Chapter 56

There was no mention by the newsies of any arrests to do with Rogoth or the actions of this group. This was because currently there was an information lockdown whilst investigations were on going. As a part of this interrogation I was invited along by Aunt Vilgra to sketch various aspects. The pictures were to be kept in the Royal Archive along with the scenes of the atrocity. It was Amantil’s intention that one day they will be displayed in what she calls a hall of shame.

Hence, I was currently sketching the AI sealed room and the offices of Disot Holdings and later would be allowed to sketch both Vollt and Vrice as they were questioned by ImpSec, though Vilgra informed me that they were not currently being co-operative.

“Will we use duress?” I asked.

“Possibly truth serums, nothing physical,” Vilgra replied after a moment. “I do, however, have permission from Her Serenissima to do so if required.”

“No doubt setting off various pressure groups who see Troubleshooters as a law unto themselves,” I said with a wry smile. “All based on fictional characters in various movies.”

“True,” she nodded. “Though neither ImpSec nor the Troubleshooters are subject to public scrutiny or oversight ... unlike most Imperial Offices of State.”

“Doesn’t stop them agitating though,” I chuckled, having watched a few, if only to sketch the over emotional characters complaining about abuses of authority whilst being unable to produce any evidence of it, merely hearsay.

“It doesn’t, though the main purpose of allowing it is to give them an outlet for their views,” Vilgra nodded. “The AIs do monitor them and occasionally we investigate situations they bring up to ensure no actual crime has been committed.”

“I guess ImpSec or the Troubleshooters have their potential bad taarchints?”

“We do. Ask your Aunt Greea as to what happened to her, assuming she’ll tell you.”

“I will. Hopefully it won’t bring bad memories.”

“Finished here?” Vilgra asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “I’ve caught all the opulent luxury and comfort.”

“Good. The interviews are about to begin,” she replied. “Truvia will be attending too.”

I was surprised at how ... ordinary looking Vollt was. There were certainly no hints about him of his being a criminal mastermind. Both men had demanded their legal representation, though both had been informed that this would only be available after all evidence had been gathered and that, currently, the only guarantors of their basic rights were the AIs monitoring their interrogations.

Vollt then became sullenly silent whilst wearing a restraining suit which prevented any unauthorised movement and hence he was effectively frozen in place as a Healer entered the room and gave him some sort of drug via the wand she carried before silently leaving.

“No right of silence in the Empire,” I observed.

“No, there isn’t,” Vilgra replied. “Though officially we aren’t allowed to torture, it has happened in cases like Duvrach where there was no intention of a trial.”

“Yes, he ‘vanished’ and is still marked as a kidnap victim,” I nodded. “Though Aunt Honack told me the story a year or so ago.”

“He nearly brought down Amantil. She takes a very dim view of things like that.”

“From what Honack told me, I don’t think I’d like to live in an Empire run by him.”

“Yes. He was a reactionary hard-line conservative, obsessed with the power of the Nobility and willing to go to extreme lengths to preserve it,” Vilgra replied as the real interview began.

It was obvious Vollt, underneath the veneer of his urbane exterior, was a nasty, amoral piece of work. With his ability to remain silent stripped away, the interviewer and the AIs soon elicited various facts from him regarding the machinations of the group and their roles in the atrocity on Rogoth. They also gained information on other criminal enterprises such as the medical seal mimicker and various other drugs used to criminally abuse entertainment centre staff and entice their reluctant customers. He also indicated where Noll and Trask might have been headed.

“Not a great example of humanity,” I noted in an aside to Vilgra as I used my sketches to try and show his character for what it was.

“No, and like as not heading for a death sentence because of Rogoth,” she replied as the initial interview concluded and we turned to observe Vrice being placed in the interrogation chair.

Vrice, it appeared, was willing to talk anyway, so no drug was administered, though the option remained open. Again he answered the questions and confirmed his involvement in the Rogoth atrocity, though insisted that Noll and Vollt were behind it and he only found out afterwards, something the AI confirmed.

“Doubt that will save him,” I observed.

“Unlikely,” Vilgra agreed. “Getting any useful information?” she asked the silent Truvia.

“We have agents on several worlds, though will concentrate on known hiding places,” she replied. “We do have contacts in the Florveni Realm too and have already despatched a team on a fast transit vessel.”

“Hope you are successful. So far we’re struggling to track either of the two.”

“You might have more luck tracing where their money went.”

“That, we’re working on, including precious metal transfers to outside the Empire.”

“I take it Vollt and Vrice had not really made any plans to escape?” I asked Vilgra.

“I think they were caught by surprise when you uncovered that slave gas feature that gave us a link to Trask,” she replied thoughtfully.

“Hmm, yes,” I nodded. “I take it further questioning will concentrate on the how and when of Rogoth?”

“Very much so. We’d like names of persons as well as of organisations involved. We might not be able to get at them immediately, but we have long memories and, given a chance, will act.”

“Good,” I nodded. “I think I have all I need here; I’ll pass the finished articles on to Her Serenissima.”

