God's Dogs

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

Julius Caesar

The home world of the empire was a pristine world, a garden world called simply Primus. Commerce was in high orbit aboard massive stations. Equally massive stations for workers and families, ship building, foundries, and support industries made the space above and around Primus a busy place. The emperor, though, resided in a hundred acre complex on the planet.

The emperor was an imposing figure, genetic manipulation made sure of that. Tall, powerfully built, blond wavy hair, steel blue eyes, and an impressive intelligence to match, he strode into his throne room. The room was an ornate conference hall with long tables manned by both staff and some of his councilors. Light streamed in through dormer windows. A polished wood floor grounded the wood-faced walls and columns.

A guard announced the emperor’s arrival, “All rise and bear homage to Cedric the First, Emperor of the Kronos Worlds in the Empire of Man.” The in cadence footsteps of the emperor and his bodyguards sounded off the hardwood floor as they trooped in.

Everybody stood and bowed from the waist. Cedric allowed himself a moment to enjoy the power he held over these people and by extension the Kronos Worlds – what was colloquially known as the Empire of Man. As the rustling of the people coming to attention ceased, he intoned, “Please be seated. We have much to discuss.”

Cedric sat at his own table, shorter in length than the others, yet the other tables were angled so that the twenty or so attendees could easily see the emperor.

“How is our operation in New London going?” Cedric began.

A black clothed man to Cedric’s right stood to answer. “It’s a failed mission, Excellency.”

“How can that be? We assigned one of our best teams. We need that world to protect our flank.”

“It seems, Excellency, a Coyote team was involved.”

Cedric grimaced then shook his head. “I didn’t think they would become involved until much later in our campaign.”

The man had nothing to offer on that topic and sat down.

“John,” Cedric called to a man at a different table. He stood, and Cedric continued, “How is the training program for our answer to the Coyotes going?”

“We can deploy a team now. We’re not sure how well they will stand up to the Coyotes, but we’ve done what we can with what we know.”

“Any headway on that psychic crap?”

“It’s somehow a function of their meditation practices. We have brain scans to show us what’s happening in their brains while they are engaged in psychic activity. We just can’t replicate it yet. Our implants don’t produce the same results.”

“Are there any technologies that can disrupt it?”

“No. We can’t target what they’re doing without taking down the whole brain.”

“Pity,” the emperor muttered. Then he said, “Okay. Strategy session. New London is lost. What do we do now?”

They argued their way to new strategic objectives. The emperor allowed wide latitude in the debate. He knew better than trying to hold autocratic power. He included people, gave them position and power within a limited scope – military, economic, domestic policy, education, and so on. This distribution of responsibility gave people something to strive for within the system, which minimized opposition to Cedric’s rule.

However, Cedric did retain control over the clandestine services, both domestic and foreign. Even so, he did not countenance a reign of terror. Fear had its place, to be sure, but he wisely relegated it to a minor role. His vision was grand enough that he allowed dissent as a necessary part of political debate on how best to accomplish his agenda. The people believed in his goals due to generations of propaganda from the governments of his father and grandfather. The unified empire became an article of faith, a new doctrine of manifest destiny. The religions that remained in his empire preached the righteousness of that cause. Religions that refused, typically those that held to a separation of church and state, were banished to agrarian worlds where they could do no harm.

After the large meeting, Cedric and his core advisors retired for brunch. The six men wore distinctive clothing denoting both their rank and their affiliations.

The dining room was cozy but suitably ornate with oak table and chairs, wall hangings, and a bay window overlooking a twenty-acre rose garden.

They sat, still chatting about the ramifications of the new strategies. Except for Cedric who seemed pensive and remote.

The serving staff bustled in with the first course, and the chatter subsided.

Cedric sighed and spoke, “I am not pleased. If we ignore the space under what we assume is Penglai’s protection and advance on other vectors, what will that do to the people’s morale?”

