Empty Space

by Alan Black

  York gritted his teeth to keep from responding. Either rules violation would get him into serious trouble. Both could mean his expulsion from the Yards. He was determined not to speak unless given the permission or ordered to do so. It would be her doing and the doing of the police who lied on their reports if she was going to expel him based on lies. He wouldn’t publicly violate the rules he had sworn to obey. He hadn’t done so before and he wouldn’t now.

  The commandant grabbed the corners of her dataport video and raised it to his eye level. “Do not answer me, Cadet-Colonel, unless you can identify the individuals in this surveillance recording.”

  York almost sighed with relief. He was finally going to get to tell his side of the story. He would have to tell her about Balderano and his friends since it would be an order.

  He stared at the screen. His face lost its blankness as he stared open mouthed at the images flashing before him. No longer were there blurry ghost figures dancing, drinking and playing cards with him. There was an odd conglomeration of people he would only be able to guess were prostitutes, drug dealers, budgers and hood rats. He’d been ordered to speak only if he could identify anyone. He couldn’t remember ever seeing any of these people.

  His mouth snapped shut as he reapplied the rigid mask to his face and stared at the blank spot on the wall. The policewoman was right, he was screwed.

  THREE

  The commandant snapped off the video. “York Sixteen, you’re screwed. I don’t mind that as much as it makes me angry that you screwed me in the process, thank you very much.”

  York’s position at attention almost wavered. She hadn’t called him Cadet-Colonel or even Cadet. She called him simply York Sixteen without any military title. To have his years of training so easily stripped away was harsh and callous. He wouldn’t have been as devastated if the failure had been his, yet his current troubles were based on an avalanche of lies.

  His cadet-major year had been challenging, even after his promotion to cadet-colonel at the top of the class. Working in the cafeteria, studying hard, exercising in the gym, and all of the extra hours in the flight simulator had left him little time for socializing. It didn’t help that all the other charity cases in his class had long since flunked out. He was left alone to work toward the top spot as the singular graduating cadet-colonel. Those charity cases hadn’t been friends or companions, but they had provided a valuable service to him as a physical buffer between him and the rich cadets.

  York chided himself, still not speaking aloud, “No. This whole mess is my fault for trusting people who spent years torturing me. I should’ve been more skeptical, I should’ve known better than to let my guard slip and go to Balderano’s party.” His eyes watered and he commanded the tears to stop. They did. He did exactly what his training taught him, hold at attention until relieved.

  Pointing at the data pad screen, the commandant said, “That is some crappy digital enhancement on this video. It won’t even hold up under my cheap software review. It’s obvious this surveillance recording has been tampered with. Still, if I push it beyond this room, by the time we get to any competent military court, this recording will be immaculate and proven to be genuine by experts. At ease, Cadet-Colonel Sixteen.” He was shocked. He’d never stood at ease in her presence. It just wasn’t done.

  York instantly snapped into an at ease posture. He held his arms in rigid confinement behind his back, his feet spread exactly one and a half feet apart, splayed at a precise 45 degree angle. His eyes never left the blank spot on the wall.

  The commandant stood up. She broke his vision with a wave of her hand. She directed his vision using a finely chiseled finger pointing from his eyes to hers.

  York was amazed. She’d always appeared to be a giant to him, a larger than life presence. In reality, she was a foot shorter than he was. She was almost twice his age, nevertheless still pleasant to look at, although not actually pretty. Her stern face was relaxed and sad.

  “Cadet-Colonel Sixteen, you’ve acted foolishly. I don’t want to know who did this to you. If I knew, I’d have to do something about it, so keep your mouth closed.”

  York decided there was more benefit to not speaking than there ever would be to running off at the mouth.

  The commandant continued, “I do have family connections who might protect me personally if I intervened against whomever did this to you. My mother is the leader of the loyal opposition in the legislature. My father is an admiral of twenty years at the highest levels of the Rock. But, I’d rather not put them through the hassle. So, what do I do with you?” She looked at York with a practiced eye, studying him for imperfections, seeking the most minor of offenses, an unbuttoned button, an unzipped zipper, or a wrinkle where none should exist, glaring at him, defying any defect to exist.

