“Whatever are you talking about?” asked the captain somewhat distractedly.
“You’ve got your best Citizens assigned to the D Watch,” she said. “A few of the really good ones seem to rotate through other watches but then they too invariably end up spending most of their time on D Watch. Why?”
“Oh, that. I like it that way.”
“I know I’m new to the ship. I know that we’re still getting used to each other and that in a little over two months I will in all likelihood be looking for a new home, but if you are at all trying to woo me into staying don’t you think it would be a good idea to keep me from being surprised all the time? Don’t you think, perhaps, that you should brief me in on your eccentricities?”
“The only surprising thing,” he said. “Is that you figured it out so quickly. That actually gives me some cause for concern.”
They were sitting in the Captain’s day cabin, just off of the bridge. He finished typing whatever report he had on his monitor and looked up at her.
“So you want to be briefed in on everything?”
“Well, of course. I need to know everything to do my job.”
The Captain gave a quick nod and said, “Okay, but don’t blame me if you end up regretting it. Report to my cabin tonight for dinner.”
When he saw the look on her face he quickly laughed, “Don’t worry, there will be other Citizens there too. I typically do my staff briefings over meals. I find that it promotes a sense of family, don’t you think?”
“Why am I not surprised? Why would I expect you to do anything in the traditional way? Will I be subjected to any more surprises at the staff meeting itself?”
“Well, now that you mention it… be willing to stay late after everyone else leaves.”
Monica was wondering how many different ways there were to say no and trying to figure her chances of survival if she kicked this man in the balls… Or worse.
As if reading her mind the Captain continued, “On this one you’re just going to have to trust me until tonight. In the meantime don’t fret, don’t bring a change of clothes, and don’t tell anyone. You’ll get your questions answered tonight.”
“You’ll answer all my questions?”
“Of course not. We’ll see how much you can handle at a time,” he said with a grin.
ΔΔΔ
The dinner was quite good. The guest list, however, left her confused.
She had assumed that it would include all the department heads, all of his top Citizens. Instead, all of the Citizens present were from either A or B Watch.
There were two stewards that served the lavish meal and kept everyone’s wine glass full. Ensign Jac Nikolay was also there. Monica thought he probably spent more time overseeing the stewards than actually eating himself but he did manage to maintain his place in conversation and contribute at the appropriate times. He actually seemed quite competent.
When the dinner was finished the stewards cleared the table and the Captain declared the discussion over and got down to business. He started issuing orders based upon the information he had just received from his Citizens.
The stewards served everyone an after dinner cognac.
Just as she had with the wine, Monica waved hers off and listened closely as the meeting wound down.
Not knowing what to do as the others started to take their leave she watched the Captain’s aide start to wipe the table and clear the snifters.
“Don’t bother with that Jac,” the Captain said. You can get it tomorrow.”
Monica wasn’t sure, it was very subtle, but she really thought the Captain might be slurring his words… Just a little.
“Yes sir. In that case I’ll walk the Lieutenant out and leave you to your rest, Sir.
“Don’t worry about that either, Jac. I’ve asked Monica to stay. You understand, right?” He said with a knowing grin.
Monica didn’t know if it was her or the Ensign’s face that was getting the reddest, but she was furious. How could this jerk embarrass her like that? Still, she held her tongue.
The look on the Ensign’s face when he glanced from the Captain to her caused Monica’s heart to skip a beat. It was bad enough being embarrassed but the Ensign looked as if he’d been betrayed.
As soon as Ensign Jac Nikolay had made his exit Monica spun on the Captain and said, “How dare you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt; I’ve gone along with your insane requests and acted as a proper First Officer on this play toy ship of yours. But now you’ve gone out of your way to humiliate me in front of another Citizen. I truly think it’s a game with you Acamars; you compete on whom is best at humiliating others.”
“I know you won’t believe me but I was sorry to have to do that. If you can manage not to rip my heart out with a steak knife I’ll clear everything up for you.”
In her anger it was only subconsciously that she realized the Captain’s slur had disappeared. She wouldn’t actually reflect upon it until much later when she was lying in her own bunk replaying the conversation in her mind.
“Please have a seat,” the Captain continued. “We’ve got a couple of hours before the others start arriving.”
ΔΔΔ
“Okay everyone, I want Monica to be in the loop on these intelligence briefings from this point forward.”
The captain looked directly at Monica and said, “You need to understand that we’re only going to share our intelligence ‘take’ with you but we won’t be talking about our network or what our allies might be doing operationally. If you want to be a part of this you have to be okay with that. You also have to agree that if you do leave us in a couple of months whatever you learn here will go with you to the grave.”
