CAUTION... CAUTION...
CAUTION... CAUTION... CAUTION...
STANDARD WARNING
This
story is of an erotic nature.
I wouldn't dream of telling
you what you can or can't read but if the law, in your part of the
world, says you must not read this sort of fiction then please go
read something that they'll let you.
Don't break the laws,
change them.
CAUTION... CAUTION... CAUTION... CAUTION...
CAUTION...
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A Story in The Swarm Cycle Universe
A Piece of my
Imagination
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The Swarm Cycle is a collection of stories manufactured
around a concept introduced by the Thinking Horndog positing an alien
invasion and Earth's reaction. The intent is for this to be a
multi-author universe similar to the popular Naked In School stories.
If you're a budding author of erotica or sci-fi and see something
here that strikes your fancy, pop over to the Author's
Page for more info on what's going on here and how to submit a
story for this collection. The rest of you are probably here to read,
so...
---oOo---
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental
©
2007 Duke of Ramus.
All rights reserved.
---oOo---
The Swarm Cycle Universe
Copyright © 2007
The Thinking Horndog
---oOo---
I'd like to thank Mulligan for his assistance in turning
this into a better story than my initial effort, any errors remaining
are of course mine.
---oOo---
"Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could just have your attention
for a moment."
The comment, said so casually by the
big man at the door took the small crowd who were attending some sort
of party in the computer store, totally by surprise. All of them
turned and stared at the door and the man standing in it, behind him
was the telltale grey nothingness that signified an interdiction
field.
"An extraction!" gasped a slim blond
woman near the front of the crowd.
The man nodded in
acknowledgement, "That's right Ma'am, I'm Jacque Martinne and
I'm a Sergeant in the Confederacy Space Marines, my colleagues and I
are here to pick up five volunteers for service with the Confederacy
and then we'll leave you to go about your business."
Off
to the Sergeant's right two more men with similar physiques were
depositing a small device on the floor. These it appeared were the
colleagues he'd just casually mentioned.
The manager of
the computer store moved forward with a grin on his face as the AI
reported to Jacque that the man, Adrian Smallhurst, had a CAP score
of six point seven and was one of the people they were here to
collect.
"Sergeant, I believe that I'm one of the
people that you are here to collect," said Adrian reaching the
doorway.
"I believe you are, Sir," said Jacque
before turning his attention to the crowd and raising his voice.
"Could Brian Brestwork, Peter Johnson, William Vorster and
Melanie Easterman also make themselves known, please," he called
clearly.
As the crowd began to mill around Adrian chatted
away, "We're just having a party to celebrate obtaining the HP
franchise," he said. "These people," he waved his arm
at the crowd, "are the store staff and their families and a few
of the local people we do business with."
"Is
that so?" commented Jacque listening with half an ear as he
watched the people milling around before him. Recent events, whilst
worrying, hadn't stopped the extractions, they'd just made the people
involved a little more nervous and, fortunately, Jacque wasn't
working in Texas.
"Well mostly so," said Adrian,
"there are a few others who were in the shop when we started the
celebration and we didn't bother throwing them out so they just
joined in," the manager concluded happily.
A man and
a woman finally managed to push through the buzzing crowd and
grinning happily moved towards the Marines, Jacque nodded in greeting
as off to one side a buzz announced the activation of the transporter
terminus.
"Traitors!"
The yell that
came from somewhere near the back of the crowd froze everyone in
place.
The first bang of a handgun going off started the
panic. Jacque felt the hammer blow in his left shoulder that told the
former policeman that he'd been hit. Only his enlarged physique and
the immediate action of the body's nannites enabled him to respond
calmly to the situation.
He grabbed Adrian with his free
hand and flung him towards the transporter terminus. "Move!"
he yelled, before swinging the same arm back towards the crowd.
The
two volunteers who'd made it through the crowd looked startled but
when the store manager was flung towards the terminus they charged
after him. A small group of onlookers followed, hoping that this was
their chance to get away, the Marines manning the gate let them go,
the ship's crew could sort them out later.
The frantic
buzzing that came with the operation of the Marines' stingers
announced their introduction into the conflict. People started to run
in all directions as bodies began dropping.
The sharp
cracks of the attackers' handguns went from the steady controlled
beat to a rapid rhythm as panic set in. Innocent bystanders began to
drop and Jacque made the decision to withdraw.
"Pull
back," he sub-vocalised and the two Marines by the terminus
stepped through it one after the other. Jacque turned towards the
gate and spotted three assailants break cover and raise their
weapons. Throwing caution to the wind he took two more paces and
threw himself for the gate, remembering to tell the AI to terminate
the nexus as he flashed through it.
---oOo---
Sergeant Martinne hit the ship's deck with an
undignified and painful grunt and rolled onto his back. Around him
the Fleet Auxiliary crew had corralled the people who'd made it
through and despite the noise they were making had them fairly well
under control.
On the deck beside the Marine was the body
of a man, the back of his head neatly penetrated by a round from one
of the handguns. Jacque, who'd seen more than his fair share of
gunshot wounds, was glad that the remains of the face were away from
him. He closed his eyes for a moment and then was forced to open them
as the gate controller addressed him.
"Any more
coming through?"
"I hope not," said Jacque,
"I closed the gate." He glanced around and noted the mobile
medical stations being used.
"How many are injured?"
he asked.
The controller glanced at the body, "Apart
from him it's just a few sprains and bruises," he shrugged.
"They came through so fast that they just landed on top of each
other, there wasn't a lot we could do about it."
The
man noticed the wound on the Sergeants' shoulder for the first time,
"We'd better get you seen to," he said before looking at
the ceiling like so many did when they spoke to the AI.
A
mobile medical station made it's way over to the still prone Sergeant
and began its diagnosis, as it clicked and whirred a bunch of Marines
entered the receiving area. In the lead was the Regimental commander,
Colonel Craporetti followed by the Battalion Commander Lt. Colonel
O'Neill and then a whole crowd of hangers on including the relevant
Sergeant Majors.
Jacque let out a groan and it had nothing
to do with the pain he was feeling.
"Just stay there,
Sergeant," said the Colonel as Jacque started to move.
"OK,
tell me what happened?" asked the Colonel as his group spread
around the injured Marine, most of them carefully avoiding the body
and the pool of blood around it.
"We were doing a
pickup at a computer shop, Sir. They," he waved his uninjured
arm at the crowd of people who'd now fallen silent, "were having
some sort of party which had drawn together five volunteers. We
stepped through the door and put up the field and made the initial
announcements. We'd just started to separate the volunteers from the
crowd when someone yelled and shots were fired."
He
glanced at the medibot next to him, "I was hit at the very
beginning, Sir, and as we were only carrying stingers and no armour I
decided to pull back."
"How many did you
lose?"
"I couldn't say for sure, Sir."
Jacque glanced at the body beside him, "One for sure and
possibly another couple that we weren't able to grab before we legged
it."
"Civilian casualties?"
"Several,
Sir, all at the pickup site," said the Sergeant. "Whoever
it was down there were firing pretty randomly at the end and we
weren't in a position to be hit anymore."
The Colonel
nodded and then turned to one of the officers accompanying him. "Tell
Task Force Earth Headquarters that we will be shifting pickups to
Europe until they can give us better Intel on the hotspots down
there."
The Colonel then switched his gaze to the
Battalion Commander, "Tom, get all of your people back up here
and we'll move over to Spain and start there."
"Sir,"
replied The Lt. Colonel before turning to his own people.
"You
take care, Sergeant," said the Colonel with feeling before he
turned away and led his entourage off to their next meeting.
Jacque
slumped back; glad that someone was looking after his Marines but his
relief was tinged with regret for the people who wouldn't have a
chance now.
---oOo---
"All right ladies and gentlemen, if I can have
your attention."
The Colonel called the meeting to
order and the small number of officers present obediently settled
down. Present were two of the Regiments' four Battalion commanders,
the American Tom O'Neill and the Norwegian Erik Misfjord Lid along
with their respective S2's, Captain Helen Carter and Captain Walter
Langmann who, as it happened, where both from Australia. Alongside
the Colonel were his Executive officer, Sally Gunner and his S2 John
Maggor.
Colonel Craporetti looked around the room and then
jumped straight to the point, "Shit is happening down there and
I don't like how it is affecting our people, so what do we do about
it?"
John Maggor had been briefed on the situation
and was ready for the question, which took most of the others by
surprise in its bluntness.
"At the moment, Sir, there
are only really two workable options. Continue to make pickups, but
do it in sufficient force that we do not have problems or, the second
option, move to an area where those problems are not occurring,"
he said.
"Which is pretty much what I have done but
that doesn't make it right," said the Colonel.
"Sir,
unless TF Earth will authorise us to use lethal weapons and body
armour we will continue to take casualties if we pick up from the
United States, especially those states that have large numbers of
weapons in the hands of individuals" stated John
categorically.
"He's right Sir," added Tom
O'Neill, "We just don't have enough eyes down there to spot
everything that is going on and when several of the locals are
carrying guns it's just too damned dangerous to carry on."
Around
the table the heads were all nodding in agreement.
"Do
you think we can come up with something like what Captain McPherson
did at that fairground?" asked the Colonel.
"Probably,"
said Sally, "though any pickup of that scale would be just as
fraught with danger if we did it in the States."
"True,"
said John, "but if we could set it up so that the people down
there did a security check for us before we went in we could do the
pickup with impunity."
"If we did something that
size would we have the lift capacity?" asked Tom O'Neill.
"Not
on this tub, that's for sure," said Sally.
"But
the Boudicca should be here in a couple of months and her sister
ships will be following along behind her," said the Colonel
talking about the latest class of colony transports.
"She
would definitely be big enough," said Sally.
"So
all we need to do is drop down on a county fair and lift the whole
fox hunting set," said John.
"I don't know about
that group," said the Colonel as he wrinkled his nose.
"True,"
replied John, "though they're not really that bad, but it would
be nice to do a big pickup in England and drop it on a new
colony."
"Why?" asked Tom with a grin,
"getting fed up of hamburgers."
"Well, it
would be nice to have proper fish and chips," said John, "but
on a more practical basis we need to look for a place where people
congregate, preferably without weapons and Britain is relatively
weapon free."
"And without religious fanatics!"
interjected Erik joining the conversation for the first
time.
"You've had problems with them?" asked
Helen Carter from her place next to Tom O'Neill.
Erik
nodded, "The last couple of pickups we've made were in Denmark.
The local clergy had convinced their flocks that we were in league
with the devil. They couldn't stop the volunteers from coming with us
but for eight volunteers we only had six concubines
available."
"That wasn't good," muttered
Walter next to his boss.
"Bugger," said Helen,
"did you have any spares available?"
"Fortunately
yes, but I don't want to have to go through that process again,"
concluded the Lt. Colonel.
"So, short term,"
said Colonel Craporetti, "we need to switch to areas that have
low incidences of gun ownership and preferably in areas that are free
from religious bigots." He paused for a moment before saying,"
We'll stick with Southern Europe for now." He turned to John and
Sally, "Long term I want the two of you to get together and see
what we can set up in the way of a mass extraction."
As
the Colonel stood, signifying the end of the meeting Sally turned to
John, "You know, we can't approach the politicians down there,
don't you?"
John nodded but looked puzzled.
"How
about the Royal family, are they accessible?" she asked.
"I
suppose they could be, but how would that help," said
John.
Sally grinned, "Well, everything around them is
checked for weapons and you are a former Silver Stick."
John,
before his extraction, had been a member of the British Army and had
risen to command of the Household Cavalry regiment, the regiment that
combined the former Life Guards with the Blues and Royals. This was
the regiment that provided the mounted escort for State Occasions and
was closely associated with the Monarch. One of the most unusual, if
public, roles that the commander of the regiment had was the position
of Silver Stick-in Waiting, a secondary position to the Gold
Stick-in-Waiting as a personal bodyguard to the Sovereign, the
position had become ceremonial but it did afford access to the
Monarch.
"And there is usually a crowd around for
State occasions," said John as he began to think along those
lines.
---oOo---
The light grey corvette appeared to hang motionless
over the deep blue planet, though in reality it was travelling just
fast enough to maintain a geo-synchronous orbit over the planetary
equator. It had been surveying this planet for a week and the system
as a whole for the past twenty-two days and its mission was drawing
to a close.
As on many corvettes belonging to the
Confederacy the crew was looking for new planets for the human race
to occupy before the oncoming Sa'arm invasion reached their green and
pleasant home planet. To date over a hundred planets had been
identified, catalogued and presented as potential homes for the
colonists.
On the bridge of the York Castle, Lieutenant
John Hollingberry stretched as he stood up from his position bent
over the sensor array controls and announced, "Captain, the AI
has concluded its analysis and we've got the results."
"And
what does the AI conclude?" enquired the Captain looking up from
his own tasks.
"It's a good'un, Captain, just like
the spectrometry results predicted," answered the science
officer enthusiastically, confirming the result they'd all been
expecting following the initial approach.
Captain William
Bungard switched screens and regarded the data that his science
officer had transferred across to his display and pondered for a
moment. The system they were looking at was that of a main sequence
G1V star which, apart from being a tad hotter, fell within the
temperature and size variables for a common yellow dwarf star which
description fitted the Earth's own star exactly.
Eight
planets surrounded the star they were surveying. They presented a
varied selection without having anything that was truly outstanding.