  York was glad the commander was face-to-face with him. The sweat sliding down the back of his neck was definitely non-regulation. So was the bright red heat he could feel starting to spread from the tips of his ears. He stood still. This wasn’t his first inspection by the commander, yet somehow this one felt personal.

  The commandant spoke quietly, almost in a conspiratorial hush. “All right then, Cadet-Colonel Sixteen. I have already received more communications about you than I received greetings on my last birthday. And yes, despite the popular talk around the Yards, I was born, not issued in a full dress uniform. How most of these people communicating with me even know of your screw up so quickly is beyond me! I’ve no authority to even ask said question of these people: generals, senators, admirals, captains of commerce and the like. Do you know what they all tell me? And I mean all, even a message from my mother says essentially the same thing.”

  York said, “Sir, I’ve come to expect and believe they would all say ‘let the budger hang’, with all due respect to your mother.”

  The commandant nodded. “Their language is a bit more politically correct, but the essence is the same. However, I’m not inclined to hang a cadet based on one mistake, no matter how stupid, whether he’s a budger or not.” She glared at him. “You have a tell there, Cadet-Colonel. I don’t know how you could win this much at poker with such a face. Your left eyelid dips slightly when you’re angry or upset. Never mind, I can see you didn’t like my use of the word ‘budger’. I don’t care for it much myself, but you just remember you started it.”

  York was shocked. He’d thought his poker face was stone cold and unmovable. Still, he had to admit, if to no one except himself, he didn’t like being called a budger. Still, she hadn’t asked a direct question, so he mentally filed away the information about the facial tick as something he had to work on.

  The commandant continued. “You wouldn’t know this, but this was my last year at the Yards.” She sighed and sat down. “Sit, Cadet-Colonel Sixteen.”

  York sat at attention.

  The commandant sighed again. “At ease, Cadet-Colonel Sixteen.”

  York sat at ease, still unable to relax. He sat on the edge of the seat, sinking farther into the cushions than he liked, managing to keep his back straight and stiff despite the desires of the chair drawing him in, wrapping him comfortably in its warm embrace. He realized the chair was warm, as if heated to his body temperature. It must be a specialized chair police used to relax a suspect, making them so comfortable they would start blabbing about something they shouldn’t say. He was determined not to let any information slip without direct orders to do so.

  “Damn it, Sixteen. Why couldn’t you get yourself screwed yesterday or even tomorrow? Was one more day too much to ask?”

  York held his tongue.

  “I mean, yesterday I could’ve just kicked you out of the Yards and sent you back to whatever hellhole you came from. Today I can’t, because as of midnight, you were posted as having graduated. Tomorrow you would’ve been someone else’s problem. Your class’s graduation ceremony is my last duty at the Yards. My personal goods have already been shipped to a small retirement bungalow on Charmingham Beach in the back
reaches of the Tanglefoot Sea.”

  She reached across and tapped his Cadet-Colonel insignia with a stiff finger. “I can’t even remove your rank, although it is only good until the end of your graduation ceremony at 09:00 this morning, a ceremony you will not be attending.”

  Normally, the top student at the academy addresses the graduating class during their ceremony. This year, the powers that be asked York to step aside. Senate Majority Leader Blade Balderano Senior expressed his desire to address the class because Blade Balderano Junior was graduating with York. Even though Balderano was graduating fourth, the change in speaker was due more to Senior’s political connections and Junior’s ability to network than his skills in the classroom or pilot cockpit.

  York had diligently worked on his speech for weeks, however he gladly allowed it to slip from his mind, letting his notes shred to dust down the trash chute. Today’s invitation to Balderano’s off-Yards apartment for a pre-graduation party more than made up for the opportunity to address his class. Not giving his prepared speech as written was probably for the best as he’d planned to tell them exactly what he thought of them and their years of torment and abuse. That speech was best left in the dust.