The Captain seemed totally in control and totally serious.
“Yes Captain, I do so agree,” she heard herself saying.
“Very well. Maria,” he said while shifting his gaze. “What new information do we have?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. All of our sources in the Hadex sector have gone dark.”
“What about Tarantino?” Felix asked.
Maria shook her head. “He’s just confirming his last report, the Imperial logistical build up is real but they have no information on who the supplies are meant for.”
Over the next hour Monica realized that the Halcyon was like a spider setting at the center of a vast web of sub channel information sources. All of a sudden the Captain wasn’t a bumbling aristocratic idiot but rather the master of an immense spy ring.
Or maybe she was giving all of them too much credit. But his demeanor had been totally professional and serious. Of course, she couldn’t say for certain if his activities had the approval of the Empire or not, but it certainly didn’t feel like it did. Time would tell and she surprised herself by realizing that she wanted to stick with it long enough to find out.
This time it was Monica’s idea to hang behind when the meeting broke up. Not that it was difficult. Each Citizen left separately and with discretion.
“Why the charade? Why the secrecy on your own ship?” she asked.
They had moved from the conference room into one of the comfortable living areas in the Captain’s suite. He waved her to a chair.
“To make this all work there are certain precautions and illusions that must be maintained.”
“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll blow those illusions wide-open?” Monica asked.
“Not really,” he responded. “Your disdain for my brother is not just out of a wounded ego, it’s for all the right reasons. Combine that with knowing what type of person he really is… Well, that’s a pretty good reference as far as I’m concerned. Besides, I can’t think of anything it would gain you. Am I missing something?”
“No, I guess you aren’t,” she said with a small laugh. “But I’m still not totally clear on what you’re doing and I still don’t understand the reason for the secrecy.”
“As for what we’re doing, we’re trying to stay on top of all the behind-the-scenes h
appenings in the Empire. But I’ll admit that most of it won’t make any sense to you until you’ve been around a little longer and have enough pieces to start putting the picture together.
“As for the secrecy… As you should know, if you’re half as bright as I think you are, I can’t be sure that everyone on this ship can be trusted.”
Monica had known that some of the Citizens and many of the crew were a disreputable lot and she admitted as much to the captain.
He laughed. “No, they’re the ones I can trust. I’ve maneuvered and played the system like a violin to get a lot of the Citizens I wanted. Some of the ones with the worst reputations I hand-picked. It isn’t just that they have their own reasons for not being anal about not dotting every Imperial ‘I’ and crossing every Imperial ‘T’ - they are also some of the very best and the brightest. I am afraid that our empire has turned into a despotic bureaucracy that crushes individual initiative and brilliance. I simply refuse to accept that for my officer corps.”
“So it’s the crew you’re worried about?” she said.
“No, not entirely. Many of the crew have also been recruited for those very same reasons. Some of them aren’t even from the Empire, but I really hope you’ll just forget you heard that. I’ll admit, however, that their histories might be a little more on the criminal side than the officer corps but I care more about their loyalty. Having said that, there are some Citizens as well as some crew that I can’t be sure about. Therefore, the charade.”
“So that’s the reason you found it necessary to embarrass me in front of the Ensign? You’re not sure if you can trust him?”
“Oh, I’m very sure I can’t trust him. At least not yet. I like the kid but right now he thinks he’s a spy for Admiral Tanakh.”
Monica’s expression must’ve shown her surprise.
“He’s under orders to pass reports back to the Admiral by surreptitiously delivering messages to any Imperial flagged freighters we come in contact with. Of course, most of those freighter crews like us more than they do the Admiral, so…”
“How long has this been going on?” Monica asked.
“For quite some time. My former First Officer was blackmailed into doing it, and I know that several of my crewmen have been enrolled in the game. So, we keep up the pretenses.”
“Just what exactly happened to your former First Officer?” Monica asked in a steady voice.
“Nothing insidious,” he replied. “She came to me right away and told me that her family was in danger. So we called in a few favors, applied a little misdirection here and a little deception there, and she is now living a wonderful life with her family in a place that nobody will ever find them.”
After a moment of thought Monica asked, “You don’t seem squeamish, why don’t you just rid the ship of the rest of your real spies?”
“And lose the chance of winning them over?” He said with a grin. “Seriously, you’d be surprised how often that happens; some of our best people have come to us that way. You see, the people the Admiral selects have to be plausible, they have to have screwed up or have pissed somebody off for anyone to believe they’ve been discarded to the Halcyon in the first place. So it’s not unusual for some of his spies to see the light, so to speak. As for the others… Well, it would look funny if they all suddenly disappeared.”
