The office was plain and unassuming with little in the way of ostentatious display other than a few hardbound books, either originals from Old Terra or expensive copies made to look, feel and smell as close to the originals as modern science would allow. A small wooden desk, more of a table with a couple of drawers, and a pair of small, unpadded wooden chairs were the only furnishings other than bookcases. The lighting was indirect, except for the desk surface itself which was lit by one table lamp. A small personal computer sat upon the desk and Jon knew that, at need, that computer could control larger full-wall displays that and a holotank that would unveil from behind the simple bookcases if the need arose.
The simple room was spartan because its occupant preferred his spaces uncluttered. If anyone else in the Empire had a public life so cluttered and messy, Jon had never met them. Spartan spaces were some form of karmic counterbalance, Jon supposed. For the most powerful man in an empire spanning over two hundred worlds and a further sixty or so dependencies, protectorates, and territories, Alexander Konstantin Suvorov sought order and discipline from a universe that generally dealt him and the citizens of his Empire nothing of the sort.
Other men would have used the title "Your Imperial Highness" when addressing Alexander Konstantin Suvarov, Grand Emperor, Grand Marshal of the Army, Grand Admiral of the Fleet, Protector of the Church, Guardian of the People, Grand Duke of Novy Moskva, etc, etc. Some people might not survive the discourtesy of failing to use the proper honorifics in addressing Alexander Suvorov. But Jon de Castellano was a member of a very small circle of those who ran only a minimal risk in doing so.
Every Empire had men like Jon de Castellano. They had to. Empires spanning light years and star systems, incorporating multiple planetary systems, diverse political and religious groups, and generally too big to be administered in real-time by even the most heavily computer-augmented, expert-aided polymath required men like Jon.
In Imperial systems, an Emperor needs to have a body of men trusted to do what he would do without the need of him being in every place those sorts of things might need done. These important vassals and their vassals collectively confer upon the Emperor the capability for one powerful, capable man to manage a far-flung and often factious Empire. Those men got to take a fair few liberties with Alexander Suvarov.
The even smaller body of men such as Jon de Castellano got to take even greater liberties. Jon de Castellano was what some would, not without some savoury irony, call a Troubleshooter. The less courteous (or perhaps the more rash) would assert this is because the solution to all problems involved shooting someone.
Of course, what such daring and impudent pundits would never understand was that doing the job well involved considerably more than indiscriminately shooting people. You had to know who needed shot. Who you could shoot. Who you could not shoot at this point in time. And at what particular time shooting was the appropriate evolution to execute. The devil was always in the details and if you got any of these sorts of things wrong, it tended to result in disasters on a large enough scale to merit Imperial Attention.
This was why Jon de Castellano and a few other Imperial Agents were allowed a great latitude by Alexander Suvrov - these men were very well-trained and very skilled at figuring out who to shoot, who not to shoot (yet), and when to have the appropriate people shot (along with a host of other actions designed to generate the outcomes the Empire needed).
These were the men that Alexander Suvarov sent as auditors, investigators, and as inspectors general and sometimes as covert agents to poke their noses into places, find and identify problems, and bring to bear whatever solutions were required to keep the wheels of the Empire turning.
It didn't matter to the bearers of the Imperial Warrant whether they were sent to investigate the most mundane blue-collar worker or the Imperial Governor of a Sector. Once one or more of these Agents got their fingers dirty with a problem, that problem was going to achieve resolution.
The imbeciles of the Imperial Court seemed to have watched one too many holocasts and were of the 'informed' opinion that Imperial Agents only ever resolved problems with bloody dispatch. The reality was that many of their operations were quiet and involved a minimum of bloodshed.
Most of the time, you could get the job done with simple collection and presentation of incriminating data and a few 'suggestions' to key players about how they should best save themselves from the most dire outcomes. Sometimes it was necessary to take very fast action with terminal consequences, but those were usually considered the less successful missions insofar as they were never clean and were always more public than anyone preferred. More public than Alexander Konstantin Suvorov preferred at any rate and that was all that mattered.
Jon contemplated Alexander Konstantin as he sat in his high-backed wooden chair, with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. You might think the Emperor was sleeping, except Jon knew better. He new that his employer was gathering his thoughts and organizing them.
Shortly, his head would come down, his eyes snap open, and the grilling would begin.
"So.... you're back. I take it this means you have completed the investigation I assigned to you?" The Emperor, a man of average height, average feature and gifted with a piercing intelligence that was reflected in his dark eyes, spoke clearly in the otherwise silent room.
