GENESIS - THE BEGINNING. Book 1

CHAPTER 9 ... Galactic Empire ... Emperor Prolit's Address ... Overlord

"Is all in working order?" asked the emperor. His face etched with pain.

"It is Your Highness." The young technician bowed deeply from the waste in respect of his sovereign Lord.

"Then let's get this over with shall we?"

He stumbled and was respectfully supported to the black padded body-hugging recliner. The relief he felt on sitting was echoed by the rest of the high-profile gathering. It was of the utmost importance that nothing should prevent his address. Their standing in the Empire was at stake, that and their lives. Should this government address not go out to the ends of the Galactic Empire, over two hundred billion citizens would rise in open revolt.

The recliner folded around the Old Emperors body and hugged him comfortably, he relaxed from the strain of keeping himself erect. Every muscle as taught as a spring. For the first time in his life he felt every year of those 106 years. The incurable bone disorder had sapped his strength and turned him into this haggard, bent old fool that drooled at the mouth. His recliner was wheeled behind the absurdly massive desk

He sat with black eyes pinched tight from the pain, and , step for step, he hesitantly relaxed each muscle group in his body. His mind drifted as pure relief flooded his system from the Cryon pain killer his Medco had injected into his upper leg. He felt a cold damp cloth wipe his face and bald pate.

"It is time, sire." A soft voice said in his ear.

"A few more moments, if you please."

He had garnered his strength these last few weeks. His duties of office handed to those whom he trusted the most. In a few more hours he would exit this existence and be done with the pain. It had been a good life. From gutter-snipe to Emperor. Who would ever have thought that the runt of the litter would be so proficient with the sword?

His friends, enemies, and those who called him son and brother, had come to pay their respects. He had picked this Empire up by the scruff of the neck, and while it kicked and screamed, he had shaken it until it blubbered and whined. He abolished decrepit laws meant to bleed the old and feeble dry. He struck many from the books and brought humane laws to the fore.

Five new planets.

"Sire?" the irritating voice again.

"Well then," he sighed. Gathering his strength for the ordeal ahead of him. A hovering Polrob* pointed its camera lens at his face from five meters away. Behind it was a huge comp screen that stretched from floor to ceiling. The screen flickered to life. His own magnified face glowered back at him. "Now one ugly mug," he said loudly. For a moment the gathering was shocked and then suddenly as one they burst out laughing. The number 30 appeared on the comp screen.

29...28...27...

A group of trusted enemies, and not so trusted friends attentatively passed his desk and said their farewells one last time. He believed that Old Earth axiom; keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Old Earth would have a lot to learn about Empire politics. He had learnt quickly that it was only one's enemies that could be trusted to do what was in their nature.

He who professed to be your friend, he needed watching.

He greeted one and all by name and station, wished them well for the future and expressed his hopes and wishes that the new Emperor would judge them worthy enough to keep their posts.

The Polrob bobbed this way and that, zoomed in on this face and then that one. Underneath the desk he wiggled his fingers, the only part of himself except his head that could move. The Medco whose job it was to watch for those fingers, flipped a switch on a remote device. Cryon pain killer, the strongest pain killer known to man, was injected via a hair-thin needle inserted prior to the broadcast into the Emperors upper leg.