My Friend the Emperor

by William Lee Gordon

  Deep Core conditioning eventually wore off; the more inconsistencies the mind became aware of between its conditioned patterns and reality, the more chinks appeared in that mental wall. But it didn’t always wear off without leaving damage. The neural pathways between certain thoughts and emotions and the body’s autonomic responses could be left burned-out. It didn’t always happen, but the deeper the conditioning and the faster it fell apart, the bigger the likelihood of the victim being reduced to an emotionless hulk.

  And doing what they were getting ready to do, what they needed to do, could very well be the end of the Ensign.

  “His unconscious eye tick is getting worse,” the Captain said while drumming his fingers, obviously lost in thought.

  “I have to agree captain; the signs are all there. The conditioning is crumbling and he’s going to come crashing down sooner or later,” added Felix.

  “The bottom line is that I’m fond of him too, but we’ve run out of time. He’s going to go through it anyway and it might as will happen where he can have professional care.”

  “And just where would that be?” Felix asked.

  “On the flagship Vindicator,” the Captain answered.

  Everyone mumbled something.

  “She has the best medical section in the quadrant,” Captain Acamar continued. “And the only Deep Core conditioning equipment available as well. Fortunately, we have a contact there. It’s also the best chance we’re going to have to find out what’s going on with my sister Tauri before we officially abandon our assigned patrol.

  “If anyone sees a flaw in my logic or has a better alternative, now’s the time to speak up,” he said as his eyes swept the table.

  No one said anything.

  After a moment Monica broke the silence, “Captain I hate to sound selfish, but is there any danger of Vindicator personnel coming aboard the Halcyon? I don’t think it would be in anyone’s best interest for the Empire to know I’m un-exiled.”

  “Oh you don’t have to worry about that,” the Captain responded. “You’ll be accompanying me aboard the Vindicator.”

  ΔΔΔ

  “I never can figure out if you’re crazy or brilliant, Sir,” she heard herself saying.

  Someone at the conference table gave a nervous laugh.

  “As soon as I board that ship the game will be up. They’ll know who I am and they’re going to know you fudged the official reports about what’s going on in your sector. How can that possibly help our mission?”

  The Captain didn’t respond; he just leaned back in his chair with an amused expression on his face.

  “Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, but I think we have a way around that,” said Sergio. “You see, we never exactly told anybody about First Officer Weigand’s retirement. We can fake her biometrics and as long as nobody looks too closely no one will be the wiser.”

  Chapter twenty-one

  ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY

  The Admiral’s Dinner Table

  Real-time

  It was obvious that several of the Admiral’s officers were doing their best to stifle outright laughter. The bawdy joke Captain Acamar had just told at the dinner table left smiles, grins, and an excess of polite applause.

  Not that this pleased the Admiral, mind you. As was his wont, our Captain had taken over the dining table conversation and turned it to his own self-gratifying purposes.

  Admiral Kierkegaard himself was caught between the indignity of losing control of his own table and not insulting the Emperor’s son.

  Once the laughter died down our captain spoke again, “and then she had the nerve,” he said, “to ask for a ride home!”

  This time there was no controlling it. Laughter consumed the entire table.

  Clearing his throat the Admiral said, “Grand Duke Acamar your exploits are well known in the fleet but I was hoping we could use this time to introduce you to some of the promising Citizens under my command.”

  It’s funny, but I’d never really put much thought into the absurdity of the command structure in the 133rd Legion. The Emperor’s first son now commanded the fleet and the Emperor’s daughter commanded the Imperial Defense Forces.

  Then there was Captain Alyster Acamar.

  Instead of commanding a fleet or its equivalent he commanded only a solitary ship and was presumably under the orders of this admiral. Did anyone really think that an admiral, especially one assigned to a relatively unimportant backwater border region, would dare to order around an Emperor’s son?

  In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but noting that I wasn’t frantically scrambling around to find some tortured logic to justify this.

  Could they really have played with my head that much? I didn’t feel respect for Admiral Kierkegaard; I felt pity for him.

  As I looked around the table it was obvious that Captain Acamar was in fine form. Sergio was his usual muted self while Felix might be trying to qualify for the life of the party. At least he was drinking like that title came with a trophy he was determined to win.

  Oddly enough, Monica seemed to be the most Imperially Correct in her demeanor. More so even then several the admiral’s Citizens, who looked like they might be enjoying themselves despite their occasional sideways glances at their admiral.

  “Yes please, introduce me to these fine young men and women that are maturing under your excellent leadership,” said the Captain.

  If the Admiral noticed any sarcasm he didn’t let on.