"Yes. You tasked me with finding out why your third child, Tabitha, a very junior and newly-minted lieutenant, was sent of to the Charon Rift, despite having scored well by any metric in her time at the Imperial Naval Academy on Novy Moskva. I have the answers you seek, but I am certain they will not be answers you will want to hear." Jon stared levelly back into the dark, hard eyes of the Empire's chief executive.
Alexander's lips creased at the corners, a small forced smile with no warmth in it. "When you bring me a report that I want to hear, I will probably have to fire you as it will not contain any of the truths I need to hear and employ you at great expense to ascertain." The threat of conjectural firing they carried was merely an artifact of how Alexander conveyed himself. Mostly.
"Well, you have been warned. In order to investigate this, I pulled her records from the Academy, spoke with several of her instructors, and spoke with a few of her classmates. Initial data was certainly intriguing. Did you know that the top 8 students, your daughter included, who graduated from the Academy this year were relegated to the Charon Rift?" Jon paused briefly and the Emperor gave a small shake of his head to indicate he had not been aware of this detail.
"This left a number of lower-ranked students getting the positions that are usually considered plum junior lieutenant appointments - battleships, cruisers, and other major fleet elements or postings to DefCom or StratCol. That in itself was interesting. What was even more curious was seeing that the daughter of Admiral Von Bulow, the Academy Commandant, was the 9th ranked student and obtained the most plum of those positions." Jon left a moment for that to sink in.
"Please continue." The Emperor sat quietly, listening with most of his attention. That was really all you could ever expect from a man with that many irons in various fires.
"The Charon Rift, as you know, is a backwater sector of our little slice of the cosmos. Not much to recommend it as far as main trade routes, significant resources, or worthwhile population or technology centers. An aging backwater with broken dreams and a variety of troubles, but nothing generally important enough to reach the attention of anyone even at Rimward Command, let alone at DefCom here in the capital."
"The Charon Rift is usually the sort of place where new graduates in the bottom quartile might be assigned to serve a first term hoping to either give them a bit of a challenge to which they might rise or find out if their potential really is limited to backwater garrison and patrol duties. Hardly the sort of place you'd sent your top eight students under normal circumstances."
The Emperor's right eyebrow arched slightly at this observation.
"With some increased episodes of unrest of late and with a Naval and Diplomatic bureaucracy filled with third-stringers, sycophants, idiots, and borderline incompetents, the Charon Rift is not the sort of place anyone with half a clue would send the seventh in line of succession to the Imperial Throne." Jon's tone had taken on a slightly scathing tone with this section of the report. There was much in the Charon Rift that was deserving of such condemnation.
The Emperor interrupted when Jon paused. "And now that you've nicely recapped the background to the initial mission brief, why don't you cut to the why and who?"
Alexander knew as well as anyone how unimportant and backwater the Charon Rift was. He might not know about the particulars of the people assigned there by the Navy and the civilian bureaucracy of the Empire, but he knew the sort of people who would be sent to such places. The Charon Rift would be a place for exiling the undesirables or the problem cases. The only competent people who would end up there would be those who'd offended someone with political clout and were thus relegated to the fringes of the Empire or those who were unwilling to kiss the appropriate rings, hands, and asses.
All of this, Alexander knew before he sent Jon to 'look into the matter'. What he didn't know and wanted to know was who sent his daughter there and why.
Jon shifted slightly in his chair, sitting a bit straighter at the implied rebuke for recapping the well-known. "I learned quite a few things that weren't in the original brief. For instance, I learned that your daughter Tabitha continues to prove that she is a Suvorov all the way through, despite attending the Academy under the pseudonym Tanya Chesterton."
Jon paused, noting Alexander's eyebrow arching again, and then continued. "She seems to have the Suvorov gifts: Brilliance, acute perception, integrity, fearlessness, the inspiration of intense loyalties from those around her, and the ability to piss-off beyond all reason or common sense those who pride themselves on positions of eminence and power. Suvorov all the way to the bone."
The only reply from the other side of the table was a low, quiet chuckle. "You have discovered why my daughter and I get along so well." A deeper chuckle.
Around the Palace, the fights between Alexander and his daughter were a topic no sane denizen of the Palace would mention, but every last one knew of. Jon had heard unguarded comments from time to time indicating surprise that Tabitha had been permitted to grow to adulthood without being drowned, throttled or shot... or perhaps all three.
Taking a tone of mild reproof, Jon continued his report. "Those who know the yourself and your daughter understand that your similarities cause your calamitous interactions, not your differences. She is the one of your children most close to you in character and disposition."
Alexander nodded again, conceding the point.
