Destroyer II.
(Masterlist)
(Part I)
By the next year, his cell had been decorated with glowing gemstones and with wall-crawling vines. Thick tomes lay in stacks. They had not bothered to install a bookshelf, but he didn't mind the sprawl. All around him were the spoils of empire. Each day, the personnel would come to retrieve him. He had become their favorite mechanism of war.
It was not every day that he was brought out on the line. That much would have killed him. Most days, he ran drills. It wasn't so unlike the institute. Dr.Martino carried on the same traditions. He favored precision work and - increasingly - distance work. They did not have the budget to experiment with more catastrophic destruction, certainly not enough to do it everyday. If he really felt out of practice, the doctor would take him to some long-sieged castle and have him destroy what was left of it. Low-risk activities like that.
The doctor had taken on much of the responsibility for Delta's training, though it was not typically his speciality. It had become necessary as the days between Dr.Yanna's benders grew fewer and fewer. It was a dangerous business to do this while employed to the Emperor. The trend was leading itself to strict disciplinary action, had Dr.Yanna not shot herself in the head before anyone else could get around it.
The days went on and soon her replacement came down from the Northern Caverns. The biophysicist was an eccentric, a whit younger than Dr.Martino, but bright-eyed. His name was Dr.Leach, but he asked that he be called Simon. He looked at Delta like a prize specimen, which Delta knew to be true.
Delta never tried to be arrogant. It was Dr.Martino that often drilled it into his head, who took great efforts to humble him. The institute dealt in power, yes, but before that it dealt in obedience. All of the unwieldy subjects had been scrubbed from the pool before training had even begun. None of the Emperor's men could ever accuse Delta of being errant. He knew this, too. He did as he was asked, without question, without hesitation. He suspected this is what bothered and unnerved his handler so much. The doctor didn't believe the act and always pushed him to break character.
The most difficult days for everyone were the expeditions to the front line. Delta didn't have much mechanical difficulty; he could destroy a fleet now by muscle memory, could choke down his own bile to finish the job. It did not bother him half as much as all the production that went into it. He hated boarding the ship, hated the stuffy uniform he always had to wear, hated the nervous tizzy everyone would work themselves into whenever the Emperor held court. Everyone was so irritable and snappy on vanguard days.
Delta, gratefully, did not have much etiquette to worry about. He was content to be treated like a machine so long as no one bothered to speak to him, and he never spoke unless spoken to. Most times, his own part was carried out in silence, swiftly. Other times, the Emperor seemed to take an interest in him.
It always seemed inappropriate, given the circumstances. But the Emperor truly liked Delta. He often came to visit him in his cell, and would bring him gifts and toys to keep him occupied in his off-hours. Delta did not have the context to recognize filial affection when it came. Simon had explained to him later why the Emperor acted the way he did. Delta thought this was strange. After all, the Emperor already had a son.
Paris was the same age as Delta and was destined for greatness. He was still in the academy then, but set to graduate early. He had a strategic mind too valuable to waste on drills and more than that, he had the temperament. But it wasn’t his father’s coolness or his late mother’s grace. He was something else, his blood ran hotter, and Delta was honest-to-god scared of him. When Delta was around, the crown prince turned green-eyed and sulky.
Not wishing to offend him further, Delta always stuck to his script. He couldn’t return the Emperor’s affection, nor accept the praise of the officers. He took it all passively, head bowed, humble. Paris, who nobody would ever call humble, seemed to resent him for this too. But as it was, the two rarely saw each other. Delta stayed confined to the palace basement as Paris went about his fieldwork.
“How long has it been, Simon?” Delta asked one day when the two of them were alone. Delta had never celebrated his own birthday. He didn’t have a calendar in his room.
“Well, for me it’s coming up on seventeen months,” Simon tapped his head, pensive. “So for you, it’s coming up on three years, ain’t it?”
Delta took a minute to think of this. He was sure it had been longer than that. A small tiredness was seeping into him. They had engineered him to be hyper-metabolic; the psionics took up so much energy even when he was just sitting still. Delta did not think about the future often, but with all the free time he had and the repetition of each day, he was thinking about the end.
But the end came soon enough and it wasn’t for him. The Emperor was killed in his sleep while aboard his upper atmospheric warship. His death was celebrated all throughout the space colonies, but no one ever took credit. The assassination would go down as one of the greatest mysteries of that century.
The estate had to be divided and it was a bloodbath. Paris was his only son, next in line for the throne, barely sixteen. Only the most staunch royalists wanted his ascension and even they had doubts. A new sentiment was circulating, at least once a day someone said it: “Emperor is just a figurehead position.”
The role aside, there was a lot to carve up. A will had been left by the Emperor, but it was outdated by about five years. Many inheritors were now long dead or defected, slated to be executed, so on. In came the largest influx of lawyers the empire had ever seen. Everyone tried to move quickly, but they knew that everything they gained was circumspect. It could all be taken away if they found another loophole in the law, if another challenge was poised by someone else in the guild. The smart ones took their fortune and ran.
The crown prince was in a rage. His ascension had been aborted, postponed, and empirically challenged. He knew they would fuck him out of everything if they let him. It was why he cleared out the palace, loading off much of the fortune into remote corners of space. It was why he scanned records and then destroyed him, ensuring the access was his alone. It was why he contracted his own battleship, a smaller but nimble vessel that had always been his favorite. He always thought it would be his one day, but just to be sure, he bought it upfront.
Delta watched the wall clock tick in the early morning. He still woke up at the same time everyday, even though nobody had come to see him in two weeks. Not a big deal. He had food to last. But it was making him nervous. Something big had happened. He tried to distract himself with reading and with exercise, but it only made him more restless. He was still staring at the clock when the doors finally opened.
It was Simon. His hair was unbrushed and leaned heavily against the doorframe. He took shallow breaths on his approach.
Delta sunk to his knees, a formality he usually did not bother with when it came to his handler. Sensing the gravity of the situation, sensing the tension, he thought it’d be wiser to follow procedure to the letter. He wanted that security now. Simon ran his hands through Delta’s hair, in a gesture he had meant to be affectionate but was mostly just messy.
“Are you alright, kiddo? Have you had enough to eat?”
“Yes, sir,” Delta said cautiously, trying not to show resentment. After all, he hadn’t been left to starve.
“Sit down,” Simon told him, pulling a chair up for himself, “It’s a long story.”
————
Delta held his head in his hands. He didn’t speak.
“It’ll probably be Paris. We think it’ll be Paris. We’re going to try to go with you, wherever it is. That was one of the original conditions of the release. You know I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“Why can’t I just stay here?” Delta asked quietly. “Doesn’t that make more sense?”
“They’re a possessive bunch. It’s likely they’ll want to keep you as close as they can for security reasons. But who knows? They might keep you here. It’d be less of a hassle to set up new quarters. It’s possible, yeah.”
Simon didn’t know anything. Delta fell silent again.
“I just wanted to update you. I’m sure Dr.Martino or Paris will stop by later. They’ll keep you in the loop. Don’t worry, OK? We’ll figure this out.”
Easier said than done. Delta nodded, drawing his arms around himself. He wanted to ask Simon to stay, to not be left alone with his thoughts right now. He knew that was out of line.
The door buzzed shut as Simon disappeared. Delta curled up on the couch and despite everything, managed to fall asleep.
(Part III)