The third planet out had been the target of most of their survey
efforts, though a couple of the satellites around VI had received a
fair amount of interest as well.
III, the third planet of
the system had an orbit with a slightly larger radius than that of
Earth around its parent and that orbit was closer to circular than
Earth's which, according to the AI, removed the excessive seasonal
variation that Earth had suffered from. With a total mass and an
atmosphere that turned out to be a very close copy of the human
race's native planet this one was prime real estate for the
Diaspora.
In total landmass it was on a par with Earth
though its appearance was totally different. Because of the large
amount of water present, this planet really did seem to be blue when
viewed from space, even allowing for the white polar ice caps.
Scattered throughout those deep blue oceans, in no real discernible
pattern, were twenty islands, each approximately equal in size if not
shape to Australia.
Captain Bungard looked over the data
one more time and nodded as he made a decision, 'this is the one' he
thought to himself.
"OK John, log the details."
Bill Bungard looked up at the main screen and its image of the planet
below, "append the log to show that the third planet is called
Albion," he said exercising his right to name planets, "
and tag the sixth as Avalon." Convention had it that the system
was named after the most populous planet, " Which makes this the
Albionat system and log that it's available for colonisation,"
he declared.
---oOo---
"Your Majesty, Lieutenant Colonel Maggor of the
Confederacy Space Marines." The chamberlain made his
announcement and stepped back from the door. The Lt. Colonel he'd
announced stepped into the presence of his former Queen and bowed,
"Your Majesty, thank you for seeing me at such short
notice."
"Come in Colonel," said the
smiling Queen, "I remember how you were always nice to me when I
wanted to play with your baton as a young girl and I was curious as
to how you'd fared since leaving the planet." She'd noticed the
bow, as a sign of respect, rather than the salute her Grandmother
used to receive from the man as the head of the Armed Forces.
"I
wouldn't say it was all good, Ma'am," replied John Maggor as he
moved closer to the Queen. "Some of the things happening out
there in the colonies are not pleasant, but I'm getting by, as are
most of us."
'The colonies,' thought the young Queen,
'not the war - interesting.' She indicated the seat next to her desk
and once the soldier was seated she asked, "So what can I do for
you, John?" She chuckled when the Marine looked surprised at her
question.
"John, you're an officer in the Confederacy
Marine Corps! You have immeasurably more power at your command than I
do so it must be something I can do that you can't," she said.
"So again, what is it you want of me?"
"Ma'am,
I'm sure that your Government has been keeping you informed as to
what is happening in regards to volunteer extraction, and that you
know how precarious the situation is becoming." The Queen
received, on a daily basis, a full update on what her Government was
doing as well as a security, foreign and home front briefing.
Beatrice, like Elizabeth before her, had taken on a prodigious
workload when she became Queen and had no intention of letting
standards fall. The Government information, when added to her own
press office’s interpretation on any situation meant she was
one of the best informed people on the planet.
The Queen
simply nodded in confirmation.
"Well we were looking
at doing a large scale extraction but to do this we would need a lot
of volunteers and, uhmm..." John Maggor found himself blushing,
"concubines to be in the same place at the same time. Preferably
in a weapon free environment," explained the former Silver
Stick.
The Queen proved she wasn't stupid, "And
wherever I go there is a full security sweep beforehand so you and
your people would be safe if the extraction happened somewhere around
me."
"That was one point, Ma'am. The other was a
more personal point and that was that I felt we needed to get a
British based planet established out in the colonies. Otherwise our
culture would be swamped by the large numbers of Americans and
Chinese, who'd already been extracted, even more than it has been
already," he finished wistfully.
"Do you think
that is wise?" asked the Queen, "Wouldn't it be better to
mix everyone in together."
"In theory you're
right Ma'am, but as usual human behaviour and in this case lack of
forethought by the Darjee have set up a situation where whoever is in
charge can do pretty much as they like." John looked the young
Queen in the eye, "If you can't imagine how bad that is then I'd
suggest that you see what you can find out about the colonies in Reck
and P'yong, but Ma'am, I'd warn you that it isn't pleasant
reading."
"And you think we can do better?"
she asked.
"I'm not sure about better but I doubt if
it would be any worse, Ma'am." John paused knowing that he was
about to step outside his briefing, "and Ma'am, if a member of
the Royal family could be persuaded to volunteer I can ensure that
they would be running the new colony."
The Queen
frowned, looked the Colonel in the eye and then got a far away look
in her own eye. The silence dragged on as the Queen thought and the
Colonel became nervous, worrying that he'd gone to far.
"Would
a garden party, here at the palace, be a suitable location for one of
your extractions?" asked the young Queen suddenly breaking the
silence.
The Colonel glanced out of the window at the
manicured lawns of Buckingham Palace and then back to the Queen,
"That would present an excellent opportunity, Ma'am."
The
Queen nodded, "Very well then, let's see what we can agree on."
---oOo---
'Why', thought the dejected young Prince as he
listened to another boring history lecture, 'do I have to study this
ancient history when the planet will be invaded in five or six years
and probably be nothing but a memory in twenty!'
The tutor
droned on, "Throughout this period of time most important
decisions concerning the Country and its government were made by the
reigning King or Queen, often assisted by a small group of advisers
that went by the name of the Privy Council. However, before the
decisions made by the Monarch could became law, they had to be
ratified by Parliament."
"Then, as now,
Parliament consisted of two houses, the Lords and the Commons. At
that time the House of Lords was made up of about sixty Dukes, Earls,
Barons and Bishops and it was unusual for members of the Upper House
to criticise the Monarch's policies. It had been shown by past events
that if they did criticise the policies they were in danger of being
stripped of their titles, lands and often their lives."
Alongside
the Prince sat the equally bored Princess who looked at the tutor and
dreamed idly of having him hung, drawn and quartered. She barely
managing to keep a grin off her face at the image the thought
provoked.
Oblivious, or more likely indifferent, to his
Royal charges' ambivalence, the learned gentleman continued to talk.
"The members of the House of Commons were much more independent
than the members sitting in the House of Lords as they were generally
elected by the people who lived in the area they represented. You
need to keep in mind that unlike today most of the people didn't have
the vote and so the constituents who voted would only be a low
percentage of the population but they would be the most affluent."
Wandering backwards and forwards across the Palace
library the tutor kept up his steady drone. "Throughout the
Tudor period the number of sessions of Parliament held varied
greatly. Henry VIII, it appears, was in favour of holding regular
Parliaments especially when he was in conflict with the Pope in Rome.
He made much of the success he had in getting legislation passed in
Parliament, claiming that it showed he enjoyed the popular support of
the English people."
"The conflict that ensued
when he didn't leave a son as heir led to many splits in the
political make up of the land, especially when the step-sisters
Elizabeth and Mary, fought over the crown."
Prince
Andrew shuffled slightly, which attracted the attention of, but
failed to stop the tutor. "When Mary the First, who became known
as Bloody Mary, became Queen of England she tried very hard to ensure
that she had a House of Commons that supported her Catholic religion
and would act as a counter-weight to the Lords. She did this by
sending out instructions to the sheriffs - who organised the
elections - giving details of who she expected to get selected to sit
in the Lower House. It did little good in the long term as following
her death she was succeeded by Elizabeth the First, who set about
rescinding all of the changes which previously favoured
Papism."
"One thing that needs to be remembered
is that no Law could be added to the statute books without the Royal
seal of approval, just as it is, in theory, today," said the
tutor. "The major difference was that in the Tudor period we are
discussing this prerogative was used and in some cases used to
excess, for example Elizabeth I did it on no less than thirty-six
occasions. The last time that Royal Assent was refused to be granted
to an Act was in Seventeen hundred and Seven by Queen Anne," he
smiled gently, "which I'm sure you realise was well after the
Tudor period."
Off to one side of the room a door
opened and a man entered, looked around briefly and moved to one
side. The tutor ground to a halt at this interruption and then looked
slightly perturbed as the children's mother entered the room. "Thank
you," she said to the tutor, "I need to speak to the
children, you may continue the lessons after luncheon." The
tutor bowed and departed without another word, glad that he had done
nothing to earn the Royal displeasure.
As the door closed
behind the departing tutor the Queen crossed to her children and
looked at them thoughtfully. They stared back a little confused,
their mother had never appeared in the middle of a lesson before.
"I
know that this is going to seem strange to you but I want you to pay
particular attention to what you're being taught now," she waved
an arm at the computer generated display of the Tudor timeline. "I
want you to learn how they ran the country and think about how it
could be applied in this day and age."
The young
Princess burst out, "Kings and Queens don't run countries like
that any more!" she declared.
The Queen nodded her
agreement at the comment and then added one of her own, "No, not
here on Earth they don't, but things could turn out to be very
different elsewhere." She was staring straight at her son when
she stated that clarification and then flicked her eyes to the sky to
give him a hint.
Andrew felt his brain start to churn, 'If
they didn't have Royal prerogatives here then where could they have
them?'
---oOo---
"So, the Prime Minister isn't going to be
attending, Jim?"
"'Fraid not Philip, plausible
deniability and all that, you know," said the Home Secretary
James Hunt, who understood full well the Prime Minister's position.
He was actually surprised that Philip Matlock, the Foreign Secretary
had even asked the question. 'Philip was probably worried about his
reputation' thought the Home Secretary, especially if something
untoward happens here today.
Finally the secure door
closed and Cabinet Office Briefing Room A was secure. COBRA was the
term used both formally and informally, to describe the room in which
the senior Civil Contingencies Committee met. The briefing room was
one of several in the Whitehall complex that was used to host such
meetings and as such was fitted out with all manner of communications
equipment. Room A had taken on a mystique all of its own, whilst in
reality, it was just one of the many meeting rooms that the
government could have used to house the various ad-hoc committees
that were put together to deal with any crisis.
Past
examples of the room's use have included the Committee chaired by
Tony Blair on the seventh of July, when the Prime Minister had flown
in especially to deal with the terrorist atrocities on the London
transport system. A less dramatic but eventually much more costly
example was the committee chaired by Margaret Beckett, the then
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which
dealt with the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak.
The Home
Secretary as the senior cabinet minister present would chair this
meeting. James Hunt took the chair at the head of the table and
looked around at who else were present for what promised to be a
difficult meeting.
Next to him was Philip Matlock, the
Foreign Secretary and former member of the Conservative Party. He was
believed to be on the right wing of the party but had held out
against the war in Iraq and would have nothing to do with the Earth
First party that seemed, to many, to be his natural home.
The
last man on that flank of the table was Alan Tittle, the Commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police and the senior serving officer in the
country who, at this moment in time, was also one of the most hard
pressed policemen in the country.
Opposite them sat the
black gang as they were affectionately known. Samuel L. Johnson, who
used his name's similarity to an actor's with glee, was the Director
of Special Forces and he worked hand in glove with the man sat next
to him. Colin Chapman, who was Head of the Joint Intelligence
Committee, the umbrella board for all of Britain's security
organisations and the man with his finger on the pulse of Britain's
dark underbelly.
At the far end of the table sat Caroline
Trusow, Duchess of Cheshire, who was present as the representative of
the Palace, an unusual addition to the Cobra committee but given the
subject matter an essential element.
James coughed to
attract everyone's attention and then called the meeting to
order.
"You've all received a copy of the report that
Colin and his sources have put together?" he asked and waited
until everyone had confirmed receipt, "and the corresponding
document from Philip and his Foreign Office people?" which
received another round of confirmation.
"Then a quick
summary should be sufficient," said James.
"As
we are all aware the Confederacy has been making pickups both
officially and unofficially for the last five years. It is generally
held that because of the inherent belief within the Confederacy that
each individual should surrender his, her or its own life if need be
for the well being of the group as a whole, that they have, through
the AIs, forced us to adopt the current extraction criteria." He
flipped over a page of his notes and continued. "It is generally
believed by those who have had the greatest dealings with them that
the AIs would be unable to change the opinions of the Confederacy,
and the Darjee in particular, and thus would be unable to change
those criteria in anything approaching a reasonable timescale.
Especially when you consider that the Sa'arm are due to arrive here
in the next five years."
The Home Secretary leant
back in his chair, "These facts, which have been presented to
the Earth First party in particular, haven't prevented a steadily
worsening of attitudes towards the Confederacy in general and the
extraction process in particular. This change in attitude has been
most prevalent in the so called Southern States of America where, it
is reported, Confederacy Marines have actually been shot at by the
'rednecks' while performing an extraction." He grinned and
added, "which is one thing that Alan hasn't had to deal with so
far, fortunately."
This was greeted by a couple of
chuckles; most of them forced, it has to be said.
"However
this attitude has been matched by one in the Confederacy which has
effectively stopped extractions in a third of the continental USA."
He glanced up from his notes; "This of course can be seen as a
good thing as far as we are concerned as it means that more
extractions are likely to be happening here in Britain."
He
glanced back at his notes, "Now the bad news," he said.
"The Confederacy and, it must be admitted, the humans who were
involved in the early discussions, have ignored the need for some
sort of leadership in the new colonies. The idea of appointing a
planetary governor and leaving it to them has, at best, been just
about tolerable. There are high points, Demeter springs to mind, but
when compared to the disasters that were Reck and P'yong it fades
into insignificance."
James looked up again and was
met by five intense gazes; so far he'd said nothing new as far as
they were concerned.
"We are here to come up with an
option for the future, an option that we will do everything in our
power to implement, an option that may influence the future of the
human race in space. We are to decide how a planet will be
governed."