"Tabitha is wilfull, has a sharp wit, is possessed of a judgement of people and circumstances that is formidable for her age, and has ideas of the 'right' way for things in the universe to work which are held closely and ferociously. She also holds her friends as tightly as a shipyard tractor field and protects them like an Class One shield generator. If those traits seem unfamiliar, I think you may want to spend the occasional moment looking in a mirror, milord."
Jon took a small sip of water from the glass he had secured upon entering the room.
"I would, but I tend to gawk at and bask in my own magnificence for protracted periods. And God knows what the Senate would get up to if left without adult supervision for that long...." Alexander's reply was dry, but he tacitly acknowledged the truth of Jon's contentions. "And just how did you get such a well-developed appreciation of my daughter's character?"
"In investigating the unprecedented postings, I discovered the orders originated from Admiral Lorgan Cherenkov over at the DefCom's Office of Personel Resources. A little more digging revealed that Cherenkov was an old classmate and cricket teammate of Admiral Von Bulow. A little more judicious pressure and some highly illegal snooping in allegedly secure communications archives at DefCom reveal that Von Bulow asked Chrenenkov to personally see to it that the top eight students were given a 'challenging' assignment in 'the farthest, most distant, and least advanced' sector of our empire." Jon didn't realize it, but his face had already slipped into a disapproving frown unconciously. He never liked cronyism.
Alexander's expression mirrored his own as the Emperor had little time for such behaviour even when it served his ends.
Jon continued, his frown remaining. "So, that explained the who. Cherenkov at the behest of Von Bulow. But what would motivate the Commandant of our Academy to be so vindictive against his eight best students?"
"Yes. It would be good to know 'why' before I decide exactly how hard to drop the hammer the responsible 'who'." The Emperor's eyes were cold and it was clear he was already contemplating varying options for how to deal with the situation.
Jon knew that some part of the Emperor wanted to just order Jon to execute the guilty. However, Alexander Suvorov was not the sort of man to give in to his own whims without first making sure they were aligned with the interests and values of his Empire. And fortunately, vindictive executions were not. Very luckily for Cherenkov and Von Bulow.
"It was a bit of a challenge. I did manage to talk to a few of Tabitha's professors, including one who quitely told me a very interesting story which didn't include Tabitha's pseudonym but had her signature figuratively all over it. He obviously didn't want to make the connection without evidence in hand to back up the claim. When I saw the way the story was unfolding, it fit pretty well with what a younger, more hotheaded version of your Imperial Majesty himself might have done in a similar situation."
This small dig went uncommented, except for getting Jon the arched eyebrow this time accompanied by the stink-eye.
"And then I went to talk to one of the eight relegated to our Imperial backwoods. Number eight, as a mattter of fact. He'd caught a dose of the Guangzhou Influenza and had failed the pre-flight medical on a medical downcheck. He was in holding quarantine and waiting for the all clear to fly out and join his classmates in the bumbling mess we call the Charon Rift."
"The odd thing that struck me immediately upon meeting Lieutenant Junior Grade Yuri Timovich Capilano was that he was actually considerably put out by the delay in getting to somewhere Rimward of East Bumfuck Nowhere. That was not the reaction I would have expected."
"But that wasn't the last surprise I was dealt by Lt. JG Capilano. When I mentioned I was investigating a situation involving Lt. JG Chesterton, he asked who I was, I showed him some Naval Investigative Service ID with the rank of Commander - enough rank that it should have given him a distinct urge to cooperate. Instead, he basically told me to go piss up a thruster jet and get vaporized. He then told me to do my worst, but come supernovas or the heat death of the universe, he wouldn't be contributing to any investigation of Lt. JG Chesterton."
The Emperor once again had an eyebrow cocked, this time in moderate perplexity.
"I had the same reaction. At least, after I fought down my initial reaction to kick this Lieutenant Junior Grade's ass around the room. I patiently explained to the intransigent Lt. JG that my investigation was not of Lt. JG Chesterton but of situations she may have been involved in at the Academy and subsequently and that they were inquiries into possible misconduct of other service members rather than of Lt. JG Chesterton."
Jon's frown had returned when he was thinking about having to explain such things to a newly minted Lt. JG.
"I then concluded by hauling out the Fear of God and the Emperor, Grade A version. I'm good enough at that now that my explanation plus my barely reigned in wrath convinced him to alter his tone a bit and cooperate."
"It turns out one of the reasons he was so defensive of Tabitha is that she was, in his eyes, the reason he'd graduated eighth in his class. In fact, he credited her for being the reason he'd graduated at all and pretty much indicated if he hadn't, he'd probably have come to a bad and presumably self-inflicted end."
