Chapter 2; The Betrayal
Zinad, LIX
The Empire of the Jewelled Throne had been crumbling for several generation. Despite the best efforts to the contrast, the empire was being crushed by its own size and the deterioration of the ruling family. The Empire had been built by the earliest Menzi ancestors one planet and planetary system at a time. In those days, they were a once powerful house. Over nearly a millennium, their house had ruled for 60 generations. Times had been good until the last century.
Baraz’s story begins before he was born. His grandfather, Zinad LIX, was the current emperor. Zinad was a drunkard and a weakling. Complaints were constantly coming in to Zinad’s court from the outer provinces. Piracy and lawlessness was becoming worse and worse each day. The news was full of reports that shocked the people of Arth. As the newsies told it, these pirates had turned themselves into warlords. They seemed to be biting off huge chunks of territory to rule as their personal empires.
This deterioration had accelerated in the last fifty years under the unsteady hands of Zinad, the 59th emperor in their line. Corruption was the way that business was done. When Zinad made any decisions at all, one could be sure that money changed hands. Any infraction could be glossed over with an appropriate exchange of credits.
Things got no better when his son, Aldo, became the 60th heir to this line. Through Aldo’s own foolishness and laziness, he gradually became the emperor in name only. His rule was a sham. When he showed up at court at all, he sat drunkenly on the Jewel throne in the decision chambers day after day. He could be seen gloomily trying to rule an empire that, in his opinion, was becoming increasingly unwilling to be ruled.
Aldo could usually be found sitting slumped over on one arm of the throne looking bleakly at the constant stream of supplicants. From time to time, there would be a pause in the line. Aldo would stir and look about him. A small smile would cross his face as it would dawn on him that the day’s business had ceased. Taking advantage of the pause, he would wiggle off the throne and duck down a back hallway. He would enter into his apartment. “Bath” was all he would say.
In a very short while, he would be holding a cold drink and sitting in a large warm bath being attended t by naked girls. Even though he would be quite inebriated, he would drink deeply and sink back into the bubbling pool.
Usually, he would go back in his mind to try and figure out who to blame for his predicament. As usual, he would alternate the blame between his mother and his father. The beginnings of his trouble he assigned to a night six cycles or so ago. He was so happy then. He had a wife whom he ignored except occasionally. They had given the empire six children. That should have been enough. At the point of his musings, he was reminiscing about one of his extended vacations on a nearby pleasure moon.
“Ahhh,” he wold think to himself, “I miss those sylvan days of only being the prince…”
In his drunken mind, he would remember that his father had been ill for quite a while. Because of the deterioration of his health, Zinad had assigned more and more duties to Aldo, his heir and the Prince Regent. In reality choosing Aldo the situation actually got worse. Since Aldo was mostly useless, the Royal House Staff and Administrators did most of the work of ruling. Aldo was happy to let them. He would just sign where he was told.
Still, Aldo had always seen himself as over burdened. Whenever he could, he would fake some health issue and run off to his villa to rest. It was on one of these days that formed the beginning of this memory. His justification is to remember that he had decided that the pressures of being Prince Regent were overwhelming and he had to get away.
The truth was that with Aldo’s bad attitude, anything that looked like work exhausted him. More and more often, Aldo would gather a few of his party buddies and headed for his private estate on the pleasure moon. They had been there nearly a week when the communication center began a beeping sound.
Tek-Mate III Belbus had instructions not to answer any calls after dark as the Prince Regent was not to be disturbed. Then she saw that it was the red line from the Empress. With a shaking hand, she answered, “Beau Font answering station. Report???”
To her great surprise, the Empress Madlin’s beautiful face appeared on the screen. She spoke, “Is my son at your station?
“Why, Yes, your Majesty…I believe that he is at his villa on the other side of this fortress.”
“Good. I’ve been looking for him for days.”
Since the moon was on the other side of the planet, it was night time there. “Shall I wake him?”
The Empress knew that once he was awake, he might escape her grasp again to continue his tour of pleasure palaces. That must not happen. She put a sweet smile on her face. “No, no…Officer, you must not wake the Prince!”
Being very familiar with the results of her Empress’s look of seriously, the young officer was now quite frightened for her life. Many an innocent minion had lost more than their stripes for messing with the Royal family. She bowed her head, “By your command, Empress.”
In reality, the lowly Tek-Mate had no intention of violating the Prince’s inner sanctum. In the twenty days that the Prince’s villa had been occupied, several staff members found themselves posted at the edge of the empire for minor infractions on the wrong day (if they lived at all).
“Listen carefully, DO NOT wake him, ya silly Twit! One of my Guardians will be there by morning. You ARE however, to delay the Prince’s departure, if he should awaken.”
“Delay him??? How???”
“Equipment failure… ion storms… Have you no imagination?”
“By your command, my Lady. He will not leave before morning.”
“Good.” And her face disappeared off the screen.