"That's easy," interjected
Philip Matlock, "make it a democracy. Just implement, on a
smaller scale, what we have here."
"Unfortunately,
Philip, that has already been rejected," said James holding up a
hand to stop any protest. "We agree that it would be the best
option, especially in the long term but as things stand at the moment
we cannot simply extract politicians per se. Whoever goes will be a
volunteer in his or her own right first and will have to deal with
all the responsibilities that go with that role. Politics will be a
poor and distant secondary role for the foreseeable future."
"I
take it that, if democracy is out of the window, some alternative has
already been put forward for consideration?" asked the miffed
Foreign Secretary whose own CAP score of a lowly six point five was a
secret he guarded closely.
"There have been..."
began James.
"Actually Her Majesty has a suggestion
to make," intervened the Duchess of Cheshire from where she sat
at the end of the table, "It would be of interest to see what
you gentlemen think of her proposal." The sudden announcement
was greeted with a moment's silence and then all eyes swung to face
her, bright with interest.
"Pray tell us," said
Philip, as he settled down to listen, as interested as everyone else
there.
---oOo---
The chamberlain stood to one side as the distinguished
looking gentleman bowed. "Your Majesty," he said from just
inside the doorway.
"Come in, Prime Minister, come
in!" replied the equally elegant young lady formally as she rose
from behind her desk to greet her guest.
The man stepped
forward and waited as the doors behind him closed before continuing,
"I have the results of the Capacity, Aptitude and Potential
tests our children undertook, Ma'am."
Her Majesty
Queen Beatrice the First, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland looked at the Prime Minister and smiled
nervously, "Well, don't keep me waiting George," she said,
"How did they do?"
The Prime Minister had become
a friend to the young Queen since they'd started plotting together
and without consulting anything he said, "Prince Andrew scored
an impressive seven point nine, Ma'am and Princess Elizabeth achieved
seven point seven."
"And how did your Steven
fare?" enquired the Queen.
The father couldn't
contain his pride at his son's achievement and it showed when he
replied, "He dropped right into the gap between your children
Ma'am, he scored an excellent seven point eight."
"So
all three of the children can volunteer," said the Queen, her
relief obvious to the Prime Minister. He'd been working under the
same strain as his Monarch and had shown his own relief by cheering
out loud when he'd initially received the results, albeit in
private.
"Yes Ma'am, they can," the widower
confirmed his eyes alight with passion.
The Queen looked
her First Minister in the eye and asked the question she'd been
asking him regularly for the last six weeks, "George, do you
still think we are doing the right thing here?" She didn't
really have any doubts but she just wanted the reassurance that she
wasn't doing this for herself.
George Brown was committed
to the democratic principles of the country. The principles and
practices that had allowed him to become the leader of his party and
stay there for several years before winning the last national
election and so become the leader of his country. Now he sighed
before answering his Monarch. "Ma'am, I haven't tried to hide my
feelings from you concerning this matter and I'm sure you are aware
that my feelings haven't changed significantly in that time," he
declared carefully. "If we, that is, any of us, had been given a
say in how the colonies were to be created, how they were to be
organised and run in the first place then I'd have been against what
you and I are doing now."
The Prime Minister let his
shoulders drop, "I'm still not convinced that what we are trying
to do will actually work but, like you and many others, I feel that
it is the best that the AIs are going to allow us to get away with.
Given that and the circumstances as they are now I believe we have to
try." He blinked before adding, "That we need to 'get away'
with something is evident from the reports we've both seen concerning
the colonies on Reck and P'yong and the behaviour of the governors of
those blighted colonies. If something more stable isn't achieved by
one means or another we will become our own worst enemies out there
in space."
The Queen, her own fears neatly
encapsulated by the older man's convoluted speech, nodded her
understanding.
"Then we continue as we are,"
she concluded.
---oOo---
The evacuation of Earth, even the limited one
originally planned by the Confederacy, was in a mess.
The
loudly expressed concept of extracting a representative proportion of
the human population had gone out of the window very early in the
Diaspora project. The way the Confederacy had limited selection had
effectively removed whole segments of the Earth's population from the
future gene pool. Much of the Middle East had been struck off the
extraction list because of the corruption endemic in their way of
life, especially amongst the leadership. Those rejects had been
joined on the 'to be ignored list' by large parts of Africa, the Far
East and Latin America because of the supposedly low academic and
technological standards inherent in their countries. Many of the more
humane leaders, along with the affected Governments, had pointed out
to the AIs and the Darjee who'd made the decision that lack of
education was one of the things that was easy to remedy but they and
their protests had been ignored.
The extraction list and
its various sub-lists had become public knowledge, actually published
by the Darjee, who still didn't understand Earth politics, and its
release had led to conflicts all over Earth. These conflicts had, in
many cases, ignored old rivalries and thereby cemented new alliances
against the perceived winners in the race to the stars. Major losers
had been places like Taiwan, Israel and Turkey, all of which had
effectively ceased to exist as nations.
The army of the
People's Republic had invaded the island of Taiwan when it became
clear to anti-Confederacy elements within the hierarchy of the
Peoples Republic that they were being bypassed in favour of the
capitalistic renegades in Taiwan. Extraction, it was declared, was
the 'Peoples' right and if one couldn't go then none should. Many
Western groups would take up this mantra at a later date.
At
the boundary between Asia and Europe the remnant of the Ottoman
Empire that had become Turkey was ripped asunder by a combination of
internal pressures created by the rift between the country's large
Muslim population and its military. These pressures were exacerbated
by the extensive terrorist attacks by Kurds from the PKK based in
Iraq. People in the rest of the world, who had problems of their own,
generally ignored this collapse, though Greece did recapture Cyprus
in the confusion.
Israel attempted to eject all of the
Arabs, predominantly the Palestinians, from within its borders. This
ethnic cleansing included the various areas of the border states,
which it still occupied. With nothing to lose the states of Syria and
Lebanon launched an attack on Israel. Egypt found itself propelled
into the war by its population, which was in near revolt at the
government's initial reluctance to support their Arab brethren.
Genuine support from other Muslim states flooded in, and along with
the obvious countries like Libya and Iran support came from Jordan,
Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Israel found itself in danger of
being swamped.
Whilst in previous wars it had been able
to defeat the Arab world by mobilising its military machine, it had
always done so with the covert and often overt backing of the United
States. This time America had too many problems of its own both at
home and overseas to effectively support its allies like Turkey and
Israel. The United Nations Security Council didn't even issue a
condemnation of the attacks on the Jewish homeland though many felt
it would have been a pointless exercise if they had.
The
Jewish nation did not go quietly, with the Israeli Defence Force
throwing its tanks against the oncoming swarms in suicidal blocking
efforts to gain time for its civilians. On the coast frantic efforts
by both civilian sailors and the small Navy element allowed almost a
third of the Jewish and Israeli Christian populations to escape,
which left the final act of the short vicious war to the IDF Air
Force.
With a third of their major cities already in Arab
hands and no sign that the World was going to stop this war of
extermination the Knesset concluded that the 'red line' had been
crossed and gave the fatal order. Strike missions took off from the
airbases at Hatzerim, Ramat David and Tel Nof. Each strike consisted
of four F16I 'Sufa' attack aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. Their
targets were Damascus, Cairo, Amman and, controversially, Mecca. An
all out surge by the remaining elements of the IDF Air Force masked
these flights until it was too late to do anything about them.
NORAD
alerted the rest of the world to the unfolding events in the Middle
East but by then it was too late - Jews and Muslims around the world
were no longer listening to anyone else; theirs was a war of
annihilation.
In England the small and scattered Jewish
population found itself being hunted down by Muslims everywhere. What
had been a tolerant society went rabid as Muslims of all racial
backgrounds went looking for revenge against the people who had
destroyed their Holy of Holies. And in this jihad mistakes were made.
Christians became caught up in the crossfire, Hindus were taken out
by Jews, and in one final act of destruction the Royal Family
suffered a catastrophic attack.
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth the Second and the majority of her closest family members
were taken out in a well-planned attack, by terrorist bombs, at the
Queens' residence at Balmoral Castle. One of the major problems for
the British at all levels was identifying the perpetrators of this
atrocity, rumours as always pointed in many directions but, with no
one claiming actual responsibility, the identity of the bombers was
still a mystery.
By chance the daughter of the Queen's
second son, the relatively young Princess Beatrice, had been late
arriving and so unexpectedly found herself the Queen of a divided,
warring nation.
The new Queen stepped forward and, along
with the staunch support of all of the mainstream political parties,
rallied the country. The shock of a minority's action against the
establishment effectively stopped the war in England. No one was
prepared to act against the groundswell of support for the new Queen
and her appeal for calm in the land.
The last year had
been a traumatic and life-changing experience for the Princess who'd
never expected to ascend the throne. Her driving ambition had become
the survival of Britain and its varied people. She had become
indifferent to the rest of the planet, an attitude which spread
throughout her Government and then to the nation as a whole. The
Government, utilising all of its resources, began working to preserve
all the things that were quintessentially British.
This
policy was now coming to a head as the Prime Minister's visit and
announcement confirmed that all of the key elements for it were now
in place.
The Confederacy and its early human accomplices,
in their naivety, had failed to provide any form of government or
leadership for the new colonies. Queen Beatrice fully intended to
rectify that oversight, not in person, as regardless of her own
personal CAP score she had to remain to lead her nation, but through
the actions of her children and the children of her elected leaders.
---oOo---
"Captain Williams, are your people ready to go?"
asked the Marine Lt. Colonel in his clipped British accent.
"Yes
Colonel, they are," replied the extraction team commander.
"Do
they understand and accept what we are planning to do down there?"
continued the Colonel.
"Yes Colonel, they do,"
confirmed the Captain.
The Colonel raised an eyebrow
forcing the Captain to expand his brief comment.
"Colonel,
the only non-British members of my team are both from down under, a
Kiwi and an Aussie, and they've already asked for permission to pass
information about what we are doing here on to their former senior
officers. After the mission is completed of course." The Captain
met the Colonel's gaze full on, "and all of us were at P'yong
when that mess had to be cleared up," he said as though that
answered any possible doubts the senior officer could have had.
His
reference to the atrocities that had occurred on the colony world of
P'yong caused the Colonel to wince as he remembered the reports he'd
read.
P'yong had been one of the earliest colonies that
the Darjee had established and its mainly Chinese population had been
place under the Governorship of Deng Zemin. He, despite his high CAP
score and his previous employment of running a manufacturing plant,
had turned out to be a sexual predator with delusions of Roman
grandeur. The combat units from P'yong had been ferocious in combat,
as failure had meant ending up in the Governor's games when they
returned to the planet, which were just another painful way of dying
disguised as entertainment.
The Darjee's refusal to
intervene, citing the Confederacy rules on planetary autonomy, had
pushed many humans away from the idealistic beliefs of the
Confederacy. These ideals were fine in a colony were everyone worked
for the common good and no one would abuse power, a rare thing
amongst humans. The changes were reflected in an adoption of a more
pragmatic frame of mind.
The Colonel nodded his
understanding, "Very well Captain, good luck! You may begin your
extraction."
"Thank you, Colonel," said the
Captain before nodding to his First Sergeant, who'd been doing his
best to ignore what was going on around him and still be available if
his boss needed him.
The composite company that Captain
Wainright was leading was a clear indication that the Darjee were no
longer running the show. As with all extraction teams it was a
composite unit, but where the troops were normally drawn from a
random selection of units, this one had been put together with care.
They had been drawn from former members of the British military,
predominantly the elite units. And had all proven themselves to be
loyal to their commanders rather than the Confederacy. The only
members of the team who weren't British had been drafted in at the
last minute following injuries to original team members, and had come
at the express recommendation of Captain Wainright.
The
extraction team commenced boarding the four Panther assault shuttles
allocated to this mission. That they were using shuttles rather than
the simple transporter network gave some indication that this was a
larger than normal mission. When the departing shuttles rendezvoused
with four of the A20 Super Warthog ground attack craft the full scale
of the operation became apparent to everyone who could see it.
As
the support fighters joined the formation Captain Wainright consulted
with the Earth Force AI and got the all clear to begin the insertion.
He glanced at the pilot and nodded, "The mission is Go!"
---oOo---
Following the official announcement that contact had
been made with aliens, or more specifically the Confederacy, things
on Earth had begun to change. The threat posed by the Sa'arm and the
requirements for humans to combat this threat had moved many nations
onto a militaristic footing. The purpose of CAP testing and the lower
age, fourteen, for volunteering had forced changes on most
societies.
In Great Britain legal change was a process
that took time and a great deal of debate with a lot of it heated and
rather bigoted in nature. The impact on existing legislation took
several years to unravel; lowering the age at which drinking, sexual
consent and voting could occur led to several other acts needing
amendment.
In the end it was decided that a new act was
required to enable these sweeping changes. The new legislation was
styled the 'Age Restrictions (Confederacy) (Amendments) Act' and the
drafting process began. It was whilst this process was going on that
the attack on Israel took place and the subsequent events left its
mark on this Act, though most people wouldn't have noticed.
The
British Secret Intelligence Service, like most similar Agencies
around the world, had been cut out of the loop by the combination of
the Darjee and the military. This enflamed the already established
suspicion and distrust between the intelligence community and the
military and led the various Secret Services to seriously investigate
events involving the Confederacy, its policies and its actions. When
the Agencies had been cleansed, as the military liked to phrase the
wholesale removal of key personnel, the SIS, CIA and their sister
organisations were left with a basic institutional mistrust of the
Confederacy and its motives.
