If the year had so far proven busy for Reinhard, it was no less so for the woman who had become his kaiserin. After Reinhard departed to the Neue Land with the imperial fleet, Hilda remained at Stechpalme Schloß, preparing for her expected delivery on June 1. In late May, she planned to move to a special wing of a hospital affiliated with Phezzan University School of Medicine.
Those connected to the Ministry of the Palace Interior expected early summer to be rewarding, exhausting, and anxiety-inducing. And, as a matter of fact, Ulrich Kessler would experience all of this with the greatest intensity.
Senior Admiral Kessler was commissioner of military police and commander of capital defenses. Guarding Imperial Headquarters and Stechpalme Schloß fell within his responsibilities. Considered on the personal level, this meant that Kessler had two and a half people to keep safe: the kaiser’s wife, his sister, and his unborn child. He hand-picked soldiers trained in first aid to guard Stechpalme Schloß, and visited daily to confirm that the kaiser’s little family was safe. Sometimes he played a game of chess with the kaiserin’s father, Count von Mariendorf, before leaving. He seldom returned to his official residence before midnight. The Lohengramm Dynasty’s present and future both seemed safe under his competent and diligent protection.
When Kessler was appointed military police commissioner, he implemented drastic reforms of the organization’s structure and culture. Particularly searing was his decree urging imperial subjects to report any mistreatment by the military police. Anonymity would be protected, no evidence was required, reports based on misunderstandings or even outright falsehoods would not bring punishment, and if a subject who made such a report were harmed in any way, the military police with authority over the relevant district would be held responsible. Such a decree may seem beyond common sense, but in the days of the Goldenbaum Dynasty the military police had in fact held to an unwritten law that was the decree’s exact opposite, brutally oppressing not only republican agitators and enemies of the state but even innocent subjects.
“If the arrest of a state enemy results in some collateral damage, so be it.” So they had bragged, but when it was their turn to suffer the “collateral damage” of justice, they found it intolerable. Some tried to sabotage Kessler’s efforts, but once the ringleaders had been arrested and sent to an isolated prison, their ill-gotten gains confiscated, and the ten worst offenders executed, the rest shuddered in fear and became an obedient pack of dogs.
Kessler also overhauled the department’s staffing practices, taking on soldiers who had returned from the front lines after the end (more or less) of the war against the Free Planets Alliance. This method carried the danger of sparking conflict between old-timers and new recruits, but Kessler’s ingenious appointments and organizational reforms had so far been successful, expelling the old blood that had grown stagnant within the organization. It cannot be denied, however, that this success, like that of the empire as a whole, was due to the personal leadership of the man at the top of the hierarchy.
In year 3 of the New Imperial Calendar, Kessler would be 39, but he was still single. No doubt he had known his share of romance and passion, but with regard to his private life he maintained perfect secrecy. Driven by resentment, long-serving military police officers had tailed him and bugged him, hoping to learn something they could release to damage his reputation, but came up utterly empty-handed. On the contrary—such rebellious elements were captured, punished, and expelled, eliminating sources of discontent and securing Kessler’s position even further.
The day was May 14. It was hot and slightly humid, as if the seasons had gotten ahead of the calendar. The air was still, the sky covered by a thin membrane of cloud. Many were the citizens who wiped their brow with a remark on the heat, and some, it is said, even had premonitions of some violence or commotion. In later days, a solid majority would claim to have felt this way.
At 1115, an anonymous visiphone call with the screen blacked out was placed to Military Police Headquarters. The caller said that the Church of Terra, though dealt a critical blow during the Kümmel Incident, had in the intervening two years almost fully recovered, and was now extending new roots throughout the Phezzan underground. The church, claimed the caller, was planning to strike in mid-May, starting riots and seizing control of key locations across the planet while the kaiser and most of the imperial military were absent. The caller insisted that swift action would be required, noting the particular vulnerability of supply, communication, and energy provision systems. Then the call was cut.
To the imperial security forces, the mere mention of the Church of Terra was like a red flag to a bull. Supply and communications systems had faced repeated difficulties this year already, and the resultant social and economic unrest still smoldered.
At 1130, before preparations for mobilization were complete, an explosion at an oil storage facility in the Loften district covered the entire area in black smoke and flames. The casualty count kept rising, and the firefighters rushing to the scene hindered and were hindered by fleeing residents, creating a confusion which soon became unmanageable. Communications with the outside world were also impaired, and water pipes were damaged, flooding the roads in the Vierwald district. The water seeped into the power cables underground, blacking out the entire region. Chaos continued to spread.
In this way, over the course of the afternoon, the military police and capital defense forces were scattered to no fewer than fourteen different locations around the city where some incident had occurred.
May 14 had been chosen for an important reason as the date to execute this plot. On this day, Kessler was away from the capital city on an inspection tour of planetary defense facilities. Meanwhile, Count von Mariendorf, still unable to resign as minister of domestic affairs, was also outside the city for inspection of the artificial lake and water resource management system recently constructed by the Ministry of Works.
Nevertheless, at 1500 contact with Kessler was finally made. As soon as he learned of the situation, he barked out a reprimand: “Don’t let your guard down! This is only a feint!”
As an experienced leader of men in battle, he sensed the strategic objectives in play. It was not a question of where, but who.
The true target of the terrorists, he knew, must be Kaiserin Hilda and her unborn child. He tried to explain this to the military police, but he had always been such a strong leader that his subordinates had come to depend on him, and had developed a tendency to simply address issues as they arose during his absence. Kessler canceled his inspection tour and boarded a jet-copter back to the capital city as fast as possible, ordering that reinforcements be found for the military police. These measures were taken with lightning speed, but by the time he arrived at Stechpalme Schloß, events were already in motion.