“Very well. Thank you, Dayyev,” Vilgra acknowledged with a smile.

Noll disembarked from the starliner at the Spire and immediately booked into a hotel where he could access an AI to check on certain financial arrangement he’d made with a broker. Finding that his investments had been reasonably successful he calculated that they could give him a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of his life. News-wise, there was no mention on an Imperial news channel of his compatriots or of Rogoth so he relaxed and began planning a new life for himself.

What he was unaware of though, was the surveillance that several Kilios operatives stationed on the Spire were doing on any passengers from the Empire that had passed onto the station. Most were quickly checked and discarded as tourists and known to the Empire. Unfortunately for Noll, his lack of identification and the ‘out of Realm’ wristband he had purchased, which was traced back to the Empire, together proved that he was no tourist. He was now a target for the Kilios operatives for extraction back to the Empire.

The following morning, by Spire time, Noll left the hotel to speak in person to the broker and arrange to remotely view various dwellings available on worlds in the Protectorate. He was tailed and, at an opportune moment, found himself collapsing to the floor as his legs would not hold him. Four Kilios operatives then bundled him into a container and smuggled him into the port area and onto to a waiting courier ship. He was locked in a cabin for the return journey to Vreekoos. The Kilios agents then hacked into the AI Noll had used in the hotel, found the broker and simply redirected all the funds in Noll’s accounts back to the Empire, ordering the broker to liquidate the precious metals and infrastructure acquisitions and forward on the proceeds, minus the broker’s fee.

“Good news,” Amantil informed Vilgra at an early day meeting. “Kilios have captured Noll and are returning him and his funds to Vreekoos.”

“That is good news,” Vilgra acknowledged. “Anything on Trask?”

“Not yet. She appears to have been most diligent in vanishing.”

“We’ll keep looking, as no doubt will Kilios,” Vilgra acknowledged.

“That we will, she’s probably off world and out of the Empire now, but sooner or later we’ll spot her.”

I was with Amanda as we waited for Vicki and Plenna to finish her finals and his honours degree, a long-drawn-out process involving being locked in a room and tested by AIs. Essentially we were there to celebrate our friends adulthood as I had no doubt they’d pass. Finally a door opened and Plenna emerged, looking happy and holding a pseudopaper slip showing high marks in his higher degree, clearly enough to allow him to enlist in Fleet and get into the elite Engineering Academy.

“Your mum will be so pleased,” Amanda congratulated him.

“I know. She’s having dinner with all of us tonight at the Palace to celebrate,” he cheerily replied. “Assuming Vicki passes.”

“Vicki wants to be part of Fleet Command. She won’t fail,” I chuckled.

“True, she’s wanted it for a long time,” he nodded. “She even managed to persuade me away from joining Ground Force.”

“Would have been a waste of your talent,” Amanda replied. “You’ll enjoy being an engineer a lot more.”

“Probably. Got to get through basic though and as Kiria told us, it’s not easy.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Yep,” I agreed as another door in the wall opened to allow a happy looking Vicki to emerge.

“Well done, sis!” Amanda congratulated her. “Top marks across the board.”

“Yep. Can enlist tomorrow with my Plenna,” Vicki beamed.

“Got a celebration tonight though,” Plenna advised as he gave her a kiss and a hug.

“Yep, in more ways than one,” Vicki replied with a grin and a wink at him, causing him to blush and Amanda and I to burst out laughing.

Trask had finally made it to what she hoped was a safe destination in the single planetary state of Kuros. Whilst the Kuros system itself was within the Imperium, it had remained staunchly independent and merely had an agreement with the Empire for trade and occasional travel. Trask had reasoned that a high tech, high comfort world would attract Imperial scrutiny first, so had opted for a Realm where an Imperial Royal would go a long way and where a comfortable, if simpler, life could be had. Not that she had any plans to draw attention to herself, simply a desire to withdraw into a wealthy comfortable obscurity, realising that the Empire at least would never give up looking for her.

She’d also had the foresight to transfer various funds to the Kurosian banking system anonymously via the interstellar credit system. With some of those funds she had bought a luxurious dwelling in Silvart, the capital where the shuttle from the freighter had dropped her off. Once there an agent of the Kurosian state greeted her with the various forms required to enable her to become a citizen of that Realm. This was an essential process, as there was no extradition treaty between the two Realms and Trask was simply making sure she could not be legally handed over to the Empire, though was well aware that the Empire might not be so scrupulous in going after her. She then visited a private medical centre and had her appearance, including her hair colour, changed.

The party at the Palace on Lassos was a wild affair, with lots of laughter, dancing and silly party games. In a sense it was just the family’s way of welcoming Vicki and Plenna into Imperial adulthood, whilst also saying goodbye in a sense, as everyone knew they would be enlisting the following day. Vicki would be dropping her public holodisguise and joining anonymously as would Plenna, both names being popular enough throughout the Empire, though Victoria, Vicki’s official name, was only more common since Amantil had introduced it after reading ancient transcripts of the reign of an Earth Empress from a time even before my dad.