When the newly crowned Queen
Beatrice had summoned the new head of the Secret Intelligence Service
to her and tasked him with finding anything that would be useful to
her aims he'd set about it with a vengeance. He'd quickly set his
people to digging up every anomaly, fabrication or change in
procedure they could find.
When he'd made an interim
report on the findings of the Service he had included the information
that the concubine limits did not seem to be as set in stone as had
first appeared. He also noted that, in some colonies, concubines were
not the slaves that everyone had been led to believe.
One
of the final pieces of information that he presented to Her Majesty
and the Prime Minister turned out to have far reaching implications
for their plans. The Director presented details of an extraction run
by two Confederacy Marines, Cpl Rick Evans and Cpl Peter Taylor.
During the extraction a case had been put forward by a volunteer,
Mitchell Franke and his concubine, Michelle Rawlins, to allow the
extraction of a non-related child, Tyler Gregory. To achieve this the
legal guardianship of the child was transferred by its parents, David
and Bettina Gregory, to the volunteer during the extraction. Both of
the Marines present, in consultation with the AIs running the event
concurred that this was acceptable.
This last revelation
led to a section in the Act that ordained that the legal guardianship
of all children under the age of fourteen in Great Britain would be
vested in the Government. The Government would normally allow the
biological parents to supervise their children but would be able to
transfer this authority as it saw fit.
The explanation
given, when the section was questioned, was that it saved time had
been extracted found itself being left behind. Given the ongoing
fight concerning the lowering of the age of consent and other similar
matters the section was passed without further scrutiny.
One
impact of the time taken for this Act to get through Parliament was
the rise of the Earth First party within British politics. At the
beginning it was in a very vocal minority but it was becoming more
powerful and extreme as time wore on. Within three years it would
become the second largest party in British politics, forcing an
amalgamation of the former main when dealing with those admittedly
rare occasions when a child whose parents stream Labour, Conservative
and Liberal Democratic parties to combat its growth and power.
---oOo---
The announcement of the Queen’s garden party was
greeted with mild interest by the nation's media. The Windsor
monarchy had established a tradition of hosting garden parties three
or four times a year and although the odd event had been missed they
were deemed to be nothing special by those in the know.
This
event took on added interest when it was intimated that it would be
in honour of the Queen's two children Prince Andrew and Princess
Elizabeth and would serve as their formal introduction into public
life. In their honour the guest list would consist predominantly of
people in their own age group and would be drawn from a cross section
of the country's young people.
The only real voice of
opposition came from some of the leadership of the Earth First party
and even this became muted when it was revealed that the actual
leader of the party, Donald Prendergast and his wife had already
accepted an invitation to attend along with their two children.
The
day of the event dawned clear and sunny and people started to arrive
early. Security was high, which everyone understood given the way
recent events had unfolded, but it did mean that the party was a
little slow to get off the ground.
It was mid-afternoon
before a chamberlain entered the Queen's quarters and announced,
"Ma'am, all of the guests have arrived."
"Thank
you, have the children been informed?"
"Yes
Ma'am, they're in the Music Room awaiting your arrival."
"Is
the Prime Minister with them?"
"He hadn't
arrived when I left, Ma'am but I believe he was making his way
there."
"Very well, tell them I'll be there
shortly."
As the chamberlain left Queen Beatrice
looked at her reflection in the mirror and tried to smile. She was
one of the few who knew that if everything went according to plan
then this would be the last she would be seeing of her children for a
long time, if not forever. Which, she acknowledged, was both a
blessing and a worry that she had to deal with, especially when she
considered that when this was finished most parents of the children
present today were just going to receive the standard Confederacy
notification that their children had been extracted. After a few
moments of quiet contemplation the young Queen rose and made her way
to her children and, despite other recent events, was certainly the
hardest event she'd attended in her life.
"Her
Majesty the Queen," announced the chamberlain as Beatrice passed
by him and into the Music Room. Around the room people turned towards
her and bowed or curtsied as appropriate.
Two young
adults, as they were now termed, broke away from watching the people
outside and crossed the room to their mother. As much as she'd have
liked them to be in some sort of formal dress it just wasn't going to
happen, even her own dress was much more revealing than anything a
previous Queen would have been seen in. The Princess was, as far as
her mother was concerned, as near to being naked as she could
possibly get away with; that her daughter disagreed with her was a
given. The Prince had followed fashion but not as slavishly as his
younger sister and was dressed in figure hugging Lycra, which
emphasised his fit, if young body.
A step or two behind
them followed the Prime Minister escorting his own son, who was
dressed in similar fashion to the Prince. That the two of them were
fitter and more worldly-wise than any of their predecessors had been
at the same age was a sad fact of life given the changes that had
occurred. That her daughter knew more of sexual matters than she
herself had known when she was first married still came as a surprise
to the Queen, even if it was one of the changes that she supported
wholeheartedly.
She smiled, "Shall we go and greet
our guests?"
As was normal on state occasions her two
children started to move behind her but she stopped them, "Oh
no, this is your event." She grinned at the pair, "Off you
go, this time we'll follow you." As the two young Royals stepped
forward Beatrice offered her arm, "Shall we, Prime
Minister?"
George Brown looked at his son and the
Queen waved him forward, "Go on Steven, join them! You're part
of this as well."
As soon as the two appeared the
state trumpeters sounded a fanfare which attracted the attention of
everyone in the garden. The Queen followed a moment later and waved
off the rush of courtiers who normally surrounded her.
Princess
Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder, as though seeking
instructions and her mother smiled, "Go on, get out there and
mingle."
The Princess nudged her brother and set off
briskly towards the nearest group of people who looked to be her own
age. Unnoticed by most people were the two men in casual clothes who
followed the pair without seeming to be looking at them; in fact they
appeared to be looking everywhere else.
The Queen glanced
at her escort; "Shall we mingle?"
"Yes
Ma'am," answered the widower, answering his sovereign's grin
with an equal one of his own.
The party, though large by
the standards of previous garden parties, fitted conveniently into
the area nearest the palace, which made everyone's task easier. With
forty-two acres to play with the Queen could have had the party
almost anywhere but, as a rule, she tried to assist her staff in any
way she could.
The two senior members of the entourage
headed for their own peers, automatically steering clear of the
younger, noisier elements. As they crossed the well tended lawn the
Prime Minister asked quietly, "Have you any idea when it's going
to happen?"
"No," replied the Queen, "and
it's making me nervous too."
Across the garden Andrew
was already in animated conversation with a group in Army uniform.
The cadets from the local Combined Cadet Force unit were a little in
awe of their future sovereign but his constant chatter and friendly
chuckle were relaxing them. His sister was standing slightly behind
him and listening interestedly, though she'd already decided that
there was no one who interested her in this group.
"So
Sarah are you a volunteer?" the Prince asked the good-looking
redhead who's nametag revealed that she was Sarah Workington.
"Yes
Sir," she replied, "I volunteered as soon as I got my CAP
results."
The Prince scanned the rest of the group
and noted peripherally that it contained more girls than boys, "Are
you all volunteers?"
The senior cadet who's nametag
identified him as Brian Small nodded before adding, "Our Captain
said that we could send eight cadets to represent the unit and as
there were eight of us who'd volunteered for Confederacy service we
got the job." His grin as he explained how they'd ended up
attending the garden party ensured that the prince knew that this
wasn't considered a bad result.
"Well, have fun,"
said the Prince as he turned away, "and I'll see you all
later."
"Come on Andy," said his sister
beside him, "Let's go talk to those Scots."
Andrew
looked in the direction his sister had indicated and saw a large
group gathered together. As the two Royals approached they could see
that although all of the groups members were wearing a kilt with a
white shirt or blouse there appeared to be three distinct patterns of
tartan, one with a red cast, another very dark and the final one was
predominantly yellow. As the pair got close to the group three people
detached themselves and moved forward so that they were the obvious
points of contact.
"Hello," said Andrew and was
a little surprised when the two men in the group gave a short bow and
the girl an abbreviated curtsey.
"There's no need
for that here," said Andrew sounding a little bit put out, "I
thought everyone knew that."
"We do know, your
Highness, but it was our decision to acknowledge your position if we
got the opportunity," the speaker glanced around before adding,
"It was something we all agreed upon."
Andrew
looked at the man who'd spoken and was impressed. Many people had
seen images of the augmented Marines but this man, who up close
really did seem to be young, had the same sort of physique without
any assistance. Andrew wasn't the only one who was impressed; his
sister was as well.
"So tell me about the kilts
you're wearing?" she said moving the conversation along. "I
assume that you're all from different clans?"
The
spokesman turned to the Princess and smiled, "That's right your
highness, I'm John Stewart and this is the Stewart tartan," he
said indicating his mainly red kilt.
"The lady is
Wendy MacLeod," he continued indicated the girl with a casual
wave of the arm, "and she's in the MacLeod Tartan." Andrew
looked at the long legs that the girls' very short kilt was
displaying and thought, 'she's only just 'in' that tartan', but he
refrained from commenting out loud.
"And this
gentleman is Graeme Campbell," said John Stewart indicating the
shorter man in the darkest of tartans, "and he's in the Campbell
tartan, which is sometimes called the Government tartan."
"The
same one the Black Watch wear?" asked the princess.
"That's
correct, your Highness," replied Graeme, favouring John Stewart
with a slight scowl.
"Are you representing any formal
organisation or is it chance that you're all together?" asked
Prince Andrew.
Graeme Campbell returned his attention from
the princess and answered, "We've been pulled together by the
Highland Society for this event, your Highness."
Wendy
looked a little shy as she added, "We'll be giving a
demonstration of Highland dancing later this afternoon."
Andrew
had visions of flashing legs and bouncing breasts as the girls
pranced around and felt sudden urge to move on, before he embarrassed
himself in front of the cute lass. "I look forward to it,"
and his sincerity was clear to all. "Come on, Sis, time to move
on."
The three young Scots bowed and curtsied as the
Royal couple moved away.
Across the garden the Queen had
finally run into Donald Prendergast and his family and was doing her
utmost to remain civil to one of the men in this world who she really
detested. His wife, Wendy, was doing her utmost to ensure that her
outspoken husband didn't do anything that was going to cause
embarrassment to either of her children. The Prime Minister, who was
still accompanying the Queen, was as hampered as his sovereign was in
dealing with this man and had stepped back so as not to present a
target for the man's barbs.
"Mrs. Prendergast, I'm so
glad you're here," said Beatrice, "Aren't your children
going to join in the festivities?" She asked looking at the two
children who appeared to be hemmed in by their parents.
"We
didn't want to risk any sort of..." tailed off Wendy Prendergast
as she realised that she was just about to accuse her hostess of
fermenting trouble for her family.
"Oh I assure you
there won't be any of that sort of nonsense here," said the
Queen, "Let them go and join in, I'm sure they'll find it more
entertaining than listening to us 'old fogies' twittering
on."
Taking the chance they'd been offered by their
sovereign, Gail and John Prendergast didn't wait for their parents'
permission but headed off to join the rest of the youngsters. After
watching the two disappear into the throng the Queen locked eyes with
the father and added rather cryptically, "I'm sure that we'll
all do what's right when the time comes."
Before
anything else could be said there was a loud roar and behind the
noise came four Confederacy dropships plummeting towards the gardens
at incredible speed. Around the grounds various people screamed in
shock but the majority were just frozen in place as they watched the
craft approach.
---oOo---
The grey wall of an interdiction field went up, totally
enclosing the Palace Gardens and the four assault shuttles that had
taken up station just inside the outer limits of the impressive
gardens. From the hovering shuttles stepped the first of the Marines
who descended swiftly to the ground, the tractor beams of the
dropships depositing the troops quickly and precisely around the
gathered guests.
The two young Royals were grabbed and
unceremoniously bundled up by their minders and literally dragged
towards the Music room and the relative safety of the confines of the
Palace. The Queen spotting the commotion around them moved as quickly
as she could towards the Palace, accompanied by her own security
detachment who'd nervously drawn their own weapons.
"Wait!"
called the monarch, amazingly stopping the couples' security detail
in its tracks. "That is the Confederacy," she said, "and
they are not going to be attacking us! So let us deal with this
calmly and sensibly," she added when she finally caught the
small group up. Around her the four men who'd been accompanying her
positioned themselves and prepared for the worst while hoping that
their sovereign was right in her assessment.
The Marines
edged around the entire gardens, effectively surrounding the
occupants, and once that was done two Marines strode towards the
Royal party, one with an officer's markings and the other a senior
NCO. They kept their hands in view and made no aggressive moves as
they approached and then came to a halt just short of the protective
cordon.
"Your Majesty," announced the officer,
"I'm Captain Wainright of the Confederacy Space Marines and as
I'm sure you are aware I'm here to carry out an extraction for the
new colony being established on the planet Albion."
"Captain,"
acknowledged the Queen, "I assume you have a procedure you need
to follow to gather the volunteers for this new colony."
"Yes
Ma'am, we have," confirmed the Captain. "It would help if
you could restrain the various members of your security detail,"
he glanced at the two men who were protecting the Royal children. "I
was in the Regiment and know how messy it could get if they're not
stood down."
