Maybe, I thought to myself. But the trooper had been well hidden and the cabin not well lit. She shouldn’t have missed him but it was understandable and I told her so. What I didn’t tell her was what I’d seen of Consuelo.
I had been looking right at the wall when she’d just… walked out of it. There wasn’t any door, she had just emerged from the wall, took two steps, and dropped the trooper.
There is no way I could explain it to anybody. And they wouldn’t believe me even if I tried. I didn’t want to believe it myself, except… I saw it plain as day.
There was far more to Consuelo than we’d ever thought.
Every time I felt I was starting to get a handle on things my world shifted.
ΔΔΔ
The Captain had invited Monica and I into his day room.
For the last 48 hours we’d remained on station around Icarus and had been monitoring all the happenings in the home system. The picture was starting to clear up but accepting the new reality was proving difficult for many.
Apparently, IDF ships had preemptively attacked the Home Fleet. My first inclination had been to wonder about Valys’ safety but Tauri had ordered her ship clear before the first shot was fired.
Fortunately for the Prince the fighting hadn’t begun until he had returned to his own ship. Reports were that he’d fought himself free and skipped out of the system.
The smaller IDF force had been intent on attacking the Prince’s ship. Once he’d made his escape they had fled the system as well.
What they left behind was massive confusion. There were a hundred theories and guesses as to why the IDF had opened fire but nothing had been confirmed.
“I wanted you both to see this,” the Captain said.
He threw the image from his monitor to the wall screen. I immediately recognized the Lord Advisor José Namagashi.
“Alyster, I’m sure you’re already aware of what’s happening here on Celcium but I wanted to record this and get it out to you as soon as possible. I need to confirm for you that the Emperor is dead at the Prince’s hand.
“This isn’t a political accusation; I personally saw the bloodstained Prince emerge from the Emperor’s private study. He wasn’t trying to raise the alarm; he was trying to sneak away. When I entered the study I found the Emperor and his secretary dead. It looked to be the work of a sharp blade, probably a dagger.
“The situation here is… unstable. I will try to hold the government together until we can determine who is to rule.”
The screen went dark and was replaced by the blue Imperial symbol.
“Thoughts?” the Captain asked.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Monica said. “If Eri was trying to take over the Empire why did he flee? He should have stayed to consolidate his government.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said the Captain. “And the thought of Tauri as the avenging daughter doesn’t play well either.”
He looked up questioningly at me.
“I keep telling you guys that all these political maneuverings make more sense to you than they ever will to me,” I said. “Do we know where they went? Where did the Prince and the Grand Duchess flee to?”
“It’s a great question,” he responded. “But so far nobody knows the answer.”
Still thinking about it the pieces suddenly came together for me, “He’s headed to the Pyrenees sector.”
“I know that Lord Carrington is, or at least has been, an ally but that still doesn’t explain why he’s going there.”
“Look,” I said. “The IDF is a formidable military force, correct?”
Monica and the Captain both nodded.
“Granted, it’s not large enough to take on the Imperial Fleet but your father allowed it to be powerful enough to keep your sister safe from the Prince. If he ever tried to take over the Empire in a normal coup she could block it or at least cause him massive grief.”
They were following along with my train of thought but I could see they still didn’t grasp it. I was formulating my thoughts to explain what I could so clearly see when we were interrupted by the intercom.
“Captain, there’s an Empire-wide announcement coming over the RTIC. It carries your brother’s Imperial Seal,” Maria’s voice announced.
I was spared the necessity to explain further by what came next.
ΔΔΔ
Prince Eridanus Acamar IV appeared on everyone’s view screen. He was dressed in full regalia and there was no hint of the deadly confusion he’d just fled.
“Citizens of the Empire,” he started. “I have the sad duty of informing you that our Emperor, Eridanus Acamar III, has died. While this has caused great confusion the Empire can rest assured that his passing was due to natural causes.
“As you know it was my father’s wishes as well as Imperial law that I succeed him to the throne of the Celcium Empire. But I sit before you today to proclaim I will not do that.
“Technically, I became the Emperor as soon as my father’s heart stopped beating so I will make this my one and only set of proclamations…
“Firstly, at the conclusion of this message and contingent only upon Grand Duchess Tauri Acamar’s acceptance of these three proclamations, I hereby abdicate the throne of the Celcium Empire.
