Sorry about taking so long to get the second part out, but there were was an issue involving a break in an important cable on Christmas Eve...
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Fall From Grace, Part II
Day 7, Month 4, the Seventh Year of Exile.
Armed with substantial numbers of advocates and legal officers, as well as a considerable amount of naval hardware, the passage north through the Proxima Nebula was completely devoid of interest; I would have been vastly surprised had the case been different.
There seemed to be very few renegades, indeed, I would have been very surprised if there were so much as two renegades in the area, but in fact we encountered very few ships until we reached our first and last stop before the capital; this was somewhat disconcerting as the lanes between Thoso and the East were so busy when I last saw them that deviating from a flight path would be suicidal.
Crockett in the Thoso system was a world of the living dead. The bodies moved and spoke, ate and drank, but the eyes were the eyes of the dead; as if something had crushed the life out of these people.
Even the systems ruler, a Countess of human stock, seemed to be affected by this lifeless air. We could get nothing out of her on the surface, so I invited her, and her deputy, to a dinner on my flagship, an invitation she could hardly refuse given the difference in our ranks.
It was as if a dam had burst; from the moment she arrived to the moment she left, I was subject to a non-stop barrage of information.
She told me of the secret police, the Enforcers, who rounded up thousands of people daily. Of those who disappeared, maybe one in a hundred would return, scarred and beaten, but alive. Most of the rest eventually arrived back as small cans of ash.
Religious leaders, dissenting nobles, civilian leaders, intellectuals; these were the first to go. Then their families were taken.
Then it was anyone who spoke out against the Marquis, and then just people at random.
But what of the Admiral-Prince-Imperial? I asked.
Dead she replied.
Than who is the Heir?
She would not answer at first, but I pressed her.
Luna, was all she would say.
But her deputy told me that the Admiral-Prince-Imperial was alive and well, and planning to end this, hoping to mount a challenge before the Supreme Courts-Martial over the question of the legitimacy of the Marquis position.
Much troubled we returned the two to the surface, and watched in amazement as the Viscount was arrested for subversive activities. Normally such a thing would not be cause for comment, but these two werent MPs, or even civilian police.
We were told to forget that we saw the arrest.
Rather shocked I returned to the safety of my own vessel, to find a priority message waiting for me; the Admirals-General Assembly had been summoned to meet in special session
...to call the succession into question