can buy. Time is limited and time is money as your people say.

“The Charassa people are well advanced with a super ship building facility in one of my asteroids. They gave me some of the borer designs they use. I built a few of them but I modified the design and built a monster version for asteroid work. I want to finish two docks before they complete one. We have a competition going. The Bugs learned to bet on Earth and they taught me to bet. We have a wager going as to who will win.

“I want to use my resources to build some dreadnoughts and movable defensive asteroids. I have some cannon that need big platforms, and I have one type of cannon that will use all the resources of a frigate. Some battles simply need enormous firepower. Let me briefly change the topic.

“The Bugs put up a satellite here so I can telephone Earth. Well, I Face-Timed Lauren, and we now speak regularly. She sent me the school curricula but suggested I use the Internet to look at the texts. I got the texts for the whole of school, all the Empire curricula and the Bug ones as well.

“Lauren gave me permission to teach her children the whole lot. We’ll have a week with them being here so it’s more than enough time. I want to send them to see some of the planet, the clone growing areas, and some of the natural wonders of both planets. I also have permission to give them at least one crystal each. I have the priests’ method which they got from the mollusks. It is so clever and utterly simple.