  The commandant pointed at the obviously tampered recording of Balderano’s party. “I don’t know which moron changed these police records, but your personnel database is in military hands and I can guarantee they are a lot more tamperproof than the system these idiots have around here.” She shook her head, “Dammit, I could still be attending my own retirement party if you’d had the brains to graduate near the bottom of your class. You’re smart, Sixteen, but not smart enough to know when it would benefit everyone for you to lose a little every now and then. You handed a hatful of ass to a hatful of asshats who have rich and important asshats for parents. Everyone expected a budger to graduate at the Yards eventually, but no one, and that includes me, expected you to graduate at the top of your class.”

  She sighed and shook her head, knowing York wouldn’t speak until directed to. “I should’ve done something when I saw where you were headed. But, watching you beat out those socially conscious, inbred, junior-sized cretins was so much fun. Now what do I do?” The commander shuffled through a few data screens. “The one redeeming value of this present military structure is it manages to kill off a goodly number of our upper social strata.”

  “Pardon me, sir?” York couldn’t help but blurt.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m one of the social elite, but I’m not blind or stupid. We pretend we’re promoting the very best, yet all we’re doing is sending the best of our social strata off to the military to get killed, using a front line fighter posting as an incentive for being the best. Yes, I know a fighter posting is what you wanted. It’s a death sentence, you fool. The Republic uses it to thin the ranks of our growing upper class. It kills off a few of the smart and ambitious, and so many of them are second and third sons. Strangely though, this system also allows the cowards to prevail and continue to flourish in our society. Cowards and fools who promote more of their kind. We would be better served if we gave the bottom of the class those supposedly choice positions. Come on! Think, Cadet-Colonel! Why is promotion so quick in fighter squadrons?”

  York blurted out the textbook answer, “Because the cream rises to the top.”

  The commandant made a rude noise. “Promotion is fast because pilots die at an alarming rate. Only the lucky or cowardly survive to be promoted, especially since the stupid and cowardly already command them. Cooks? Yeah, being an assistant cook is the position to choose. Who deliberately targets cooks in a time of war?”

  She waved his response off, both of them knowing the old Napoleon Bonaparte quote about an army travelling on its stomach. “That was a rhetorical question. Furthermore, I’m a product of this system, but I’ve seen enough of it that I’ve had enough of it. I’ve been to too many military funerals for good men and women to give a rat’s ass who they send off to die in whatever currently popular war might be flaring up. Hell, this isn’t personal. I’d send you there to die and sleep soundly tonight, but those idiots in charge don’t want you to have the honor of dying in a glorious manner for their benefit. They just want you to go away, whether dying is a part of it or not. I can’t do what all of those high ranking mucky-mucks want me to do, and that is to expel you, bust you back to being an assistant cook and thereby save your life. You have already graduated and now it is impossible for me to expel you without violating regulations that might affect my own retirement. So, screw you. And I can’t let you graduate at the top of your class and choose the fighter position you have earned. You’d get yourself killed, the exact outcome the upper class really wants. They want you to fail and die, but not in a glorious military manner. So, screw you … again.”

  She stood to pace. York politely rose to his feet, snapping to attention. She waved him back down. He felt odd sitting while the commandant paced around him. “Damned if I ain’t stuck behind a swinging hatch and a stiff bulkhead. Well, crap!” The commandant tapped a few buttons on her data pad. “There. I have filed a report on this whole mess as I see it. I have highlighted the discrepancies between the police reports and my own investigation. I have included a copy of the obviously altered video. None of these videos will hold up in any military or civilian court, but it is now a part of your permanent record and can’t be undone. Making these reports a part of your military record will piss off many of my upper class peers, including my mother. Hell, if it gets out to the lower classes about the upper class deliberately sabotaging a successful budger, we might even have a few street riots, setting a few fires, throwing a few rocks, and a little looting thrown in just for fun. The official record will be unassailable and unavailable to the public, but these documents are enough to give a conspiracy theorist a quivering orgasm. I doubt if even my mother will be able to protect me from the upper class backlash, should they get out, but screw them. I am done with them all. I’m going fishing for sea bass.”