The girl slumped in her seat. She took in deep breath just realizing that she had not been breathing during the Empress’s call. Then, chuckling to herself, she mumbled, “That fat ass Prince ain’t never rolled out of that sack before the mid day bells were piped through the fortress.”
The Empress stood and turned. Walking slowly and seductively, she slipped the silken cover off and let it fall to the floor. She touched the dark skinned foot that extended out of the silken coverlets tangled around his giant form. “Oh, Cerby…is it time for more debriefing yet?”
The man in the bed lifted himself onto one elbow as turned his head to watch her walk back from her desk. He was the Praetorian of her Guardians. She called these meetings, “debriefing.” He had been here now without any briefs for more than an hour.
With a loud intake of breath, he watched her remove the last piece of silk covering only a tiny part of her beautiful body. He threw the covers off. She lay across his gigantic body. He ran his dark skinned hands down her alabaster body and smiled, “Your Majesty…how may I serve Thee?”
“I need you to go get Aldo and bring him to my palace…”
“Now..?” he asked slowly.
She wiggled against his hard muscles, exciting them both, “Maybe not right now…” He covered them both with the coverlet and they got busy.
An hour or so later, they had showered and they were dressing. “So, you found him?”
“Yes. He’s on Detrium III at his villa.”
“Have you talked with him? Does he know how ill the Emperor is?”
“No…I’ve just found him. But, I now know that he’s there?”
“Partying..?”
“Let’s just say he’s indisposed… You must be careful what you say out loud, Sir. He is after all, your next Emperor.”
In a well practiced move, he zipped her back into the skin tight outfit that she had been wearing at the beginning of their meeting, “I talked to the comm. desk at the Pleasure Station. An officer there said he was on planet. I already tried his personal talker. No one answered.”
“Can he get away?”
She watched him in the mirror, then, went back to straightening her hair, “No. I have had the staff disable all of the vehicles on Detrium III
or anywhere near him. “
He looked at the time piece in his data terminal on the inside of his helmet, “I shall be there in an hour, Your Majesty.”
She was applying makeup to cover her swollen lips and whisker burns on her neck, “Good.”
“What if he won’t come?”
She sidled up to him and ran her hand up his well muscled arm, “Don’t be a baby. I order you to use these beautiful muscles and throw him over your shoulder. Drag him here naked if necessary.” The Guardian visibly gulped.
“Move it, Mister!!! I’ll wait here for your call.”
“I hear and obey!” The Guardian checked to make sure he had the special comm. link that the Empress had given him at the beginning of their private “debriefing” session. (What a night that was.),
Now in full battle mode, he clanked out of the Empress’s private offices ducked through her Comm Center and into an elevator to the flight deck.
“Yeoman!?!” he called.
Without waiting for a reply, he used the enhanced features of his suit of armor. His enhancements allowed him to leap the length of the hallway through the half gravity of the Empress’s private space station. She had convinced herself that as long as her trysts were off planet than she was breaking no vows to her dying husband.
He flipped the blue button on his wrist unit to open the all call channel. “Reply!”
“Aye, Chief!” A squadron of Guardians replied.
“We are jumping…Bring a rifle squad.
Pointing at three other guardians along the way, “You three… come with me! The rest of you slimes break this unit down and get this barge to Detrium III in twenty or find some where to hide because there’s some serious stink coming off the royals. GO!.”
A single man flyer was fuelled and ready for him. He jumped in, plugged his armor into the extended controls and the jet leaped off the deck, heading for the skies
The men snapped to ready positions, powering up their armor enhancements, “Aye, aye, Chief.” When the word had come through the grapevine that the Prince had been located, they had begun stowing their gear. By the time their Praetorian was done debriefing, his crew was already at “mission go” status. Grabbing their giant boxes of gear, these mechanized giant warriors were aboard their waiting transport and headed for the other side of the planet to the man made moon where the Prince’s villa was. Burning bright, the larger transport chased after their boss. They arrived at the villa just ticks behind him.
They headed for the Prince’s villa. They were passed with out pause through every portal until they were at the Prince’s door. Within moments of their arrival, Aldo’s reverie was disturbed by loud knocking on the carved wooden door. He unwound himself from the nubile bodies that lay sprawled about the giant bed and waddled naked to the door.
“Who disturbs our royal sleep,” he bellowed at the hulking figure of the giant Guardian.
The Guardian bowed low, “I am sorry, Your Most High Majesty, but your Most High Empress calls…”
“OUR Mother..? You disturb our sleep with lies…why I’ll…”
Without a word, the Guardian took his communicator off his cluttered belt and snapped it open. With his giant armored hand, he clicked a red button that was lit and pushed the screen into Aldo’s hand. He gaped as his mother’s face swam into view. “Mother…” he sputtered.
“My darling baby…Your father has taken a turn for the worse. I have given instructions for your Guardians to bring you here forthwith.”
“But… but… I would have been home in few hours…this was to be the last day of my vacation!” he whined.