The Queen followed his gaze; "Gentlemen,
the Prince and Princess have volunteered for service with the
Confederacy, that is their decision and one I wholeheartedly agree
with. Please step aside so that the Captain can proceed as he is
required to do."
The two members of the Special Air
Service Regiment - which had taken over the Royal protection duties
from the police following the attack which had killed so many members
of the Royal family - looked from their Queen to the Marine Captain.
Both men silently promised retribution if any thing went astray, an
unspoken promise that the Marine Captain accepted stoically, before
the bodyguards moved back a couple of paces.
Around the
garden people were watching the drama unfold on the patio, many of
them still a little confused at what they had been caught up in. The
thoughts foremost in most minds were 'Is this a normal extraction?'
'Is this a kidnapping?' and much more prevalent, 'Can I get
selected?"
"Thank you, Ma'am," said the
Captain acknowledging the Queen's assistance before he turned to
address the crowd.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,"
boomed his amplified voice, "this is an extraction of volunteers
for service in the Confederacy." He nodded to the senior NCO
who'd accompanied him to the Queen; he in turn relayed an instruction
to the surrounding Marines.
"If you look around you
will see several people holding up large purple banners," and
around the periphery of the garden eight Marines unfurled the
described banners. "Would those who've volunteered for service
please make your way to the nearest banner. At the same time would
those who haven't volunteered please move to the centre of the
garden."
It took a moment but slowly people started
to move around. The Captain stepped back and Her Majesty moved
forward to his side.
"How many volunteers are there?"
she asked. They'd aimed to get a full one thousand but there were
always absentees from these events for one reason or another.
"The
AIs are telling us there are nine hundred and seventy-eight, Ma'am,
plus several that have high enough CAP scores that haven't
volunteered," Captain Wainright said pointedly, as he watched
the remainder of the people mill around.
"How long is
this going to take?" Beatrice asked.
The Captain
sighed, "Longer than I really like Ma'am," he said, "but
you know why this has to be done in one hit, don't you?"
"Yes,"
she said looking at her children. "Shouldn't they be heading for
one of the registration points?" she asked suddenly.
"That's
all right Ma'am, my First Sergeant has got it in hand," said the
Captain indicating the Marine who'd accompanied him earlier. The
Marine had just finished looking at the CAP ID cards of the Royal
children and that of Steven Brown, who'd joined them. He pointed back
towards the Captain and Steven headed in that direction and the
Marine turned his attention back to the Queen's children.
---oOo---
It took nearly thirty minutes to get an accurate count
of who was there and what their status was. The final figures were
nine hundred and seventy-eight volunteers of whom seven hundred and
ninety-two were under sixteen. There were another seventeen with CAP
scores high enough but whom hadn't registered as volunteers for
whatever reason. That left, in round numbers, six thousand who could
put themselves forward as concubines and another six thousand under
the age of fourteen who could not do so.
Roger Wainright
looked at his former sovereign and decided to make a suggestion.
"Ma'am, I'd suggest that you go inside if you're even a little
squeamish," he said. "What's going to happen next often
gets a little extreme and..."
Beatrice looked the
Marine firmly in the eye, "Captain, I know what's coming and I'm
prepared for it. If I don't stay and watch how can I, in all honesty,
go on television and tell the country that what occurred here was not
only necessary but that it was carried out correctly."
Captain
Wainright found himself nodding in understanding, "In that case
I'd better get started," he said stepping away from the
Queen.
His amplified voice boomed over the garden, "Ladies
and Gentlemen, we now come to the selection process that I'm sure you
all have heard of. Well this time there have been a few changes to
the procedure and I'm going to run through them now. This applies
only to the potential concubines so could they and those who are
under fourteen please pay attention."
He looked over
the crowd and felt the weight of their expectations pressing on him.
"First of all we need to achieve a degree of separation so when
I tell you to move I want all of the children," he paused for a
moment then emphasised, "that's anyone under the age of
fourteen." Another pause, "to move over to the areas by the
blue banners and sit down. At the same time I want all of those who
are mothers already and who wish to be considered for evacuation to
move into a group over here, under the yellow banners." As he
spoke four large banners, two of them yellow and two of them blue,
were unfurled by his Marines. The Captain finished with, "Will
all other people remain where they are presently situated, sit if it
will be more comfortable."
He waited for a few
moments as people looked around and the banners settled down so they
could be clearly seen.
"So will the children and the
mothers who wish to be considered for evacuation move to their
designated positions now!" As the noise began to rise he barked,
"Quickly and quietly, if you please!"
It took a
while but the crowd split into three distinct groups and revealed an
interesting fact concerning the makeup of the original guest list.
Rather than being split equally, the six thousand potential
extractees consisted of a mere eighteen hundred men. The group of
women who'd already borne children numbered one thousand, four
hundred and seventy, or about seventy-five percent of the women
present over the age of sixteen.
After the groups
segregated there was still a small cluster of people off to one side
who had no interest in being extracted. They had gravitated towards
Donald Prendergast and his wife who were holding court in a fairly
subdued manner under the watchful eye of a couple of the Marines and
at least two of the Queen's protection detail. The main group,
believing that they knew what was coming had started to split into
males and females.
"Right," announced the Marine
Captain getting everyone's attention again, "Now we come to the
first significant change in the normal procedure. When you're told to
do so, I want the volunteers," he pointed at them, "to
cross to the group of mothers," his arm swung across to the
women clustered around the yellow banners, "and each of you are
to pick one of the mothers to accompany you when you leave. This
selection will not count against the limit you're allowed, so if you
have a CAP score of six point five you will still be able to pick
another two concubines to accompany you after this selection."
He
paused for a moment to allow his instruction to be absorbed and the
muttering to subside, "OK volunteers, move."
He
didn't get the stampede he'd half expected but the volunteers did
cross fairly quickly to the mothers' group. He let things proceed for
ten minutes and then let everyone know that they had five minutes
left to make a decision or he'd move on to the next phase and they'd
have to do without. This seemed to cause a bit more frantic activity
and a bit of clothing removal that had been noticeable by its absence
before he called time.
"Quiet everyone!" he
bellowed and waited for silence to descend.
"Volunteers,
move back to your starting points and take your selections with you."
He waited until they'd started to move and then added, "Will the
mothers who wish to be extracted and haven't been selected at this
time please rejoin the main group of those willing to be extracted."
---oOo---
Donald Prendergast and his wife left the group they
were with and started to move towards the Queen, their two children
watched their progress from the edge of their group but remained
where they were. The security detachment started to close ranks but
when Beatrice spotted their movement and looked over, she thought for
a moment and waved them back allowing the leader of the Earth First
party to approach her.
The Captain's voice boomed out once
more, "Volunteers! The Marines who are with you will now confirm
the rules that apply for this extraction. They will then guide you
through the process of picking your concubines. Please pay attention
to what they say and let's not hang around." He was silent for a
moment, then barked, "Proceed!"
That was the
signal to start the normal extraction process.
Donald
Prendergast got to within six feet of the Queen and stopped, he
looked at her and said accusingly, "You knew this was going to
happen, didn't you?"
The Queen drew herself up, "No!"
she declared, "Not for definite I didn't. I simply set up a
situation that would look attractive and hoped that the Confederacy
would take advantage of the opportunity I'd presented."
Donald
looked unconvinced but he had another matter to resolve, "Why
have they made changes to the procedure?" he asked.
"You'll
have to ask the Captain here about that," said the Queen,
carefully side-stepping the final bomb that had been planted.
"This
is wrong, you know," said Donald, waving his arm limply to
encompass the whole garden. "You should be stopping this sort of
thing, not encouraging it," he declared, starting to build up a
head of steam.
"Mr Prendergast," said the Queen
raising her voice so the people who were watching could hear clearly,
"I've seen the evidence of what is coming as have you and anyone
else who's being paying attention to what is going on also knows what
is coming. The facts clearly demonstrate that it is physically
impossible to do what you want and evacuate everyone," she
paused for effect, "I, for one, don't believe that condemning
the whole race to death is a very sensible option, now is it?"
The Queen paused again and took a deep breath. "As
much as I don't want to lose my children," she waved her arm to
encompass the garden "this is the best option for everyone. If
you can't accept that," she said, "then I feel sorry for
you."
Beside her the Prime Minister, who'd joined
them almost unnoticed added, "Several of us could be out there,"
he said indicating the garden, "but feel it is better to stay
here and help in any way we can." He looked at the leader of the
opposition and added, "Maybe you should give that fact a little
bit of thought, Donald."
Mrs Prendergast suddenly
blurted out, "Your Majesty!"
The Queen switched
her attention to the slim woman who looked dazed that she'd
interrupted but pressed ahead with her question, "What is your
CAP score, Ma'am?"
"Eight point one,"
replied the Queen quietly.
"But..."
"I'm
needed here," said the Queen looking across the lawn, "but,"
she emphasised, "my children will be safe."
Wendy
looked around and her face suddenly showed that she'd resolved a
conflict within herself. "Donald, John is going to volunteer,"
she said forcefully, "and he's taking his sister with
him."
Donald looked at his wife as though she'd been
taken over by aliens, "Over my dead body, he is," he
growled.
One of the security detail muttered, "Don't
tempt me," but the protagonists ignored him.
"Donald,
I know you want to save everyone but it's not going to be possible,"
Wendy said, looking at her irate husband with pity. "Deep down
you have to know that as well as I do," she said.
She
stepped forward and placed a hand gently on his arm, "If we
don't make them go now, we may not get another chance and I don't
want to watch them die," she finished, tears slowly running down
her face.
"But I want to save you as well," said
Donald pulling his wife into his arms oblivious to those around
him.
"The children are more important Donald,"
she sobbed, "Please, please let them go."
Donald
lost as soon as he looked into his wife's eyes, "OK, they can
go," he said to her, "I just wish there was a way you could
go to."
"Donald," said the Prime Minister
softly, "You'd better go and explain to your boy what's
happening." When his opponent looked up he continued, "I'll
square it away with the Marines why you have to do that."
"Ma'am,
if you'll excuse me," the defeated man started to
leave.
"Wendy," called the Queen, "before
you go, can I have a word?"
---oOo---
"Good afternoon, I'm First Sergeant Adam Crossfield,
formerly of the Special Boat Service and now a member of the
Confederacy Space Marines," he looked at the 'children' before
him impassively, "I've been tasked with taking the two of you
through the extraction process and ensuring that everything goes
smoothly. I am also to answer any questions you may have as well as
provide any guidance that I feel is relevant."
The
senior Marine NCO addressed the Royal children as though he was
giving a lecture, a lecture that he'd done hundreds of times before.
Then he grinned and all the formality drained away, "Which
basically means that I follow you around and offer what advice I can.
You are free to take that advice, or ignore it, as you make your own
decisions." He carefully studied the two 'children' as he still
thought of anyone under the age of eighteen and found himself
nodding, these two had remained calm through everything and were even
now just regarding him with interest.
"I have to ask
the two of you if you've given this any thought, you know, have you
made any prior arrangements I should know about?" he asked.
"No
arrangements First, we haven't had much chance to do anything in that
line. But I can assure you, the two of us have given this matter a
lot of thought," replied the Prince, "an awful lot of
thought." The Princess contented herself with a shake of the
head, denying any preconceived involvements.
Adam
Crossfield caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned
towards it reflexively. Five very distinguished looking ladies, all
of them slightly more conservatively dressed than was the current
fashion were approaching the Royal couple.
The first woman
to reach them nodded a formal acknowledgement to the Marine and then
turned her attention to the Royal children, "Your Highness,"
she said addressing the Prince directly, "your mother instructs
that you are to pick one of us to be the 'mother' that accompanies
you." She glanced at the Princess before going on, "then
your sister will do the same from the four that are left."
Without further comment the woman stepped back so that she was in
line with the remaining four women.
First Sergeant
Crossfield looked on; he'd been briefed on the changes to the
extraction procedure and the reasons that went with them. The fact
that someone had gone to the trouble of providing a suitable 'mother'
for each of the Royal children didn't really come as a surprise.
However, the fact that the Royal children were being offered a choice
did surprise him a little, he'd sort of figured that what was going
to happen to them had been totally pre-ordained.
He
stepped forward and addressed the two youngsters quietly, "It
may not have been made clear to you but you need to know that you
will be going to be in a position that carries some authority on the
new colony world," he said. "Both of you need to keep that
in mind when you are making decisions, especially you Andrew,"
he said and then took a half pace back and waited to see what would
happen.
Elizabeth looked stunned by the Marine’s
words but couldn't shake her gaze from the five women. After what
seemed like hours she glanced at the crowds around the garden and
then turned to her brother and smiled weakly. "This is where it
all begins, isn't it Andrew, all those things we've spoken about for
the last couple of months, the hints that mother dropped, the extra
lessons, it all comes down to this?"
Andrew glanced
across the paved area that separated him from his mother and saw she
was standing with the Prime Minister and Donald Prendergast. It
surprised him that she wasn't watching to make sure that he did the
right thing after everything she'd put him through recently. Slowly
it dawned on him that his mother had done all that she could for him,
and what his sister had said was indeed true.
From here
on in he was the ONE in charge and the wellbeing of anyone he
selected was all down to him. If his mother was right with her hints
it would probably be more than just the half-a-dozen people he picked
now. The fact that he had his own private escort through the
extraction process, who was dropping none-too-subtle hints already,
seemed to confirm that belief.