They knew Cedric wasn’t talking about the people’s morale but rather his own. The decision to avoid Penglai space was a significant setback. The original strategy required gaining key worlds through subterfuge and annexation. Those worlds would have not only provided a buffer against a counter-attack, but also gained the needed industry to build more ships. It was the quick and dirty way to a successful takeover of the Sector that provided them with the best flanking position on the other Sectors in League space. The opposition wouldn’t have the ship building capacity to catch up to the empire’s ready force in time to stave off the final push. Avoiding Penglai was prudent in this strategy because it was one of the few worlds that was ready for war. It didn’t need to gear up from a peacetime posture to wartime readiness. But now, it seemed, the League was using Penglai’s ready forces to block the Empire’s strategy.

The councilors glanced at each other in silence. No one wanted to engage the emperor on this topic.

Cedric went on, “The new strategy is a harder road. What are your thoughts, John?”

John Scanlon was one of the defense ministers. A resonant tenor issued from his fire-plug body. “The decision tree we’re using, based on our best computer models, dictate the change. New London held a key role. If we took it, odds favored us on that front. If we didn’t take it, odds shifted to another front.”

“That’s what the models show. I’ll grant you that,” Cedric replied. “But what do you think?”

Scanlon squirmed in his seat. “The new strategy will give League worlds more time to prepare for war. Odds still favor us but less decisively.”

“Andrew?” Cedric turned his gaze to a whipcord thin man with a jagged and weathered face. Andrew Lockhart was a twenty-year veteran of the off-world clandestine service, the Foreign Affairs Special Projects department. FAST was the umbrella organization that held oversight for the platoon sent to New London.

“We can’t beat the Coyotes at covert warfare. We need to just bomb Penglai out of existence.”

“I know you’re upset,” Cedric rejoined, “but there are such things as war crimes.”

Lockhart gritted his teeth. “They are an unholy pestilence, your Excellency.”

“True. We cannot kill their world, though. It would anger our own people and inflame the League. So, as much as I’d like to bomb them out of existence, we need a more subtle solution.”

Lockhart continued to seethe but forced himself to settle down. Cedric went on with the lunch meeting, and eventually the council members departed. Cedric sat long after they left, drinking coffee, and pondering the state of his empire’s expansion.

He was a student of history and knew what worked and didn’t work for an empire’s long-term stability. The early Roman Empire was a classic example of what did work, at least for a while. Its armies conquered every land that bordered the Mediterranean Sea. Once conquered, though, the existing governments, religions, and economies were left in place.

Unlike the ancient Greeks who were innovators, philosophers, and adventurers, the Romans were bureaucrats. They knew how to manage their empire so that the Pax Romana stood as an ideal for centuries. Rome fell because the cult of an emperor effectively diluted bureaucratic power, and mercenary legions replaced loyal Roman legionnaires.

Cedric’s ego wasn’t large enough to demand godhood, such as the Roman emperors did. Rather, he hoped to be the equivalent of a CEO overseeing the empire as a series of departments in a large corporation: agricultural worlds, manufacturing worlds, and so on. There could be no department for something like Penglai. It was an incomprehensible world, as its product seemed to be a search for Enlightenment or following the Tao – whatever that meant.

Sooner or later he would have to deal with it, but he was unsure how best to approach that problem. He could neutralize them by including them somehow, but what were the terms they would agree to?

He suspected their terms would be mutually unacceptable. Cedric needed a certain level of control, and how does one control something as nebulous as the Tao? He would talk to them. Maybe they would come up with a solution. They were mostly pacifists after all, which was its own mystery. Pacifists protected by soldiers no one could defeat, trained in techniques no one could duplicate, and wrapped in an esprit de corps producing unshakeable confidence. From his research on the Coyotes, Cedric knew they never broke under fire, never panicked, were impossible to ambush, and flowed through a battlefield like smoke. The accounts he reviewed were seemingly impossible. He hoped he was never targeted by assassination, even though that was reportedly not their style. They made an incomprehensible distinction between murder and killing.

Incomprehensible to Cedric, of course, because he was a high functioning sociopath. Like many CEOs and world leaders before him, he was burdened with neither a conscience, empathy, nor guilt. He was, on the other hand, as meticulous as a dumb A.I. at solving institutional problems, at motivating his people, and he was fully content with sharing wealth, status, and power. He knew he could be the best Emperor, indeed, the best person, to inaugurate a Pax Stella – peace among the stars.