  The first two Citizens introduced were both female, had spent the most time in space, and seemed genuinely pleased to make Captain Acamar’s acquaintance. The third Citizen was a different story. He held a stern expression and reminded me of just about everybody I had graduated The Academy with. Unlike the other Citizens the Captain asked him zero questions and only gave him a cursory nod before once again changing the conversation.

  I suddenly realized that it had been a long time since I’d really used my observational powers to detect patterns. That in itself was rather strange because that ability was something I’d prided myself on and it had given me tremendous advantages in a number of situations.

  That welcomed ability returned in spades, however, with an epiphany about our Captain.

  I had always been confused by the two totally different reputations he held. Depending upon who you spoke to he was either the most incompetent and derelict of dilettantes whom relished the pomp and circumstance of his position more than actual accomplishment, or he was a decent man that barely put up with all of that and cared more about earning your respect – the type of man that others naturally deferred to.

  Now I understood the dichotomy. You weren’t going to like the Captain unless he wanted you to like him. He was a chameleon. He had a number of façades that he could put forth. The unique thing is that they were compatible with each other; when sitting at a common dining table some might gain respect for him while others saw only what he wanted them to see.

  This is a pattern, I realized, that I had been witnessing ever since I met him.

  Which led to a disturbing thought… Which side of the ledger was I on?

  Before the latest laughter had died down Captain Acamar changed the subject and addressed the Admiral, “So, did you get a chance to say hello to my sister when she passed through your sector?”

  “You mean the Grand Duchess Tauri Acamar?” the admiral sort of stuttered.

  “She’s the only sister I’ve got, or at least that I know of,” the Captain said without missing a beat. His wide smile invited the table’s laughter.

  “Uh, no I didn’t… I mean, was she… Was she scheduled to visit us?” he finally got out. It was obvious the admiral was trying to tread lightly; he had no idea what the Emperor’s son expected of him.

  “You would know that better than I,” said the Captain. “As an Admiral don’t you receive official notice of fleet movements, or some such?”

  “Well,” the Admiral replied. “We received no official notice of anything, b
ut… as you seem to know, she did pass through here not long ago.”

  “And did you get a chance to speak with her?” the Captain persisted.

  “Not really,” the Admiral replied. “There was a customary exchange of greetings and synchronization of information updates, but she appeared to be in a hurry.”

  “And you have no idea where she was heading?”

  “She didn’t deign to tell me,” he said dryly.

  “Well, that certainly sounds like my sister.” The Captain raised his wine glass and said to the table, “To my sister, the Grand Duchess Tauri.”

  All the Citizens at the table responded by repeating the toast and the conversations returned to the decorum shattering norm that the Captain’s presence had established.

  ΔΔΔ

  The Admiral’s dinner party had broken up later than usual. I also suspected that his officers, or at least most of them, had consumed a little bit more wine than normal.

  As was my job I was escorting the Captain back to his cabin. To any observer it might appear that he’d slightly overindulged but I was seeing things again for the first time.

  In other words I had always known that Citizen Felix typically set to one side or the other of the Captain at dinner meetings. What I hadn’t consciously noticed until tonight was how smooth they were at mistakenly setting their wineglasses down next to each other’s plate. This allowed the Captain to constantly be nursing on an almost empty glass of wine.

  As for Felix, well, he seemed to enjoy his side of the bargain.

  “Captain! Might I have a word?” came a voice from just behind us.

  We paused and turned around to face one of the Citizens that we had just finished dining with.

  “Ah, Lieutenant…”

  “Salazar, Sir. We just shared dinner together.”

  “Of course, of course. That was really good shrimp, don’t you think Salazar?”

  Captain Acamar had one of the best memories for details and names of anybody I’d ever known. There was no way he’d forgotten Salazar’s name, and now that I was 100% positive that this was part of the Captain’s act I could sit back and enjoy a virtuoso performance.

  “Yes sir!” said Salazar. “And if I might say so, sir, the dinner conversation was excellent as well. I’m not complaining mind you, but tonight was definitely a little bit different than what we’re used to.”

  “Very good Salazar, but did you stop us just to complement our social erudition or did you have something else you wanted to discuss?”

  “Yes Sir. It’s just that, well… You seemed to show an interest in your sister’s whereabouts and…”

  “You have more to tell me.”

  “Yes Sir. I don’t think the Admiral would mind and I’m sure if the conversation had continued he would’ve mentioned it, but a patrol I was leading almost literally ran into her battle group as it was reentering Imperial space. We were kind of surprised because we thought it unusual for that large of force to be operating beyond the frontier in the first place.”