"Yes Sis, it is,"
he replied,his voice carrying the realisation of his new
responsibilities clearly.
---oOo---
Swallowing he squared his shoulders and turned back to
the women who were waiting patiently for his decision. He looked
along the line and realised that the woman who'd been their spokesman
was in fact his own nanny from when he he'd been growing up. That he
hadn't recognised her said a little about his state of mind and how
she'd changed her appearance for this event. When Elizabeth saw the
look on her brother's face she took a half step back, the look he
wore now was not the young boy who'd escorted her out into the garden
but that of a young, and serious man who had a job to do.
"Ladies,"
said Andrew calling their attention to him, "If you would be so
kind as to remove all of your clothing, we will get this sorted."
"Your Highness?" gasped his former
nanny.
"Emily, I know that you're going with us
primarily to look after any children we have," said Andrew, "but
all of you are still young enough, with the help of the Confederacy
and its medical science if need be, to bear children of your own.
Therefore I wish to inspect what is on offer should I decide to
partake of it." He stood there, his hands clasped behind his
back and waited, his expression implying that the sooner they got on
with it the sooner he could move on to more important
things.
Elizabeth hissed and then spoke so that only
Andrew and Adam could hear, "Andrew, what do you think you are
doing? I don't want to see them naked!"
Without
turning his head the Prince replied, "Liz, I'm fifteen years old
and if this goes the way it's supposed to I'm going to be running at
least a household." He looked at the First Sergeant pointedly
and added, "and probably something much more." He glanced
back over his shoulder at his sister for a moment before returning
his gaze to the older women, "If my own household won't do as I
say then why should anyone else who is forced to have me as their
leader?"
Elizabeth glanced across at the Marine when
he muttered, "True," and opened her mouth to say something
but Andrew had continued speaking, "And remember, Sis, doing
what you're told will apply to you just as much as it does to
everyone else if I'm put in a position over you."
The
look Adam Crossfield gave the young girl quelled any thoughts of
rebellion, a rebellion that was based more on sibling rivalry than
considered thought. Their mother had been running them through all
the possible scenarios for the past couple of months and Elizabeth
knew that what her brother was saying was correct, its just that
until now it had never really been real. She glanced from her brother
to the Marine next to her and then over to her mother and made an
assumption. "Andrew is going to be in charge, isn't he?"
she asked the Marine quietly.
Adam smiled at the young
girl and gave a nod, confirming her suspicions.
In front
of the Prince the distinguished looking women had started to shed
their clothing, albeit reluctantly in most cases. When the Queen had
discreetly approached each of them individually a couple of months
ago it had been to sound them out about acting as nannies to the
Royal household in a new colony. Each of them had accepted that job
for whatever reason and now they found that the job description had
just undergone a rather radical change if the Prince was to be
believed and looking at him who could have any doubts.
The
spokeswoman for the ladies was forty-eight year old Lady Fitzwarren,
Emily to her friends, and the widow of the Earl of Fitzwarren. Her
husband had been killed in the same atrocity that had decimated the
Royal family, and her eldest son had inherited the title. One of her
three sons had already been extracted and her daughter, Margaret, was
in the garden, no doubt being picked up even as her mother slowly
stripped off her clothes. She'd been a part time nurse to both of the
Royal children and had hoped that they would have taken her for old
times sake. Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to go.
Next
to her, and shedding clothes with gay abandon, was Lady Sonia
Brightlow. Sonia was the trophy wife of Sir Frederick Brightlow, a
multi-millionaire investment banker. As far as his thirty-two year
old wife was concerned he was a doddering old fart and had started to
become a bit of a letch. As Sonia was also the daughter of one of the
Queen's Aides she had been able to wangle a job as a Lady in Waiting
to mostly keep her free from her husband's attentions.
On
the left of the line as Andrew looked at them was Lady Jessica
Fowler, who simply dropped her dress and stood there proudly in her
lace underwear and high heels. Just looking at her you would be hard
pressed to guess that she was forty-seven years old and had given
birth to three boys, all of whom had now flown the nest. Recently
divorced from her husband, who'd moved on to a younger woman, she'd
joined the Queen's entourage because of her interests in horse riding
and three day eventing in particular. She saw this as an excellent
opportunity to continue to live, something she had no objections
against doing.
To Emily Fitzwarren's left was Gail
Meadowlark who, it was noted, was much slower at removing her clothes
than the other women in the group. She shyly tried to hide her rotund
figure from view for as long as possible and did little to push
herself forward. Gail was also the only woman in the collection who
didn't have a noble title of her own, being a professional midwife by
trade. At forty-three she was in the middle of the age range for the
group.
On the right as Andrew looked at them the Lady Zara
Glover was scowling at all around her as she stripped off her
clothes. The thirty-eight year old had always felt that she'd been
press-ganged into this position by the Queen and the attitude of the
Prince was simply confirming her assumption. That she was stripping
her clothes off silently said a great deal about her will to survive
if not her intelligence. Pretty beyond doubt she was considered by
many of the palace insiders to be the archetypal dumb blonde, an
opinion that Andrew had heard expressed a few times.
As
the last of the ladies removed her final piece of clothing Steven
Brown rejoined the two Royals. A little bashfully he explained, "I
was told by your mother that I had to join you." He glanced at
the Marine, "Your Captain told me, that I was to tell you, that
I was to be treated in the same way as Prince Andrew and Princess
Elizabeth," Steven shrugged, "Whatever that means."
Adam
Crossfield got that far away look that most people had when they were
communicating via the AIs. He frowned for a moment before returning
his attention to Steven. "OK son, You've got to pick one of
these women to go with you." The Marine flicked an arm casually
in the direction of the Prince, "He's got first pick of these
ladies to accompany him. Then the Princess and finally you can have
your pick. After that we go out there," he said waving at the
garden, "and see what we can find to fill out the rest of your
households."
The Marine fell silent and Elizabeth and
Steven turned their attention back to the Prince and the mature,
naked women before him. Andrew hadn't allowed his gaze to drift from
the scene though he had paid attention to Steven's arrival and the
subsequent conversation.
"Ladies if you'll take it in
turns to turn around for me," requested the Prince, shifting his
gaze to his right.
Zara, on the right of the line, took
the hint and was the first person the Prince watched spin round. As
she moved she muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Just
like a bloody cattle market." She was actually facing away from
the Prince when she finished her outburst and didn't see his face
cloud over; she'd just killed any chance she'd had with the young
man.
"Thank you," said the Prince politely when
she'd finished and then turned his attention to Gail. The plump woman
was bright red, her blush extending down to her nipples; she forced
her hands to her side and turned quickly. Everything swayed as she
turned causing her more embarrassment though she noted that no one
actually laughed.
The Prince nodded before moving his gaze
to Emily. The older woman looked stony faced but did as the Prince
had requested, tuning to present her mature body for the young man.
Sonia was turning almost before Andrew was looking at her; jiggling
and wiggling was the best way to describe the moves she made as she
turned. A bright grin was plastered to her face when she finished her
performance, sure in her own mind that the Prince would take her -
after all, just look at the competition.
Jessica was the
picture of poise and elegance as she calmly waited until the Prince
was giving her his undivided attention and then turned around slowly
allowing sufficient time for the young Royal to get a good view
without going overboard or creating any other distractions.
"Thank
you ladies, if you'll just wait there a moment," said the Prince
before turning to his sister and the Prime Minister's son.
"I'm
going to take the last one," said Andrew, "the one at the
left hand end of the line," he indicated Lady Jessica Fowler.
"I'd suggest that you ignore the young one next to her and the
stupid blond at this end of the line," he flicked his fingers
towards Sonia and Zara and gave a wry grin. "I think that pair
would be more trouble than they're worth," he concluded.
Adam,
in the background, found he was agreeing with the young man's
assessment of the women he'd just watched perform.
Elizabeth
gave the women a quick glance, "If it's all right with you,
Steven, I'll take the fat one," she said, picking out Gail
Meadowlark, "she shouldn't give me any trouble."
Andrew
felt his eyebrows rise and just managed to refrain from chastising
his sister for her statement, fortunately her words hadn't carried to
the woman in question. He switched his gaze to Steven; "Do you
have any problems with taking an older woman, Steven? Lady Emily
Fitzwarren was my nanny, that's her in the middle of that
group.
Steven ran his eyes along the group again, he'd
heard the blonde's comment and agreed with Andrew but the young one
looked interesting. When he caught her eye she looked him up and down
and her lip curled in distaste, it was enough. "No," Steven
replied to the Prince's question, "no problem at all."
"Good,"
said the Prince, "then shall we collect our ladies and let Mr
Crossfield guide us on to the next stage," he concluded with a
smile.
The only woman who gave any indication that she
wasn't happy with the decision that the three youngsters had made was
Sonia Brightlow and the small party ignored her as it made its way
down onto the lawn.
---oOo---
Donald Prendergast crossed the short distance to his
children like a man going to his own execution. Intellectually he
knew that his wife was almost certainly correct in that this was the
only chance his children had of getting off the planet and surviving.
That he would lose his position as head of the Earth First party
didn't really matter anymore. He'd already had his doubts but now the
party was becoming something that he didn't want to be associated
with so these events could turn out to be a blessing in disguise - it
just didn't feel like it as he crossed the garden. What mattered was
that he had to convince his son John that this was a good idea - in
fact the only idea - and then say goodbye to his children.
John
Prendergast was only fifteen years old, but that was only a measure
of his age, in nearly all other things he was well advanced. He was
big for his age and excelled at all the sports he tried, he led his
class in most academic pursuits and was more than capable of holding
his own in a fight or a debate.
His CAP score had been
held down by his belief that his father, and his views, should at
least be given credence. Even so he'd scored high enough to be
eligible to volunteer to his father's apparent disgust. The test had
only been taken because it was compulsory and the school he'd been
attending didn't request explicit permission from the students'
parents before submitting them for examination.
That his
views had changed in the past twelve months was a secret that he'd
hidden from his parents, and especially his father, to the best of
his ability. He understood where his father was coming from, as did
most people, but unlike many he didn't cling to the idea that what
was considered fair was also right. John had taken the time and had
dug into the figures that both sides of the political divide had
thrown around with gay abandon. What he found was that the Earth
First party had been, at best, looking at the figures through rose
tinted glasses - or - as he'd come to believe, they were deliberately
lying to serve their own ends.
When this garden party had
been turned into an extraction he'd been very tempted to run off and
volunteer but his own sense of responsibility to his parents had held
him back. Now his father was returning from confronting the Queen and
the look of total defeat on his face gave an indication of how well
that had gone. John had a sudden moment of inspiration and guessed
that he would be leaving with the evacuees. Inside he felt elated at
his chance but that was tempered with the understanding that he would
be leaving his family behind.
Donald gathered both his
children in his arms and hugged them before stepping back a little
and beginning, almost formally, "John."
Before
he could get any further John decided to spare his father further
embarrassment and said, "I know, Dad."
When his
father stared at him in shock John continued, "I'm going with
them, aren't I?"
Donald could only nod in
answer.
"Is there anything else?" the boy asked
his father, who was now sweating.
Swallowing Donald
nodded, "Gail..."
"You want me to take
Gail?"
Again Donald could only nod in
response.
"Does that mean..." John petered out,
realising that he couldn't ask his father if he meant him to have sex
with his own sister. Glancing at his older sister he was stunned when
she shyly nodded her understanding of what he'd been going to ask,
and more importantly, her agreement to the act.
Blushing
furiously John stuttered, "How do I, uhmm, volunteer?"
Donald,
with silent tears running down his face stepped forward and gathered
both of his children in for a final hug before pointing back the way
he'd come from, "Go to the Marine with the Queen," he said,
"he's going to sort everything out."
Letting his
arms fall to his side Donald stepped back and watched as John held
out his hand to his sister and slowly, glancing back often, led her
away - to continue living if nothing else.
When the two
young Prendergasts reached the Queen their mother was stood there
frozen with her mouth hanging open. The two children looked at her
and worried, what had been going on here?
"Mom,"
squeaked Gail as she rushed to her mother.
The Queen
looked at the boy who was regarding her suspiciously and tried to
hide a grin. "She'll be alright," she said, "I just
gave her an option she hadn't thought of. I think it came as a bit of
a shock."
John stood and puzzled over the comment for
a moment before looking around quickly and then made a couple of,
possibly rash, assumptions. He looked back to his Sovereign with a
calculating gleam in his eye and stated clearly, "You told her
she could go with me as my 'mother'," he said waving an arm
towards the group containing the two Royal children and the three
naked women who were trailing them.
"Clever,"
said the Queen, "that's just what I told her." She then
stared hard at the young boy, "So what do you think?" she
asked.
Around him there was silence but John didn't
notice, his mind was racing, could he do this to his father? Earlier
conversations sprang to mind; his father's driving ambition had been
to save his wife and children. Was this the chance he'd been
searching for?
John glanced towards his father and then
pointed to his mother. Even at that distance John could tell that his
father was confused, he pointed to his own chest and then to the
skies. It took a moment but understanding dawned on Donald's face and
then he was nodding frantically and yelling what appeared to be YES,
repeatedly, at the top of his voice.
John nodded back and
moved across to his mother, "Come on mom, we've got to get out
of here, Dad says so."
---oOo---
Adam Crossfield consulted with the AI and was actually
impressed though he didn't say anything about it. "Just to
confirm," he said, "all three of you have CAP scores in the
sevens which means that you get to choose four concubines as well as
the mother figures you've already picked."