“Secondly, at the conclusion of this message and contingent only upon her acceptance of these three proclamations, the next in line of ascension, my sister the Grand Duchess Tauri Acamar, will be crowned the new Empress of the Celcium Empire.
“Thirdly, at the conclusion of this message and contingent only upon her acceptance of these three proclamations, the Pyrenees, Montag, and Abarton sectors have successfully seceded from the Celcium Empire and will be officially acknowledged as a single, separate sovereign Empire. I will be recognized as its first Emperor.”
Once the screen faded Monica looked over at me, “Is this what you are going to tell us?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking it was going to be.”
“Well, for not knowing anything about politics you seem remarkably astute,” said the Captain.
“No, it’s just the patterns…” I sighed. There wasn’t any real way to explain it.
“At any rate,” the Captain continued. “Now we know why Eri is headed to the Pyrenees Sector.
“But why is he ceding power to Tauri? I thought they hated each other?” Monica exclaimed.
“They do,” he replied. “This is a tactical decision on my brother’s part. He’s being very clever. He wants the throne but he doesn’t want to fight Tauri for it. Actually, he and Lord Carrington want to consolidate their forces and wealth and leave the Empire to fend for itself with the immigration problem. They figure that Tauri is too greedy to turn down the offer to be Empress.”
“Will it work?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. I don’t know what else my sister Tauri has up her sleeve.”
“So where does this leave us?” Monica asked.
“That’s the thousand denar question,” the Captain said. “Tauri’s already come after me once. She must’ve been tipped off about what the Prince was going to do and was ready to launch her counterattacks at a moment’s notice. I suppose I should be honored that she thought me enough of a threat to include me as a first step.”
“You don’t think our IDF uprising was a response to taking the prisoners?” I asked.
“No, icing on the cake maybe. But Tauri’s always felt that if she was going to make a move for the throne she’d have to take me out. She sees me as a potential rival.”
We all sat in silence for a few moments.
The Captain looked up and held Monica’s gaze. “How would you feel now about finding that nice out-of-the-way planet where you could get lost forever from the Empire?”
“I’ve already told you,” she responded. “I’ve decided to stick it out on the Halcyon.”
“I’m not talking about dropping you off,” he said. “I’m seriously thinking about taking my toys and going hom
e. I am more tired of Imperial politics than either of you could possibly know.”
I was startled.
It never occurred to me that the Captain wouldn’t care about what happened to the Empire. Where did he want to go? What kind of life would we have? What would happen to my mom and the others that we left behind? I was too shocked to form a response but fortunately I didn’t have to.
“We don’t have to decide anything now,” he said. Let’s keep monitoring the home system and try to get an idea of how everyone’s going to react to this. We’ll talk more about it later. For right now, if anyone needs me I’ll be in my cabin.”
ΔΔΔ
As Monica and I left the day cabin I caught her eye and motioned her to follow me off the bridge.
She fell into step beside me and didn’t say anything until we entered the corridor elevator and the doors were safely closed.
“We need to talk to Felix,” I said.
“I agree,” she said immediately.
“If anyone knows what’s going on around here it will be him…”
“And it’s about time he stopped avoiding our questions and gave us some straight answers,” she finished for me.
We found him asleep in his cabin.
“Felix, get up,” Monica said into his door intercom.
“Huh?” Came a muffled response. “First? Is that you? What’s wrong?”
When the door opened we both slipped our way inside without waiting for permission. Felix seemed startled but not alarmed.
“What’s the emergency?” he asked.
“You’re going to give us some answers,” Monica stated. “You haven’t exactly been candid with us in the past and it’s time that changed.”
“Oh, is that all?” he said without curiosity. “Well, I’ll tell you anything I can.”
“Who is Consuelo?” Monica continued the interrogation.
Something in the back of my mind wanted to be perturbed that this was Monica’s first question but I didn’t dwell on it.
“I told you. She’s considered to be a leader in the Meri Acá. Why? Don’t you believe me?”
“You said that was the extent of the Captain’s interest in her,” Monica challenged.
Felix grinned. “No, I might’ve implied that but I never came out and said it. That’s obviously not true.”
“So what is true?” I demanded.
“Hmm, that’s a little more complicated.”
“Un-complicate it Felix. I’m serious,” Monica added.
Felix sighed.
“If you want to know the answer to that you have to go all the way back to when the Halcyon was first assigned to the frontier. I hadn’t even been posted here yet so some of this are just things I’ve learned.”
“Go on,” Monica prodded.
