My Friend the Emperor Read online

  “Don’t you know how connected he is?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Look,” she sighed. “If you really don’t get it you need to talk to some of your friends. Find somebody you’re close to and ask them to explain it to you.”

  “Are you offering?” I asked.

  “Heck no. I’m just trying to be a good Citizen.”

  “You’re not a Citizen yet, you’re a cadet. Just like me.”

  “No, I’m not anything like you,” she said shaking her head as she walked around me.

  The Academy wasn’t the most touchy-feely place. And I’d been the object of ice cold complements and contemptuous congratulations on many an occasion. But there was something about this conversation that stuck with me. It wasn’t the insult part of it, it was the part about talking to my friends. I didn’t have many friends. Actually, I didn’t have any friends.

  They say that good people make mistakes but don’t make the same mistake twice. Well, I seem to find myself making the same mistake, or at least very similar mistakes, over and over. I had an epiphany with that conversation. I realized that, once again, I was being naïve.

  I had thought I was long over my relationship with Valys but in truth, I had just shut it out and wasn’t letting anyone else in. I decided to make a change. I decided I needed to change.

  ΔΔΔ

  I didn’t rush out and find a new lover, but I did start taking a better interest in the people around me. It wasn’t easy. Most of them, I realized, were in the same place I’d been. They had their head up their butts and could only think about themselves, their marks, their rankings, and their success. Once I opened my eyes I was again able to understand the patterns of behavior around me for what they were. I once again was able to see the details of life.

  There was an echelon of bullies that ganged up on the naturally talented. It was great sport for them to take down a leader, and if one of them could humiliate someone ranking above them they acted like they were King of the Campus for a day. This type of thinking wasn’t restricted to academic or athletic competition; it included every aspect of our lives. Even social occasions were a competition and an opportunity to drag down someone of higher status.

  In short, they intimidated better students into letting them win; they used the pack mentality to throw their weight around. The result was that there were some real idiots graduating as top ranked students. I didn’t let myself dwell on the coincidence that those same arrogant assholes had connections, families wired-in to the top levels of the Empire.

  You would think that this would cause an open resentment amongst the other cadets – not so. Most cadets worshiped them and jockeyed for inclusion into their pack. Other cadets just kept their heads down and stayed well out of their way.

  The closest the cadet class ever came to unity, however, was when dumping on the underachieving bottom 10% – everyone could feel superior to them so just about everyone enjoyed dumping on them.

  My view of The Academy had certainly changed. No longer did I see it as a place of equality, patriotism, merit, and self-fulfillment. I now knew it as a contest of positioning, status, greed, and manipulation. I realized that many, if not most, of the top leaders held their status not because they were the best but because no one, except for a few idiots like me, ever dared to show them up.

  Strangely, it hadn’t affected my belief in the Empire. I still strongly believed that it was a force for good and could change the galaxy for the better. I still believed in our noble mission to others. I just had to get through this juvenile crucible first.

  I shouldn’t make it sound like everyone around me was beyond hope. Here and there I did meet people that were at least somewhat open to sharing. Somewhat open to helping others just for the heck of it – but they were few and far between.

  I didn’t know how badly I’d screwed up or if I could lie low enough for the ‘pack of elites’ to forget about me, but I now realized I needed to try. Now that I understood the game a little better I would start playing it a little better. I just needed to remember that it was a game, and do a good job of remembering who I was so I didn’t get sucked in to their way of thinking.

  It had taken me most of that second year to find myself again but I felt I was facing the world afresh.

  It took me somewhat more time to take another lover. I’d turned down several requests up until until then and it still didn’t feel quite right.

  Then one day, in the cafeteria, I set my tray down at an otherwise empty table across from a new first year cadet. I knew she was a first-year because she still had her hair and eyebrows. She also had the unmistakable look of using her self-confidence to compensate for nervousness. I knew that look well.

  I set down and she just looked at me.

  Eventually I said, “I’m from Lightspar. Where are you from?”

  ΔΔΔ

  My last two years at The Academy went much smoother.

  I managed to keep my grades in the top 20%, but out of the top 5%. This was the best way I could figure to still succeed without bucking the system and ruffling feathers.

  Jami and I got along well. I had given her the same speeches that Valys had given me, about how this was simply a necessity for both of us, about how we were just using each other to survive, and how it would only be temporary.

  I think she understood and accepted it well. Come to think of it, she was probably more comfortable with it than I was. I’m not really sure what that says about my emotional makeup but I’m not going to dwell on it.