He glanced
at Elizabeth and added, "I'm sure you've heard this many times
before but it does no harm to repeat it, Princess Elizabeth you have
the hardest decision to make. Personally, and this is based on
experience, I'd suggest that you pick a man and three women; they
along with your 'mother' will provide a stable household into which
you can introduce your children. Having the extra woman might mean
that you could get away with a second man but that is entirely up to
you."
He gathered the two boys in by eye and
continued, "In any case I wouldn't be swayed by appearance, that
can be changed in any way you like." He glanced back at Gail,
who was close by, when he said this and then pointedly looked at
Elizabeth who dropped her eyes in shame under his scrutiny.
"Medically speaking there isn't a lot that can't be sorted and
as long as the body isn't too old it will still be able to produce
babies."
"Remember," Adam added seriously,
"you know what's coming and how it's going to effect the young
kids, so I'd try to avoid having a family of fourteen-year-old girls.
That really would be a recipe for disaster and something you really
want to avoid."
The three naked 'mothers' trailed the
group, half listening to what was being said and half-watching what
was going on around them. The embarrassment of their own nakedness
had started to fade into the background as more and more people
around them began stripping off and performing in an attempt to
attract one of the sponsors.
Andrew smiled as he passed by
the group of cadets he'd been speaking to earlier, it looked like
they'd been working as a group, or maybe a pack of wolves, and had
rounded up what appeared to be a healthy selection of concubines.
As
the small group continued to move through the mass in the garden they
witnessed many things that had probably never been seen in the Royal
gardens before.
Elizabeth gave Andrew a nudge and drew his
attention to where the Scots had clustered together. They had formed
up in a ring, in almost a defensive posture and were glaring at
anyone who came close. Andrew stared for a while and his pace slowed,
finally he glanced to the Marine by his side and asked, "Can you
find out how many of the Highland Society members who were invited to
the party had high enough CAP scores to volunteer?"
Andrew
had developed a bad feeling about what he was seeing and contemplated
having to do something about it. Alongside the Prince, Adam he
consulted the AI and then frowned just like the Prince, "Only
three of them, Sir," he answered, not noting his change of
address.
Andrew nodded briefly then squared his shoulders
and headed straight for the group, his own party following in his
wake. As he approached the outer ring it parted to allow him access
to the centre where he observed half a dozen cowed people being
restrained by an equal number of boys. The remainder of the Highland
Society party had been used to create the unfriendly cordon he'd
already penetrated. Behind him Andrew could hear the Marine muttering
but didn't allow himself to be distracted by the noise.
Spotting
John Stewart sprawled on the grass he crossed to him and noted
incidentally that the blood from his nose was nearly the same colour
as the tartan he wore. "Hello John, had a bit of an accident did
we?" asked the Prince, glancing around.
"Something
like that Your Highness," said the prone Scot glaring at the two
boys who stood behind him in the Campbell tartan. Alongside him
Graeme Campbell, who was displaying similar injuries to the member of
the Stewart clan grunted, "Some accident!"
"Oh
well, that's beside the point," said the Prince, who got
strained looks from the two Scots on the floor. "My sister and I
are being extracted and we were looking for someone to accompany us
and I was wondering if Wendy was available?"
Off to
one side a girl's voice called, "Yes, Sir!"
Then
there was a slap and another voice hissed, "Shut up you stupid
bitch."
Looking in the direction the voice came from
Andrew could see a girl on the floor holding her face and another
girl stood over her glaring at the Prince. Andrew walked slowly over
to the prone girl, "Wendy?" he asked. The girl lifted her
tear-streaked face to the Prince, "Do you wish to come with
me?"
"Yes, Sir," said the girl, glancing
fearfully at the girl stood over her.
"She's not
going," said the girl, stepping forward. "You're not taking
any of our people to be your slaves," she hissed, taking another
step forward. There was a noise like sizzling bacon and the girl
slumped to the floor.
Adam Crossfield raised his voice and
called out, "Does anyone else need to feel the stinger or is she
the only idiot in this group?"
Around him several
people took steps forward and then dropped in the same boneless
fashion, the same sizzling noise coming from the half a dozen Marines
that had appeared around the group, summoned by the call from their
First Sergeant.
"Anyone who wishes to be considered
for extraction please step this way," said Adam, "The rest
of you just sit down," he finished menacingly. He paused,
waiting for a response from the group, when no one moved he added,
"before I put you down," and started to lift his arm, which
got people moving in a hurry.
Graeme and John scrambled to
their feet and crossed to where Andrew was helping a shocked and
battered Wendy to her feet. "Thank you, Your Highness,"
gushed John when he got there.
"Not a problem,"
said Andrew, never taking his eyes from Wendy. When she finally made
eye contact with the young Prince he said, "I was serious in my
offer, I am being extracted and would like you to be my
concubine."
Wendy nodded and when Andrew held out his
arms she stepped into them willingly.
Elizabeth looked at
the two boys, "Knowing my luck you two are going to have high
enough CAP scores to volunteer," she said.
"I
have, said Graeme eyeing the pretty Princess, "unfortunately."
"Not
me," declared John Stewart, "I only managed five point
nine."
Elizabeth beamed, "Then how would you
feel about accompanying me as one of my concubines?"
"I'd
be delighted, Your Highness," said the big Scot with a toothy
grin.
Adam looked to the skies; you can call it what you
like but it looked like puppy love to him.
---oOo---
Shaking off the Wendy-effect Andrew got serious, "OK,"
he called, "let's get this over with. I need to find another
three women to go with me." He glanced around, "And you two
need to get a move on as well."
Adam muttered, "Thank
God for that," as he watched the Prince get the group motivated.
He'd been worried that they were falling behind and that he was going
to have to get involved in speeding things up.
Andrew
looked around trying to get a feel for where he could possibly find a
concubine in the madhouse that used to be a garden. All around him he
could see young women frolicking, most of them already naked, as they
attempted to catch a volunteer's eye. More than one of the young men
had lost his virginity in the middle of the lawn and Andrew didn't
particularly want to be one of them.
Spotting the marquees
that had been assembled to house the refreshment areas he nodded to
the Marine and headed off in that direction. Wendy hung on to his arm
and the naked, but smiling, Jessica followed on behind.
Elizabeth
grabbed John Stewart and tugged, "Come on, we've got to stick
with him," she said trailing after her brother. Behind her
Steven gave a shrug and then held out his hand to a subdued Emily and
smiled shyly, "I know we haven't been introduced," he said,
"but I'm Steven."
Emily blushed again, as the
young man looked her up and down, reminding her that she was naked.
"P P Pleased to meet you," she stammered before grasping
the outstretched hand and allowing him to lead her after the Royal
couple. As they walked Emily commented, "You know, this is so
impersonal."
Steven glanced from side to side, "True,
and probably not the best way to do things but with the numbers
involved a true courtship isn't really practical."
Emily
found herself smiling at the young man, "And you'd like that,
would you, a true courtship?" she asked.
Steven
grinned at the woman who was just old enough to be his grandmother,
"Why of course Milady," he said, giving her an abbreviated
bow without breaking step.
"Oh we are going to get on
so well," beamed Emily, forgetting for a moment the stress she'd
been under. "I've always had a soft spot for a romantic."
Steven blushed as the older woman beamed at him.
The walk
to the marquees didn't take long and the group entered into relative
peace and quiet. Much to his surprise Andrew found a fairly
substantial group of people who had been watching the proceedings
through the open flaps of the tent and had retreated inside at his
groups' approach.
Puzzled, Andrew asked, "Aren't you
interested in getting picked?" as he looked around.
An
older woman dressed in a maid's uniform stepped forward. "Your
highness, we were just hired to serve, we're not part of the party,"
she said by way of an explanation.
Andrew turned to the
Marine and raised an eyebrow.
"Not our doing,"
the Marine replied to the implied question, "As far as we're
concerned everyone present at an extraction is either a volunteer, a
potential concubine or and idiot."
Andrew turned back
to the woman, "Well, you heard it from the man," he said,
"If any of you are interested in leaving then I suggest that you
get out there and try your luck."
"Thank you,
Your Highness," said the spokeswoman, then after giving him a
quick curtsy she dashed for the door before anyone could say anything
to stop or slow her down. Behind her the rest of the catering crew
looked as though they wanted to get going after her.
"One
moment," called the Prince, holding up a hand to keep people in
place. "I need a couple more concubines and so do my friends
here, so if you are interested in joining us then please stay,
otherwise feel free to leave."
The majority of the
catering people felt they had a better chance with the greater
numbers outside and left without a backwards glance. There were about
a dozen women and a couple of men left behind.
Andrew
looked them over carefully, whomever he picked would be coming from
this group, he had no intention of going back outside. They were a
pretty average bunch, he thought, a couple of the younger girls could
have been described as pretty but there was no one there that truly
stood out. Then he remembered - looks didn't count - it was attitude
that was important.
He turned to Elizabeth and Steven,
"Pick a side," he said waving an arm around, "then
we'll divide them up and see how things go."
Elizabeth
nodded and moved off to the near side accompanied by John, Steven
shrugged and still holding hands with Emily moved to the far side.
Once they were in place Andrew turned back to the audience, "OK
everyone," he said attracting their attention. "Each of us
here can take at least three more people with us when we go, so if
you really want to leave the Earth come and convince one of us to
take you with us."
Adam looked on from just inside
the tent's entrance and grinned, this was more like it he thought as
he watched the people scramble to get closer to the three youngsters.
He stood there with Jessica and Gail and prepared for the fun and
games.
The two men made a beeline for the Princess but she
told them straight that she'd got the one she wanted and they turned
away. The older of the two departed immediately but the younger man
crossed over to Steven, just in case. Emily was standing behind her
young man and watching as women younger than herself attempted to
entice him with their charms and she had to admit, even if only to
herself, there were a lot of charms on display. She spotted the young
man as he approached and decided to put in a word for him, if nothing
else it would reduce the numbers she was competing with. In the end
Steven ended up picking Alan, the young man, a young waitress by the
name of Angela and two older women, Wendy and Nancy.
Elizabeth
hadn't released her grip on John since she'd entered the tent and had
looked positively scared at times but the young man, who despite
giving the impression of being a free spirit, proved to be very
sensible and managed to guide his chosen one's choices. Elizabeth
ended up with another three females, twenty-two year old Heather,
thirty-nine year old Jenny and forty-four year old Tracy.
Andrew
looked at the crowd heading for him and glanced back over his
shoulder, he noted that his 'mother' had sensibly stayed back with
the Marine but that Wendy was in a sort of a no mans land, half way
between the door and his position. He beckoned her forward and then
turned to meet the rush.
"Ladies," he called,
"get naked, if you're not nude then go and see one of the
others."
It slowed them all down but only two went
off else where. The five who remained began frantically removing
clothes, which wasn't that difficult as the uniform they wore was
more like an erotic French Maid's outfit than a sensible serving
uniform. Their uniform was another victim of the cultural changes
that had occurred since the Sa'arm incursion had been announced.
The
women ranged in age from about his own age up to the early fifties,
he guessed. All bar one would be described as overweight to some
degree but he reminded himself, looks don't matter. The youngest was
also the fittest, which seem about right. Andrew pointed at her and
barked, "Get on your knees and crawl here," and pointed at
a spot in front of him.
She complied immediately but the
oldest woman got a funny look on her face and stepped back, bending
to retrieve her uniform.
Andrew pointed at the next woman,
"Now you."
He then did the same to each woman
until he had them all lined up on their knees in front of him.
Fighting down a blush he fished his prick out of his trousers and
walked up to the youngest woman.
"Suck," was all
he said and her head came forward and a warm mouth engulfed the young
man's cock for the first time. He shut his eyes in pleasure but
retained enough control to stop her after a minute or so before
calling on her to stop. He moved down the line and based his decision
on a single minute's sucking in each case.
He tucked
himself back in and then nearly came in his pants as Wendy whispered
in his ear; "Don't I get a chance?"
"No!"
he squeaked and then turned back to the kneeling women. Pausing to
regain his composure he looked along the line and then moved over to
the third one in, "I'm sorry," he said, "but I won't
be taking you."
He stepped back as the woman's head
dropped and tears started, he gestured to the remaining women to rise
and join him as he quietly moved back to the Marine. When they
checked he'd picked Sandra, the eighteen year old, Margaret who was
thirty-five and forty-one year old Kerry.
The Royal party,
which now contained nearly twenty people headed towards the
transporter terminus as Adam reported that they'd finished their
selection process.
---oOo---
The cattle call, as most of the Marines referred to
the final stages of any pickup, took a couple of hours to finish. In
the end all nine hundred and seventy-eight volunteers had made their
selections, as had the three people who had scored high enough and
who now suddenly decided that volunteering was actually a good
idea.
Of the six thousand people who had been eligible to
go as concubines, less than fifteen hundred had not been picked up by
a volunteer and nearly all of those who were being left behind were
male. Or to look at it from the opposite point of view, nearly a
thousand volunteers were taking four and a half thousand people with
them to safety.
Those were the numbers until phase three
of the extraction was activated, a phase that had never been used
before.
"Your Majesty," called Captain Wainright
from the edge of the lawn.
"Yes, Captain?"
answered the young Queen.
"If you'd be so kind as to
step up onto the patio and remain there, I'd like to finish this
off," said the Captain.
