Retired

Chapter 64

Chapter 64

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 dressmaker 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."