"Apparently, your daughter recognized that Yuri Capilano was a good kid who had a very questionable head for the mathematics of ballistics and who had had some exceedingly poor academic preparation having coming from the middle classes of Longshadow. She recognized that he had some good leadership instincts and that he didn't have an ego so big he couldn't accept help. Consequently, she spent a lot of time tutoring him and getting his ballistics, mathematics, physics, conventional and hyper-navigation up to at least a passable level. That, plus his actual talents in leadership, marksmanship, military history, and military law & ethics, got him eighth place in the graduating class of 150.... or at least it did after the incident."
Alexander seemed to have been sucked into this narrative, seeing a side of his daughter he may not have seen before. If he hadn't been, his apparent continuing interest would have instead been brewing impatience for the final, bottom-line result.
"Your daughter inspired a fierce dedication in Lt. JG Capliano. Apparently also in the other six newly-minted officers who graduated at the top of the class with her and who were assigned with her to the Charon Drift. This explains why the eight of them were all sent out there - they represented a body united in principle against a principle and perhaps, indirectly, a principal."
Alexander winced and the stink-eye was back. Jon was professional enough that the corners of his mouth only twitched towards a smile once before resuming their normal neutral expression.
"Once Yuri felt a little bit more talkative, he explained to me how one of Tabitha's conditions had been that she would help him improve his grades if he promised never to cheat on an exam. She apparently concluded it might be tempting for him, given his struggles, but she made it clear her help had that condition. He indicated the other six also assigned to the Drift shared in this policy - they would rather come in the bottom of the class than resort to dishonesty."
"And that, in a sense, is why Tabitha got sent to The Charon Drift."
Alexander's voice was acerbic. "Well, I'm glad that's all cleared up now." Pause. "Are you going to explain that before or after I start playing Smoke on the Water with your still warm intestines?"
Jon made a pretense of thinking, but only a short one. "Before. Definitely before. I've heard you play your guitar. I am fairly certain its use violates several multi-system conventions on crimes against music."
More seriously, Jon continued. "It seems that some of our Academy Cadets were riding on the shoulders of prior generations. Some of the exams were fairly similar from year to year, sometimes with identical questions. A database of past questions was circulating for many of the final exam subjects. Some of the students chose to avail themselves of this added 'tactical advantage'."
"In some cases, the students were supplementing their existing knowledge with extra available questions and answers. In other cases, most notably those of a number of the rich and well-to-do students, having this database meant they could take their study week off to go for a floater-ski weekend in Cuba Libre Archipelago's expensive resorts."
Jon's frown had reappeared. He disliked laziness and selfish self-indulgence with approximately the same level of distaste as he reserved for cronyism. It was convenient for him that the sorts of people who would engage in one of those behaviours would often engage in the others, thus saving him having to keep track of two seperate lists of offenders.
"While your daughter and a number of honest and hard working students busted their butts, a bunch of the lazier students including one Marissa Von Bulow, went off to get a tan and party on the beach."
Alexander said nothing, sipping at some water from a glass. He waited for Jon to continue.
"This is where your daughter's competence and diplomacy come into play. It appears Tabitha could not abide laziness and dishonesty. But she knew that if she reported this to the Commandant of the Academy, it would all get covered up. Commandant Von Bulow wasn't about to let his precious snowflake Marissa crash and burn. So, Tabitha went at the problem from the flank."
"She sent a rather oblique and anonymous letter to the only professor she trusted, one Captain Hugh MacDougal, Imperial Navy - the professor of military law, ethics, and military history at the Academy. She suggested that a database of prior exam questions might be circulating among some unnamed students and that it might be prudent to consider steps to preserve the integrity of the testing regime."
"Captain MacDougal, it seems, was aware of such a rumour but had no evidence. But he did have the control of what questions went on the two exams he was administering the next day. He was pretty canny himself - he left 50% the exam's content as the older questions. Another 10% of the questions he left the same except for changing a few minute particulars, enough to notably change the solutions. These were honeypot questions designed to illuminate the guilty parties. The remaining 40% of the exam was new questions, never before seen."
"Needless to say, when the exams were administered, the results were interesting. I talked to Captain MacDougal. He was circumspect, but he indicated he strongly suspected from the test results which students had seen the bootleg database. The honeypot questions often identified the guilty, although not strongly enough for overt action. Changing a fair portion of the test questions did help to separate those who memorized from those who understood the material, separating those 'comming it in' from those actually studying."