  I refused to take her back to the standard student housing I still used, so we became very familiar with my sleeping bag and a secluded stretch of grass on the open grounds of the campus. There was many a summer evening when we laid side-by-side gazing at the stars overhead. Sometimes they were so bright they would actually reflect off of the media globe hovering nearby.

  I taught her the tricks of whisper and the thrill of secrets. I shared with her my ideas and what I wanted to accomplish within the Empire. I shared my ambitions and my goals. I found myself sharing something far more precious than my fears; I found myself sharing my dreams. I showed her the ropes of surviving and thriving at The Academy and she helped me to pretend that I was surrounded by people that actually cared about me.

  If I could somehow go back in time and freeze those last few months of life there, put them into a loop, and relive them over and over… How else should I remember what up until that point had been the happiest time of my life?

  I was mature enough even then to realize that it wasn’t just my relationship with Jami that made me feel so secure. It was everything. It was being accepted by her, it was piecing together how the world really works, and it was a confidence born in knowing that I was in control of my future.

  This set me up perfectly for when the next life lesson slammed me in the face; I learned the meaning of the expression, Blissfully Ignorant.

  Chapter five

  ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY

  Graduation

  Present Day

  The graduation ceremony was over and I’d already made my goodbyes with Jami the week before, so I found myself walking towards one of the local watering holes to give myself a well-deserved reward. The Deep Core Conditioning we were all required to go through had hit me especially hard. I’d been told to expect to be listless for a couple of days, but it had taken me almost a full week to feel myself again and recover from the nausea I hadn’t expected.

  A few beers and a few hours of reminiscing with a couple of fellow graduates, it’s just what the occasion called for.

  Since I hadn’t had any family to deal with or say goodbye to I was apparently one of the first to arrive at the pub. Only slightly busy, it wasn’t hard to find a table along the back wall. I placed my order and started wondering about what tomorrow would bring.

  First thing on the agenda was a visit to the Assignments Bureau building. I had received a message on my Smartpad telling me that my assi
gnment had come through and that I had 48 hours to check in.

  I was hoping it would be a decent assignment. I knew I’d have to work my way up through the ranks of one of the Civil Service Legions. But if I could somehow get lucky enough to start out in one of the newly discovered star systems, and if my scores were good enough or my pockets deep enough, I might just be able to skip the bottom rungs of the bureaucratic ladder and start out a few steps ahead. That kind of luck could shave several years off of a career path.

  Just then my reverie was interrupted by a loud commotion at the front door. A group of graduates was loudly entering the pub and heading for the bar.

  My first reaction was to smile along with the celebration, but then I recognized the group. I hadn’t seen Lewinsky and Lowell since my team bested theirs two years ago in the Planetary Economic Modeling Challenge. That had been a major grade and they’d barely been able to demonstrate the required good sportsmanship. This had happened after the Combat Simulation disaster and just before I’d gone through my revelations and understanding of who was who in the zoo, so to speak. It turns out that Lewinsky and Lowell were not to be messed with, at least not by anybody that had serious ambitions. It turns out that their families were very well connected.

  We hadn’t exactly left the contest as friends but I had done my best to give them deference and steer well clear of them ever since. It was probably ancient news for everyone concerned, I told myself.

  Normally, a situation like this wouldn’t make me nervous, but for the first time in four years I was technically off campus. Just across the street maybe, but off-campus just the same. That meant that there were no media globes hovering around. That meant that the code of conduct would not be enforced. That meant that I probably needed to watch my step.

  No problem. I’m just going to sit here, nurse my beer, and keep my head down. We’re all adults and as of about 30 minutes ago we were all ensigns in the Celcium Empire.

  What could go wrong?

  ΔΔΔ

  I didn’t make it over to the assignments Bureau the next morning. I didn’t make it anytime that next day, either.

  Fortunately, I was able to bribe one of the nurses at the campus hospital to call over and establish a Temporary Medical Authority over my orders to report.

  It had been the longest walk of my life to drag myself to the hospital. I’d waited two hours in the emergency room only then to be confronted by a massive amount of bureaucratic paperwork. My vision was too blurry to answer the on-screen questions so I had to wait for some uninterested staffer to interview me. When I’d been asked what had happened, I jokingly told him I had fallen down the stairs. He didn’t even bother to look surprised.

  It would be fair to say that I had underestimated the negative impressions I had left on some of my peers, and that I had overestimated how mellowing the effects of time should have been on those attitudes.