  Pointing an accusing finger at York, she said, “And you will graduate, not at the top of your class, even I won’t do that for you. Leaving you at the top would be what is right, but I don’t really care anymore. So screw you, too. Nor will you graduate at the bottom. I won’t do that to the cadet who earned the bottom spot by her own skill. Believe me, she’s smarter than you are. She managed to graduate, planning it so well she came in dead last, or should I say, the living last. I’m sure she’s hoping for a planet-side posting in personnel, just as far from the front lines as she can get and still be useful enough to put ‘Navy veteran’ on her resume for a future career in politics. She isn’t cowardly, just smart enough to see when someone is playing with a stacked deck. Having said that, it’s within my discretion to graduate you as unranked. You will be a navy officer, but you’ll take whatever posting becomes available that no one else wants, no matter how long it takes. You may spend your whole career sitting in the Bureau of Personnel waiting for an assignment. If you do get an assignment, I hope they make you the officer in charge of dishwashers.”

  FOUR

  Ensign Junior Grade York Sixteen walked into the offices of the Bureau of Personnel. He was dressed in his everyday blacks. Blacks were plain utility uniforms without any insignia, just name, rank and the security-coded QR code patch on the shoulder, containing links to his military records. Blacks were the uniform of the day, per regulations, yet all around him were officers dressed in various outfits, from an older admiral in a privately designed formal uniform complete with medals, braid and ceremonial sword to a junior lieutenant in a dirty and torn bilge engineer’s coveralls, obviously in from a duty shift. Mixed in was a variety of army officers. Enlisted personnel must gather elsewhere, if they gathered at all. Maybe they were just sent orders and told where and when to go. He didn’t know about being enlisted anymore than he knew about being an officer. All he knew was being a budger and a cadet. Yes, he’d had more officer leadership courses than he had hairs on his butt
, however all the training was theory and didn’t help in the least for day-to-day go here and go there activities.

  York wondered if BuPer was always this busy or if the officer ranks were swelled by this year’s Yards graduating class and the most recent war winding down. By all accounts, the graduating ceremony was a rousing affair, that was, by all accounts except his. He was ordered not to attend and had no opinion on it at all, refusing to even watch the live newsfeed. He’d had a busy day and night without wasting time watching a ceremony that would have little effect on his life. The software changes and paper printed override relay switches he’d designed and installed held more fascination for him.

  He gave a small inward smile. The ceremony didn’t really matter to him, not as much as listening to all of the newsfeeds screaming foul. The big network feeds were screaming for his head on a plate for conduct unbecoming and for the commandant’s head for allowing him to graduate at all. The small independent feeds were screaming for his reinstatement at top of the class, the return of all awards, plus the arrest of those involved in his false arrest.

  He’d given some small thought as to who had leaked his arrest, punishments and subsequent release from custody to the press. It hadn’t been him and he doubted the commandant had done it, not for any expressed dislike at the thought of riots, but because she didn’t much care about York as a person, one way or another. Everyone could see the riots coming. The protests were peaceful so far, though all it took to go from peaceful to violent was one cocky police officer pushing a budger with anger issues or vice versa.

  The newsfeeds were at war. Each claiming their video was obviously the truth and their competitors were showing the fraudulent one. There were more than two versions of video available, yet they fell into two basic groups. The network newsfeeds were showing a version that was amazingly clear, clean, and looked almost like a commercial for a sitcom, missing only the laugh track and a smartass child, with York playing the role of the clueless head of the house. The version shown by the small independent feeds was a blurry video copy showing cadets with their faces and uniforms digitized out. He could easily recognize Telluride, Balderano and the other dog pack members, yet no one, not even the most vocal radical newsfeed dared name any cadet other than York August Sixteenth.