“Well, shortly after the Halcion had arrived on station the Captain decided to take a deep reconnaissance across the border. The problem was that the Halcyon was a new ship and no matter how many bugs you work out on a shakedown cruise there are still going to be things you don’t catch until you’re in-service. With the Halcyon it turned out to be a big thing.
“Anyway, when the ship was on the outbound leg of its deep probe it dropped out of skip. No matter what they did they couldn’t get the gravitational lens back online. They drifted for two weeks until a ship, La Familia Unida, came and found them.”
“You make it sound like they were searching for the Halcyon,” Monica said.
“Well, they didn’t just stumble upon her. Yeah, when a ship coasts for that long it’s obviously in trouble.”
“And they were able to monitor that?” I asked in surprise. “You mean they were monitoring all that dead area between skip points?”
“Something like that,” Felix said. “Anyway, that’s when the Captain first met Consuelo. She captains the La Familia Unida. They fixed the Halcyon’s gravitational lens and sent us on our way.”
“Wait a minute,” Monica said. “They were able to fix the gravitational lens when our own crew couldn’t? How can that be?”
“It turns out they’ve got pretty good engineers. Good sensors too,” he added.
“So when did Consuelo and the Captain get together?” I found myself asking.
“Oh, not for a number of years. I’d already been onboard for a while by then.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, that wasn’t exactly the only time that Consuelo came to the rescue. There were a few incidents where we needed… help. You really need to ask the Captain if you want any more details than that. All I know is we eventually started making regular rendezvous’ with the Unida. Mount Sinai and a few other ports have become familiar and welcoming to us.”
I was starting to see those patterns again…
“So Felix, is that where you got your Astrogation Cube from?”
Monica briefly gave me a questioning look but then turned her attention back to Felix as he answered…
“I hope you won’t pin me down on that. Can we just say that I wouldn’t call you a liar if you said so?”
“Felix,” I said sternly. “Just how much more advanced than us is the technology of the Meri Acá?”
“How much? I have no idea.”
“But they’re more advanced than we are?”
“Oh yes, definitely.”
Chapter thirty-two
ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY
Some Wisdom
It didn’t seem fair to be remembering so many deaths with just one wake but that was the hand that fate had dealt us.
The survivors of the Mount Sinai massacre had respectfully asked if they could participate; they wished to honor our sacrifice and our help.
This time I was able to participate; I was able to contribute some stories and remembrances of my own. Oddly enough this made the experience much more impactful for me. Now I got it; I understood the power of a wake.
“Are wakes a tradition with the Meri acá?” I asked Consuelo.
The Captain was presumably busy with his duties; he hadn’t put in an appearance yet. Consuelo had walked in with a Mount Sinai group and when I noticed her standing by herself I had approached her.
“There’s hardly one tradition with the Meri acá, but where I come from, yes we hold wakes.”
“And where do you come from?” I boldly asked.
She looked directly at me and said, “I was born on a planet called Assurance. Have you ever heard of it?”
I smiled. “I suspect you know that I haven’t. Is that even in the Empire?”
“No. Not even close,” she laughed.
We had finally left Icarus station and were now in skip headed back towards the frontier.
“I suspect you’ll be happy to get back to your people,” I filled the silence, not really knowing what else to say.
She looked thoughtful and then, as if she’d made a decision said, “I understand you’ve come quite a long way in a short period of time.”
I looked at her questioningly
“It sounds like you’ve got quite the story, not everyone survives the level of mental conditioning they put you through.”
“Well, I had some help getting through it,” I responded.
“It’s good to have friends, isn’t it?” There was something in her voice that made me look up into her eyes again. She made it seem more than a rhetorical question.
“I suppose so,” I said. “I haven’t had a lot of practice with it.”
“Do you mind if I share some wisdom with you? It was first taught to me by a very wise person.”
I nodded, “Of course.”
“True friendship only manifests itself over long periods of time. It involves acceptance, understanding, and a common history. All new friendships, on the other hand, start out because of mutual benefit.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said.
“Sometimes people get confused. Sometimes people think that if a relationship doesn’t start out totally candid and open then a friendship
isn’t possible.”
I gave a small laugh. “It seems to me that the more open people are the faster friendships could develop,” I said as I took a sip of my drink.
“There’s some truth to that,” she conceded. “But the real question is, are the mutual benefits of the relationship strong enough to keep the people together long enough to become true friends?”
My Friend the Emperor Page 28