They sat in a comfortable silence as Monica mulled over everything she’d been told. On the one hand this type of disregard for the rules is exactly what she would expect from a pampered, arrogant, Imperial man-child. On the other hand, she ideologically found herself on the same side as the Captain. She wasn’t yet sure how that made her feel.
“So, what do I need to do?” she asked.
“Do? Not much, at least not yet. I need you to continue being the First Officer and be visible to the crew – especially on the B Watch. We’ll be meeting like this several times a week and you need to be thinking about how you’re going to arrange your own schedule to cover your duties.
“For example, right now I’m going to take my nightly tour of the ship and I’d like you to accompany me.”
“You mean you actually inspect the ship?” she said laughingly. “It was one of the first things I noticed that you weren’t doing.”
“Good!” He said with a smile. “That means it’s working. But if you’re going to be accompanying me on my inspection tours and taking part in our late-night intelligence briefings, you’re going to need to take on a cover. And I’ve got a feeling you’re not going to like it.”
“Why, what kind of cover are you thinking of?”
“Well, I think it would be pretty obvious. I have a reputation for being a letch. The crew thinks I party all night and sleep late in the mornings. If you’re going to be spending some of that evening time with me it’s only natural that they’re going to assume you’re my lover,” he said with a straight face.
Chapter thirteen
ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY
Crazy Candice
Barbaro wasn’t the only crewman I was getting to know. If I had described him as the grandfather type, then some of the others could only be considered to be nightmare types.
Ramos had beady eyes, an asinine disposition, a tough reputation, and the facial scars to match. Rumor had it that he was the best knife fighter on the ship.
Jodi was pretty in a weird, scruffy haired, tattooed sort of way. Her rumors involved besting three men in a barroom brawl. They say one didn’t make it. There had been some issue about cheating in an arm wrestling contest; when the crowd shouted go she’d spit in her opponent’s face and kicked him in the balls.
Not all crewmen were felons, at least I didn’t think they were. But it did seem like most of them had a past. I couldn’t understand why the Captain didn’t upgrade his crew until the incident on Segundas IV.
We were in a standard orbit with many of us groundside conducting an inspection of Imperial facilities. The star system sat in the no man’s land between the Empire and the Hades Forest. Before we went groundside Sergio had warned us what to expect… which meant anything.
The Halcyon, apparently, carried a reputation in the sector. As usual, it was good or bad depending entirely upon who you talked to.
There were those that said she was the gilded play toy of an Imperial brat. That she was so incompetent that pirates fought each other to operate along her patrol routes.
Others though, would tell you the opposite. I hadn’t been aboard her long enough to know the truth, but I was soon to find out.
As usual, I was accompanying the Captain. We had 10 different patrols on the planet inspecting various warehouses and, as was his custom, he was personally leading one of them.
We had just finished inspecting the manifests in the office and had walked out into the warehouse proper when I heard Sergio say, “Shrak!” A moment later a large group of residents came stomping in our direction.
“What the hell are you doing here?” asked an attractive woman with short red hair. She was dressed expensively but crudely and from her demeanor I could tell she was the leader of the group.
“Candace! How good to see you.” The Captain said seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t give me that good to see you crap. I want you out of here, now. Get off my planet.”
“Candace, do we really need to argue about whose planet this is, again? You know the Empire claims it, and as long as they do I’ve got to make a show of doing my job here. You know that. Besides, there’s only one city on this mud ball. That hardly makes it your planet.”
It was obvious that she and the Captain knew each other and it didn’t appear that they were friendly, but what she did next was either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave.
Walking right up into the Captain’s face she slowly pulled a large knife from her belt and in full view of everyone she made a show of moving it to his throat.
“If you don’t take your people, and take your ship, and leave my planet immediately, I will slit your throat. And t
his time nothing will stop me.”
The Captain was mumbling something about being tired of women always telling him that when I looked over at Sergio, expecting to see him quick draw his side arm… or burst out laughing. The situation was either deadly serious or a joke, it couldn’t be anything else. But when I looked over to him I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. We were surrounded by a large group of armed people. That’s probably why Sergio wasn’t doing anything; it really wasn’t a joking matter.
Seemingly unperturbed the Captain sighed.
“Okay, okay. You win, Candice. We’ll leave. But can’t you let me at least pretend to look around, for old time’s sake?”
If anything this seemed to infuriate her more.
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