Forty years ago, the Emperor Trajan committed to supporting the Western colonies and not interfering in their politics. But when some colonies fall into tyranny, must he support despotism without intervening? Officially, yes. Unofficially, not so much. The Empress Amanda and Dieter Stauss conspire to overthrow the tyrannies, sending in a mechanized brigade of retired Imperial Marines.

Brigadier General Ann Turley (IM, ret) has to figure out how to sneak an armored invasion force onto Julian, overturn the government, and not just kill everyone who gets in her way.

For an Imperial Marine, that’s a tough assignment. But Section Six sends Paul Gulliver, and he has his own ideas.

INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND

EMPIRE 13? Where’s EMPIRE 10, 11, and 12?

We decided to number the EMPIRE series by their internal timeframe. Here are the trilogies, both available and in the works: I - 1,2,3 Domestic AffairsII - 4,5,6 Foreign AffairsIII - 7,8,9 Imperial PoliceIV - 10,11,12 Section SixV - 13,14,15 SuccessionVI - 16,17,18 RenewalVII - 19,20,21 The Department

The series of books that follows the Throne are I, II, V, and VI. The series of books that follows the police and investigation activities is III, IV, and VII. So you shouldn’t read either of those series out of order, but you can read either in order without reading the other. EMPIRE 10, 11, and 12 will be out the first half of next year.

EMPIRE 13 is set quite a while after EMPIRE 6.

It begins forty-one years after EMPIRE 6, when Bobby and Amanda are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He’s 84 and she’s 76, and he’s been on the Throne fifty-one years.

What’s the problem in EMPIRE 13?

The Emperor committed to supporting the Western colonies, and also to not interfering in their internal politics. They have to have a plebiscite as to whether to annex to the Empire after fifty years, but that’s it. The problem is that a few of those colonies have fallen into tyranny, with the end result that the Emperor is oath-bound to supporting tyranny.

He can’t like that much, but what can he do?

He can’t do anything, but he also won’t interfere if someone else does. So Dieter Stauss, under urging by Amanda, pulls a Marine brigadier general out of retirement, and her job is to knock over the government of Julian, one of the tyrannies.

That sounds like it could get kinetic.

With an entire mechanized brigade of retired Imperial Marines? Why, yes. Yes, it does.

What’s on the cover?

Brigadier General Ann Turley (IM, ret) and Paul Gulliver, an Imperial agent with Section Six, standing before an M15 Imperial Marines main battle tank. It’s a big tank, about 1.5 times the size of a US M1A2 in each dimension, so about three and a half times the volume of an M1A2.