"Captain MacDougal waited until the last minute to submit his marks for coallation, knowing this would give the Commandant no time to interfere, even had he a mind to. This one set of exams meant that Marissa Von Bulow, who should have graduated at the top of the class, was relegated to 9th standing in the year. Similarly, many of her cronies from wealthy and influential backgrounds dropped several places, some as many as twenty places. And nothing could be done about it, thanks to Captain MacDougal's late submission approach."
The Emperor allowed himself a small smile at this part of the story. He was not a fan of those who tried to coast through based on the advantages of birth and by availing themselves of the illicit advantages money could procure.
"On the other hand, those who had suffered thought they knew who to blame. And Admiral Von Bulow was apprently wrathful when he found out about his daughter's position in the graduating class was not what had been expected."
"And so we have the 'who' in Admirals Cherenkov and Von Bulow. We have the 'why' in the form of Von Bulow's precious snowflake Marissa and a bunch of her rich and influential cronies being deservedly raked over the coals for putting in a half-assed effort and Von Bulow convincing Cherenkov to help him get some measure of payback against Tabitha. Your daughter didn't let misconduct stand - she stood against it in her own actions, encouraged those around her to avoid the easy road to damnation, and then fought a short and effective guerilla action against the misconduct."
"And for that, she and the four cadets whom she helped graduate above her and the three she pulled up to ranks immediatly below her, got The Charon Drift."
Done his mission report, Jon sat quietly. Alexander sat quietly, lost momentarily in thought. Jon thought he was weighing his options.
After several moments, Alexander spoke. "There's a political cost to everything. Von Bulow and Cherenkov are connected to the families of every rich or influential Naval Officer for the past five generations. If I go after them, even if it is justified, I'll have pissed-off a bunch of people that can make many other important things more difficult politically."
Alexander Suvorov looked like he had swallowed a very potent lemon.
"Tabitha won her fight. She picked her people and got them through and her enemies came off the worse. Going after Von Bulow and Cherenkov and all the young idiots that thought cheating was just fine in MY Navy would really feel good, but in the long run the cost would be more than the return." Suvorov sighed, looking a bit weary of politics.
Weary like unto one who must constantly fight the urge to have the people he knows deserve to be lined up against a wall not lined up against that wall.
"I want you to go out to the Charon Rift, take a look at the wreckage that I suspect is Sector Command in the Drift. Try to straighten it out - round off some of the sharpest corners, clean out some of the worst festering sores - and make sure that the seventh in direct line to the Imperial Throne isn't stuck on some less-than-airtight parts barge." The Emperor let the last sentence carry some of otherwise well-contained anger.
"I'm sure Cherenkov didn't know who Tabitha really was and I don't want him catching wind, but if she's reassigned within the Sector, he'll get as little information back from Sector Command as I do every time I ask for an Intelligence Appreciation." Alexander frowned again at that thought, perturbed by that situation as well.
"And start building a file on Cherenkov and the Von Bulows, both the younger twit and the older jackass. It might not make sense to move against them now, but I'm not in the mood to forget this and if anything happens to my daughter out there, there will be one almighty reckoning for these bastards."
There was no doubt that a long, careful operation to exact some justice and a goodly dose of vengeance had just been declared by His Imperial Majesty, Alexander Konstantin Suvarov.
Jon de Castellano would see it done because it was his job, his duty, and the most tangible way he could support one of his oldest friends.
On his way out of the small, unassuming office, once again grown very quiet and with lights dimmed, Jon paused.
"Sir, you know she graduated fifth in her class."
"I knew that. I read the results."
"I understand you told her not to be noticed if she wanted to have a career in the Navy under her pseudonym."
"I may have said something to that effect. Your point?"
"If she'd been the top cadet or even in the top 3, she'd be celebrated, feted, and photographed endlessly, offered standing and various awards and plaques. She knew that. She also knew that the 4th student would get some attention as a 'near miss'. 5th, on the other hand, pretty much doesn't exist."
"Are you saying she planned to be fifth?"
"I reviewed her assignments. She actually left segments of her assignments and exams blank. She did not make intentional errors; I don't think she could convince herself to perform beneath her abilities and show dishonestly even to preserve her nom de guerre. Instead, she left blank sections of the work, blaming a slow working pace. The work she did do was almost uniformly correct. If she'd done the remaining part, which I believe she voluntarily left incomplete, she'd have been the top cadet, hands down. I just thought you should know." Jon turned to leave.
As he opened the door, a quiet "Thank you" followed him out on the first steps of his trip to Charon Drift Sector Command.
© 2009, Lux Mentis, all rights reserved.
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