  Two broken ribs, a broken nose, and a dislocated pinky toe (don’t ask) were a painful reminder of this. I was only in the hospital for a few days, but by the time I was released my bunk had already been given over to another student. I spent that night in a lobby chair at the Assignments Building.

  ΔΔΔ

  “I don’t understand,” I said. (Over the last few years that seemed to have become my favorite thing to say when dealing with Academy bureaucrats).

  I had finally snagged a new appointment in the Assignments Bureau. I was anxious to get on with my new life, to leave all of this behind me. I didn’t think I’d be coming back for the class reunions.

  “It’s nothing difficult to understand,” the bureaucrat in front of me responded. “Your previous assignment was rescinded. Your new assignment just came in this morning. You should really be very pleased.”

  Well, at least that sounded like good news...

  “So you think I’ll like the assignment?” I asked.

  “Huh? I have no idea. But the new assignment just came in this morning and normally it would take a full week to get you an appointment. You should be very grateful that we got you in today.”

  After a few more minutes of him silently playing with his screen I finally said, “So what is the assignment?”

  “Well, I’ll admit this is rather odd. But you’ve been reassigned to a different Legion. You’ll now be reporting to the 133rd. You have 48 hours to check in.”

  Alarm bells were going off in my head but I couldn’t place the 133rd.

  “Excuse me, but what exactly does the 133rd do?”

  “What? You can’t expect me to keep up on every legion in the Empire. Once you check in I suspect you’ll find out all about it. All I know is that it’s a military legion.”

  I was stunned. (Over the last few years that seemed to have become my favorite way to feel when dealing with Academy bureaucrats).

  “Look, there’s got to be some mistake. I submitted my career path six months ago. I’m a legacy! I’m supposed to be in civil service.”

  “Not according to this,” he said with a smirk.

  “I don’t understand,” I found myself saying again. “How could this happen?”

  “Well,” he responded. “It’s not so unusual. My guess is that it’s either a computer glitch or you really pissed someone off.”

  His smirk had changed to a grin.

  “Okay, I get it. I guess I messed up somewhere along the line. How much is it going to cost me to correct this computer glitch?”

  Now I had his attention and he leaned back in his chair.

  After studying me for a few moments he said, “If your family isn’t powerful enough to of scared off the people that did this to you then you don’t have enough money to correct it...”

  After a moment he continued, “Do you?”

  After taking a moment to absorb what he just said I responded, “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

  A brief look crossed his face and a sigh escaped his lips, no doubt lamenting the small fortune he had just missed out on.

  “Then take your assignment and get out of here,” he said. “I’ve got more people to talk to.”

  Apparently, so did I.

  Chapter six

  ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY

  A Secret Assignment

  The subdermal chip embedded in my arm contains more than just identification. It also held my personal records, medical records, assignment information, security clearance, and any standing or temporary duty orders. It also contained a mandatory ten-year unisex contraceptive.

  I had been able to snag a ride up to Zeus on a large transport shuttle. At least that part had been easy. Zeus was one of the largest orbital platforms in the Empire, and the traffic back and forth was constant.

  The ascent into orbit was smooth and quick. It actually took much longer to wait in our holding pattern for a docking assignment. Then, of course, the docking procedure was slow and deliberate.

  It had given me plenty of time to think over my situation. Apparently, I had once again screwed up, but this was one of the all-time biggies. If Valys could see me now she’d be either totally disgusted or laughing her rear end off.

  Of course, I had tried again to correct things before I’d left the planet. I’d gone back to the Assignments Bureau later that afternoon, met with a different staff member, and pleaded my case. It’d cost me 300 denars to get the appointment, only to be told in the first 30 seconds that she couldn’t help me.

  I found myself standing in front of a kiosk-like map, the jostling of the crowd made it difficult to keep the weight off my bad toe. I spotted my destination and made my way there. I wasn’t done yet.

  ΔΔΔ

  500 denars later I was no better off.

  The orbital office of the Assignment Bureau had gratefully taken my money and then promptly refused my request for an appointment.

  I’m a stubborn person; I don’t give up easily… but I was running out of options.

  I luckily found an empty lobby chair and set down to take stock of my situation. I remember
ed what they had taught us at The Academy; don’t get bogged down in the tactical when strategic thinking is what is needed.

  Okay then, so what were my resources?

  1) I was of sound mind and body (or I would be as soon as I healed up).

  2) I was ambitious, dedicated and well trained with an emphasis on civil service. I should be an asset to one of those legions.

  On the other hand I had no family connections, no real friends, no favors to call in and a dwindling account balance.