  After a moment the Lieutenant got a stricken look on his face and hastily added, “Not that I’m trying to imply that she did anything wrong! I’m sure the Grand Duchess has great reasons for everything she does! I just remember it because it was, uh…”

  “Relax Lieutenant. I know you’re not criticizing my sister; it seems a little odd to me too. By the way, your patrol didn’t happen to get a fix on where her battle group focused its Lens? You don’t know where they might have been heading, do you?”

  “Well actually, Sir, it was pretty obvious. Based on Lens alignment and the skip characteristics we all assumed that they had to be heading to the Archimedes Cluster. Is that important?”

  “No. No, not at all. I just always like to keep track of my siblings. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Of course sir! I’m glad I could help.”

  “I’ll remember it, Lieutenant Salazar,” the Captain said with a smile.

  ΔΔΔ

  We were back aboard the Halcyon sitting in one of the plush living areas of the Captain’s suite. It was, apparently, an informal debriefing of our time on the Vindicator.

  “I couldn’t learn anything to contradict the Admiral’s story,” Sergio was saying. “It doesn’t appear that the Grand Duchess shared any of her plans with Admiral Kierkegaard.”

  “It’s the same for me Captain,” said Felix. “No one got too excited about finding Tauri out this far and no one gave it a second thought or tried to cover up the patrol encounter that your lieutenant friend mentioned.”

  It was Monica’s turn and she paused slightly before speaking. “The rest of you might be in a better position to gauge the mood of that crew,” she said. “The only crews I’ve spent much time with were either ones that were on their most formal behavior because the Prince was aboard, or the Halcyon. I’m pretty sure those two examples represent extreme opposites on the scale. The Vindicator’s crew seemed pretty much in the middle, perhaps leaning slightly towards a more formal side. Except for dinner, of course.”

  She then informed the group of what she’d already passed on to the Captain; Tauri had been amassing forces for some time now and her former fiancé had been purging Citizens from the fleet. Almost as an afterthought she added that she had passed on both her and my reports to black box/home fleet and that there had been no challenges with her cover.

  I found myself grateful that she didn’t mention my incapacitation or treatment by the doctor.

  My appreciation was short-lived.

  The Captain nodded at Monica and then all eyes turned to me. I was surprised. “I thought I was along as an aide,” I said. “You want a report from me too?”

  “You’re a part of this crew, Jac. Of course we want to hear what you have to say,” he said.

  I experienced a weird sensation. Mentally, I was afraid of where this conversation might lead but the expected rush of physical anxiety didn’t accompany the thought.

  I’m not stupid, I knew this had to be a result of being released from the Empire’s Deep Core conditioning, but knowing something and experiencing it are two different things.

  “I’m afraid my observations of the Vindicator and her crew may not be very helpful… I was a little preoccupied with personal events.”

  There was a brief moment of silence and then everyone laughed out loud, Monica the loudest.

  “Really? I never would’ve noticed,” he remarked amidst more laughter. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Jac?”

  I really didn’t know where to begin. I still felt a strong loyalty for the Empire. I’d grown up feeling strong loyalty for the Empire, so I know that wasn’t just conditioning… But I can also admit to myself now that these people weren’t the Empire’s enemies. At least, not the Empire I believed in.

  So I told them. I told them everything. I didn’t show much emotion or get sentimental but I did relish the Captain’s nods and the several times that Felix verbally prodded me to continue. Even Sergio and Monica listened with rapt attention as I described my silly dreams about normalizing the economy for my home world. I described my crushing disappointment at the hypocrisy of The Academy as well as my honest efforts to sublimate it. I even briefly described how a personal relationship had been a lifeline for me.

  When I reached the point of describing my assignment as a spy I faltered. Surprisingly it was Sergio that took control the conversation and then described to me exactly how Deep Core conditioning worked. And how often the Empire used it as a tool.

  Captain Acamar took the conversation back in an unexpected way.

  “I owe you an apology, Jac,” he said.

  I looked up at him in surprise.

  “You probably don’t realize it but you are an extremely strong-willed individual. On your own you were breaking through some of that Deep Core conditioning but we ran out of time. We couldn’t wait for it to happen naturally so I’ve been pushing it along.”

  As he said this he held my gaze eye to eye. Th
ere was a strength in that green-eyed gaze. Not craziness, not fanaticism, but… dare I say wisdom? Wisdom and commitment described it nicely.

  “So I owe you an apology because what I did could’ve cost you your life, or at least your sanity. The fact that I didn’t feel I had a choice would be no excuse. I would still be to blame. For that, I am truly sorry.”

  “And if you hadn’t, I’d still be a slave. I wouldn’t be free,” I heard myself say.

  The silence around me continued.

  Finally, Monica spoke, “So Jac, what do you want to do?”