Retired – Chapter Ten – Wedding

The imperial liner left the base that same day with a formal imperial courier hand delivering the wedding invitation.

The ship would arrive on her parent’s home world in two days. With any luck they would be back here in four.

The empress took Lizell under her wing and she was off. The imperial dress maker was frantically trying to get Lizell’s wedding dress ready on time. The florists were scouring the city for the flowers and the Royal Baker was laying out the design for the wedding cake.

Robert and I were in the great meeting hall. This would be the location for the wedding. I had tried to plan on it being a small gathering of family and friends. I was told in no uncertain terms my thoughts did not matter to anyone involved. The entirety of the Praetorian Guard had requested to be present as well as a very large number of military personnel.

The emperor was chartering in flights for large numbers of Lizell’s family and friends.

I was informed that over three thousand people would witness Lizell’s triumph over me.

“They all want to see a legend fall,” Robert said, with a huge smile.

“I am not a legend, I am a soldier. I do my duty, nothing more.”

Robert actually laughed at me. “Drake, you left your duty behind so long ago, you can’t even remember what it was any more. You always operate above and beyond the call of duty. Now let the men and women who serve under you show you how much they honor you.”

That ended the argument for me. I knew this bunch was going to do what they damn well pleased. I think it had something to do with being royalty.

I had other worries on my mind. I now had a Grand Duchy to run and it was going to interfere with my duties as the Supreme Marshal. I wandered back to the apartment Lizell and I shared in the palace and started to go through the reports on the financials of the duchy.

Daria’s personal accounts had been seized and turned over to me. These accounts contained more money than the other three grand duchies tax base combined. Her tax base account held almost a thousand times as much as her personal accounts. I started to read through the tax monies requests from the nobles under my banner. I noticed that many of them were repeat requests. The one I was currently scanning was from the Duke of Treliem. He had requested money to upgrade the starports on the ten worlds in his duchy. It had been denied ten times in the last twenty years.

I activated my computer and started to filter through the requests. None of them were unreasonable, but why were they asking for money instead of using their own portion of the tax base? I found the answer after a short search. The Grand Duchess had set her portion of the tax base from any given world at ninety percent. She was claiming nine-tenths of all tax income from every world. That meant the taxes on the worlds had been drained away into her accounts.

I looked over the tax codes and discovered one thing in a hurry. I was going to need an accountant to help me figure things out. The taxes seemed entirely over-burdensome to me. I saw any profits made by a person were automatically taxed at fifty percent. I knew they needed to be adjusted downward but I had no way of knowing what they should be. I knew the grand duchy of Spinward was set up on a ten/ten split. The world government took ten percent and ten percent of that was forwarded up the chain.

That was probably a good place to start, but what if I made a mistake? If I set it too low initially and had to raise it afterward…

Lizell came into the room and saw the look of worry on my face. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“I am going over the finances for the Eastmarch. They are a mess. Daria had all but raped the financials of her duchy.”

She came over and sat in my lap. She started to look over the paperwork and reports. Within seconds she was shaking her head. “You are going to need help with these. I have no idea how her duchy is even staying functional. The cost of living there must be outrageous. Look at her expenditures vs. income statements. She has almost a thousand times as much coming in as going out. No wonder she could afford a private army.”

*********

I brooded over the financial problems for several days. I was on the verge of making a command decision and hope I was right. Today I had other worries.

“Supreme Marshal, the imperial liner’s shuttle is on approach. It will be landing in thirty minutes,” a voice said in my ear.

“I will be there for the landing,” I answered over my bob. Then I turned to see Lizell staring out the window anxiously. “They are on final approach, baby doll. Shall we go discover how much your parents hate me?”

She laughed lightly. “I don’t think they will hate you. I am more worried about you hating them.”

I stood and extended my arm. “I don’t think that is possible. They created you and that alone would make them gods in my eyes.”

We gathered ourselves together. Robert had insisted I be in full regalia for this meeting. I threatened to choke him with my service bars. His answer was to threaten me with more medals. I believed him. He didn’t believe me.

When we stepped out of the front door to the palace, we saw a full honor guard of Praetorian Guardsmen standing in the yard, surrounding the imperial family.

“What took you so long, Uncle Drake?”, Cleo asked, as she stood there with her arm wrapped in Makeal’s.

“I really wasn’t expecting an escort,” I said, in an ominous tone.

“We want to meet her family, too, and if we wait for you to introduce them we will all be old and grey.” Robert’s smile was playful as he spoke.

We were soon loaded up into the Imperial limousine and headed to the base. As we rode, my bob activated in my ear. “Supreme Marshal, the background check on Lizell’s parents is completed and they are considered threat level twenty-nine.”

I was actually shocked. A threat level that low was amazing. The walls in the imperial bedchamber were rated at threat level thirty. Conversely, Daria had been rated threat level one. She had held the same threat level as a targeted weapon. “Understood,” I answered, acknowledging the message.

Lizell gave me a funny look until she realized I had been talking to my bob implant. “Why do soldiers call those communications implants ‘bobs’?”, Lizell asked.

“It is an old term. The very first ones were on the outside of the ear and contained a rather large communications crystal. The men looked like they were wearing earrings. The men started calling them Ear Communications Baubles. As time went by, it just got shortened to bob.” I took her hand in mine as I spoke. The gentle squeeze of her hand in mine made me feel a little more relaxed.

“I guess that actually makes sense.”

The imperial motorcade arrived at the gate. The large scale identity scanner and sniffer had been set up over the gate. This was something I had instituted. All personnel on or off the base were scanned.

Once we were through the gate, we headed out to the landing area. The shuttle was on its final landing vector when we arrived. We watched from the car as it touched down and settled like a fat bird. When the ramp extended, we got out of the car and stood in the middle of the formation of men.

At the top of the ramp appeared a couple. They appeared to be in the middle part of their second century. She was in a light sundress that came down just past her knees. On her head was a large floppy garden hat. The man was in a suit that he was obviously uncomfortable in. I had great empathy for him as I stood there in my full-dress blacks.

They walked down the ramp and suddenly Lizell ran forward. She had them both trapped in a hug when they reached the bottom of the ramp. We gave her a few moments alone with them. This was an intensely private time. In full view of the honor guard, they were alone.

Then Lizell started to move towards me with her parents in tow. “Drake, these are my parents, Ezekiel and Beatrice Stanner. Mom, Dad, this is the man I love, Drake Daemon.”

I extended my hand to them.