Free Trader Mary's Dream
Copyright© 2005 by FozzieBare
Chapter 22: The Last Imperator's Speech
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 22: The Last Imperator's Speech - Captain Alex Donovan has a reason to hate pirates and slavers. He also has a hot ship under his command. Can he ever get enough payback to live up to his ship's name? If his new crew have anything to say about it, he will!
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Consensual Romantic Fiction Science Fiction
Imperator Julian Arden had not had many good days in the twenty years he had been Imperator of the Terran Empire.
He had never wanted the role.
No one did.
The Empire was dissolving. Its decline was terminal. System after system had either been taken by marauding bands attempting to clothe themselves in stolen legitimacy, or had decided they would be safer not tied to an Empire that could no longer serve their needs, but could still take more men and material from them.
The role of Imperator required him to desire the punishment of those who simply left the Empire in its time of greatest need. Treason could not be allowed to prosper, because if it prospered, none would dare call it treason. The man, however, simply understood. He regretted it. And he hoped they would make it through the dark times to come with a minimum of damage.
The rot of the last centuries had become increasingly evident. The Empire had grown too large, too overextended. A class of people on the Central Worlds had come to see their privilege as natural, and the resources of those farther out as theirs by right. Of course those distant worlds should serve the Central Worlds. It was why they had been brought into the Empire in the first place.
That bred discontent. It nurtured resentment. And finally, it produced rebellion.
There were few true heroic figures across the Universe. Mostly there were small people who had finally been pushed to the breaking point, only to discover in the breaking that they could overcome the system that had placed them under such vile durance. Too many of them then went on to inflict that same distress upon others.
The Navy, those who had honored their oaths to the Empire, had done their best. Even they understood that, in at least some matters, they were fighting for a cause that was no longer clothed in righteousness. Their mission was to pacify insurrection and crush rebellion. But how could they do so when the decision to commit insurrection and rebellion was mere survival?
But the ships that eventually mutinied against Imperial forces? Understandable. Regrettable. The problem became when they went on to other worlds. Worlds that still believed the Empire might somehow be salvageable.
And there was conflict. Too many rebels had forgotten both the letter of their oath to defend the Empire and its spirit: to protect humanity.
More than once, whole planets had been bombarded because they refused to accept occupation willingly. Instead of leaving a festering sore behind them as they advanced onward, even if that sore had been limited to the planet’s surface, their conquerors decided to make an object lesson of them.
Perhaps the next planet would be wiser and surrender without a fight. If not, there were always more lessons to be given on the subject. One might even call it a monstrous bit of virtuousness should it save other worlds from the same fate down the line.
But to the best of Julian’s knowledge, his Navy had never crossed that line of collective responsibility. There had been one officer who threatened to “char a planet’s surface to ash” if its government refused to surrender a munitions factory. His noble family had managed to convince Julian to spare the man’s life by regretfully informing the Imperator that executing him might force them to reconsider their willingness to “serve the Empire’s needs.”
Julian had done his best to isolate that family afterward. But he had managed one thing. Their arrogant fool would never command anything more dangerous than a desk chair again.
If the Navy failed to punish such behavior, then it would become nothing more than another band of marauders.
Months later, a minor item appeared in one of Julian’s reports.
The fool and his parents had apparently died in a hovcar accident.
Despite all evidence to it being an accident and not an “accident”, Julian had a fairly good idea who had arranged it. He never discussed the matter with them. He was afraid he might say something like, “Well done.” Or, “Good.” Or worst of all: “Thank you.” That would only have encouraged them. They did not need encouragement. Not at all.
No, if there was a final judgment to be rendered upon the Empire’s Navy, it was this.
They had lost many battles. Unwinnable battles? Possibly. Probably.
But victory was victory and defeat was defeat, and one could not sit upon the Imperator’s throne and equivocate that one was the other.
Yes, they had lost battles. But they had never lost their way.
The Imperator had often wished he could have died serving that Navy and its oath to the Empire and its people, as he might have if he had remained Admiral Julian Arden instead of becoming Imperator.
But Admirals were allowed to go down with the ship. Imperators were not. Not that many Imperators would have understood what that meant.
As the decline became more apparent, the role of Imperator had shifted through one calamity after another.
There had been the Year of Five Imperators, which had very nearly turned regicide into the most-watched sport on Terra.
Then came the “Imperative Committee,” during which three people claimed the title of Co-Imperator and attempted to impose three different visions upon the Empire simultaneously.
And then there was Richard the Weak. He had become so besotted with his lovely concubine that, instead of defending a strategically vital layer of gates, he dispatched three task forces to protect her homeworld.
Had the mob not eventually stormed the Palace and dragged Richard and his concubines out to receive the public’s judgment upon his proclivities, Julian sometimes wondered if the Navy would finally have broken its neutrality and attempted to save whatever remained of the Empire it had sworn to protect.
The Navy’s choice, apparently, had been much the same as the mob’s.
When Julian Arden was finally convinced of the necessity of becoming Imperator, he remembered the first cheer raised by his Navy.
“For the Admiral! For the Imperator! He will make the Empire shine once again!”
The little realistic voice in his head had told him that perhaps he could give the Empire five more years of staggering life. He had given it twenty.
Twenty years bought while hoping for a miracle he already knew would never come.
Time and again, he argued that he should be at the front lines. That this battle required a tactical genius who might somehow seize order from the chaos of the moment and find a way to win.
Each time, his officers refused.
Refused the Imperator!
One captain, trying to explain why, unknowingly placed a hot coal of despair inside him.
“There is a chance you could turn the battle, Imperator. But there is a much greater chance that you would fall there. Better to save you for the next battle that must be fought.”
Julian hated those words. That whole idea.
The next battle? Why did there always have to be a next battle? Couldn’t he finally lay down the burden?
There had been too many battles. But now there would be no more.
If only one group had arrived at Terra’s gates, perhaps Julian could have found some way to bow out gracefully. He might have prayed that they preserved what was good, cut away what was rotten, and took heart from the institutions Terra had spent centuries building.
But none of the three groups now within two Gates of Terra possessed that quality.
The first had been the first faction to scorch a planet for continued resistance. They called their doctrine “Collective Responsibility.” Others would do their work for them, they claimed, once people understood that punishment would fall equally upon guilty and innocent.
The second was a collection of corporations that had purchased a Navy and wished to reinstate corporate feudalism. They called it a system of regulated “Mandatory Work Contracts.” Stripped of the quarterly reports and claims that profits were up twelve percent, it had another, much older name. Slavery.
The third faction had no intention of ruling an Empire. They merely wanted to sack one. Take its riches for themselves. They were spoiled children presented with a cake, determined to eat all they possibly could and then knock the remainder onto the floor so no one else might have a piece.
Julian could defeat one. He could hold off two. All three? No.
The numbers did not lie. So it came to this day.
Julian had ordered the Palace grounds evacuated.
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