"Why that particular
spot, Captain?" asked the Queen suspiciously looking at the
patio.
"Because Ma'am, I have had wall screen
generators set up along the edge of the patio and I would like you to
be behind them when I make the announcement."
The
Prime Minister stepped up close to Beatrice, "Just do as he
asks, Your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "the last
thing that we need now is any sort of disorder." He glanced over
the gardens where more than fifty bodies were laid out, having been
stunned by the Marines during the selection process.
The
Queen, seeing sense, moved to the designated position and stood
waiting for the Marine to move on. The shimmering of the wall shields
could hardly be discerned in the failing sunlight of the summer's
afternoon and didn't obstruct her view of proceedings one iota.
The
Captain stepped forward and activated his voice amplifier. "All
right everyone, we've nearly finished," he announced, "If I
can have your attention for just a minute I'll talk you through the
final stages of the extraction."
He waited until
there was almost silence and began, "Each volunteer and his
concubines will form a line in front of the transporter terminals
that have been established next to the purple banners - the same ones
you used earlier. Please move into position now."
Apparent
bedlam ensued for ten minutes as people crossed the garden to get
back to their original gate, the odd concubine got misplaced and had
to be collected by a Marine and delivered to his or her sponsor. All
the Captain could think was thank God for the AIs for keeping track
of this lot! Without their help it would have been even more of a
nightmare than it actually was.
Taking a deep breath the
Captain called for attention and then announced formally, "The
Government of Great Britain has passed legislation and the
Confederacy is now invoking it, the 'Age Restrictions (Confederacy)
(Amendments) Act'.. The Confederacy has decreed this act as active
and that all children currently present will be extracted to the
colonies for their safety. To facilitate this process each volunteer
has been allocated an extra 'mother' and will take a group of
children with them when they leave."
He looked
around and then said, "This will happen now," he offered up
a silent prayer and bellowed, "Begin!"
Earlier
in the day the "children" (those under fourteen) had been
collected together and moved off to one side to keep them out of
harm's way whilst the adults went about their business. During the
afternoon, as concubines were picked, various children had been
claimed by their genetic parents and moved over to the 'new families'
groups that were being established.
Now that the final
extraction was approaching the remaining children, which of the
original six thousand now came down to some two and a half thousand
were being herded towards the different transporter terminals. Each
stream had been split into small groups of two or three children
each, in all cases efforts had been made to keep siblings together.
The eldest child in each group was asked to keep the group together
and in most cases this worked very well.
At the
transporter terminus each small group of children was mated with its
'new parents' and the whole group stepped into the terminus together,
disappearing from Earth forever. No party was being given time to
contemplate what was happening, which was probably a good thing.
---oOo---
As the Queen and Prime Minister stood side by side on
the patio and watched the new colonists disappearing Beatrice spoke
quietly, "This is the end of your career you know?"
"I
know Ma'am, but I've had enough of politics anyway," he said.
"Whoever takes over the job from me, and it won't be Donald now,
will have to make a decision similar to mine at some stage. I just
hope that he has the courage to do the right thing when he's
asked."
The two continued to watch in silence for a
few more minutes before the Prime Minister asked, "What about
the Royal Family, will it survive what's coming?"
"Probably,"
said Beatrice, "We've still got a lot of sympathy with the
people and," she looked across to the Minister, "people
actually believe us when we tell them things."
"True,"
agreed George Brown. "Politicians are the bogeymen," he
said. "People think we've lied to them so often that we're
incapable of telling the truth. Mainly it's just spin, but if you
spin things enough they don't look like the original anymore. The
Gulf war started it and it's just got worse since."
"Humm,"
murmured the Queen noncommittally.
"Oh it's true,
Ma'am. I spoke to Tony about it when I came to power."
The
Queen gave the Prime Minister her undivided attention.
"Tony
was so convinced that Saddam had to go that he kept having the
Security Services re-write their memo. In the end, whilst there was
nothing factually wrong with what was said, it was so out of context
that it became a meaningless document." The Prime Minister
shrugged, "But it served Tony's purpose in that it convinced
Parliament of the need to go to war. It was only later, when the lack
of preparation and planning meant the damned occupation and
insurgency dragged on for years that people began to question the
whole escapade."
"And you think this will
follow a similar path?"
"Not really,"
replied the Prime Minister, "with the Sa'arm getting closer and
soon a full scale war going on this will quickly get swamped by other
events, especially if we give the press some sort of lead." Then
he added, "That's for everyone but the parents whose children we
are effectively kidnapping," he said sadly.
"I
wish there was some way we could get them all away but we only have
limited resources," said the Queen, returning her gaze to the
steadily dwindling lines of volunteers, concubines and
children.
"The one thing I hope, and I've asked the
people who are organising Albion to see if it can be achieved
quickly, is to establish communications between them and us. "
George Brown looked back over the gardens; "Being able to speak
to the children and see that they are safe will ease a lot of the
pain for the parents."
The two adults continued to
watch as the queues for the transporters shrank until, at the end
four remaining volunteers, Prince Andrew, Princess Elizabeth, Steven
Brown and John Prendergast all turned and waved goodbye to the people
clustered on the patio before stepping into the transporter
field.
On the patio the Prime Minister said, "I wish
Stephanie had been here to see this," referring to his deceased
wife.
"I know what you mean," replied the Queen,
her eyes filled with tears as she watched her only son, the spitting
image of her murdered husband, leave the planet of his birth.
---oOo---
When Prince Andrew and the now not-so-small group
accompanying him stepped from the transporter terminus into the
receiving hold of the colony ship Boudicca they were nearly deafened
by the racket. The Marines and Fleet Auxiliary crew were losing the
battle to maintain control and tempers were fraying as a
result.
Andrew looked at the Captain who'd appeared just
behind him and shouted, "Is it normally like this?"
The
Captain shook his head and guessed that it was because of the number
of children. On a normal pickup the adults were bought aboard and
settled down before the children they wanted were recovered. These
children arrived into a settled environment with at least one of
their own parents.
This was a total contrast, the average
age of the volunteers was under eighteen and the children had been
dragged up here at the same time. A lot of those children had neither
of their parents with them and many of the volunteers they'd been
assigned had no experience in looking after upset children. The
military running the show were in exactly the same situation.
Andrew
spotted his 'mother' and headed straight for her, dragging the rest
of the party with him. "I know it's terribly remiss of me but I
don't know your name?" said Andrew.
"Jessica,
Your Highness," replied the naked woman.
"Jessica,
for now just call me Andrew," said the Prince. "More
importantly, have you got any suggestions of how we can calm this
situation down?" he asked waving an arm to encompass the
hold.
Jessica pointed to the small group with her and
Andrew noted that it was his new family. Each of them was holding
hands, and the youngsters were being comforted by the older members.
"Get the families to hold hands, and sit down," Jessica
said, "It's much harder to cause trouble when you can't rush
around."
Andrew glanced at the Captain who shrugged,
"We've tried but no one is listening."
Elizabeth
piped up; "Play a fanfare, that always gets attention."
"Sounds
reasonable," said Andrew, "Then follow it up with an
announcement."
"I'll try it," said the
Captain not sounding at all hopeful.
The sudden blast of a
Royal fanfare stunned everyone, even those few who'd been expecting
it. The announcement for everyone to sit and for 'family' members to
hold hands was so loud that no one thought of disobeying. Even the
Royal couple, who'd come up with the idea, found themselves sitting
on the cold hard deck.
Captain Wainright was amazed at the
response but didn't hang around to let things start again. He hopped
up on a podium in the centre of the hold and started the standard
speech that was given to all colonists.
Things went
slowly, mainly due to the large numbers being processed, but they did
hit on the odd hiccup as they went along. The medical testing was
going to take days but as the average age was so low there didn't
appear to be the excessive numbers of heart complaints and diabetes
type problems that the extraction teams normally had to deal
with.
One thing the Marines hadn't allowed for was the
number of under fourteen-year olds that still to be picked up.
Someone higher up had assumed that any adult present at the garden
party would be there to escort their children and this assumption
turned out to be wrong, badly wrong in fact.
All of the
catering staff, the entertainment groups and security people present
had been going about their normal working lives and following the
extraction they had children they wanted to bring along with them. It
turned out that even the parents who had been there with children
often had younger children, who'd been left in the care of
grandparents or friends, so that an older child could attend what was
being billed as the party of a lifetime.
The Boudicca was
soon full to overflowing, and something needed to be done about it,
urgently, before lives were lost.
The answer was the
Braemar, sister ship of the Boudicca and a ship that was conveniently
in orbit waiting its turn to do an extraction and colony run. Captain
Wainright and Prince Andrew were fortunate in that they didn't get
involved in the shenanigans that got the ship passed across to what
was a purely British adventure but it was managed somehow. Favours
were granted that would, no doubt, have to be repaid at some later
stage.
Over the next three days the eligible children who
were still on Earth were picked up and reunited with the parent who
claimed them. The colonists were also split into two groups, with the
second group being transferred across to the Braemar. Then, oblivious
to the fuss being kicked up on their planet of origin the two ships
started the long journey to Albion side by side.
---oOo---
The Right Honourable Member for Bromhurst stood
between the rows of green leather seats and called clearly. "Mr
Speaker, it is only fair that the Prime Minister, who after all, was
present during the abduction of the Nations' children, should be
given a chance to put his side of the story to the House."
Around him the backbenchers were yelling their support in a most
undignified manner.
The implication, inherent in the
statement, to the effect that the Prime Minister was in some way
responsible for the events that had occurred at Buckingham Palace was
not missed by the man himself. The Prime Minister rose and gripped
the sides of the despatch box amid the roar from his own back
benchers. Both sides of the house were trying to drown each other
out, calls of "shame," and "here, here," could be
heard amidst the general hullabaloo - Party politics at its very
best. The Speaker of the House called for 'Order' and the Prime
Minister waited for relative calm to be restored.
As he
waited the Prime Minister mused on the one saving grace so far and
that was that Donald Prendergast had stayed out of the battle and
probably, judging from events, had been doing his best to rein in his
party. How much longer those two states would be true was open to
debate. Donald's' position as head of the opposition party was under
severe pressure for allowing his wife and children to leave with the
young Royals.
The tabloid press had been having a field
day over the numbers of children who'd been taken without consulting
their parents. The broadsheets were attempting to give a more
informed opinion but as a whole the press was behaving like a rabid
pack running wild. The fact that, after careful reflection, most of
the families involved had come out in favour of the event was being
ignored, with only the statements of a minority of the parents, those
who were complaining, appearing in print - usually under glaring
banner headlines proclaiming 'Child Abuse' and 'Kidnapping'.
"Mr
Speaker," the Prime Minister's opening words completely
silencing the House. "As my learned friend so clearly stated, I
was present when the Confederacy carried out an extraction of
volunteers at the Queen's garden party and I can say categorically
that force, as has been reported by various tabloids, was not used to
remove our children."
The subtle reminder that his
own son had left was missed by most of the members present, "The
Act, which this assembly passed, was followed to the letter and gave
those present no option but to comply with the lawful procedure being
enacted. That members of the security forces, the police and the
judiciary, who were present at the event, concur with this statement
is in the public domain. Whilst the action may not have been the
purpose of, or even within the spirit of, the legislation that we
passed, it was within the letter of that Act."
The
Prime Minister paused and looked around, the silence becoming almost
frightening, "This fact is something that everyone in this
House, and that other place, is going to have to live with!"
This
created an uproar; so much so that the Speaker was forced to suspend
the session, which may well have been George Brown's plan. Quietly
the Prime Minister left the room, wondering how much longer he would
be able to hold his position, a task he was heartily sick of
doing...
The White House press briefing was slightly
less fraught, but not by much.
"Mr President, do you
expect an attempt to be made to put through legislation similar to
the British 'Age Restrictions Act' during the next session?"
The
President felt all eyes in the room swing towards him. 'Why, oh why,
had the British done it so blatantly', he thought. 'If they'd kept it
to a few at a time it would have never been noticed and I could have
got the same provisions onto our statute books.'
"You
need to put that question to the Senators and Congressmen, not me. I
have no plans to put forward anything similar at this time."
"Mr
President, do you believe that what the British have done is
wrong?"
"Wrong! No I wouldn't go that far,"
said the President, "I might find it distasteful but I can
understand the thinking behind it. Whether it is the best solution is
hard to say." He glanced around the room and saw many sceptical
looks, "How many times have we heard tales of desperate parents
handing over their infants to strangers to get them safely off of
sinking ships?" He looked down for a moment, "To the
British Government this is simply a formal version of women and
children first, especially children first," he emphasised. "I
for one am not prepared to condemn that mentality even if I
personally find the method they used to implement it a little
excessive."
The room looked at him in silence, then
the reporter from MSN asked, "Mr President, has there been any
word from the Confederacy on when extractions will begin again in
Texas?"
The President sighed, as if he didn't have
enough problems of his own...
---oOo---
John was beginning to feel the pressure, nothing
overt, but all around him people were having SEX and he was living in
a pod with his mother and sister. Sara Thyme, the twenty-nine year
old he'd picked as his second concubine was also there but the whole
atmosphere in the pod was inhibiting.
Steven, in the next
pod over, had already broken his duck and seemed to be coping
reasonably well with the situation. True, he didn't have his mother
and sister along but he seemed to be settling into the new lifestyle
successfully. At least Wendy, his mother, was fulfilling the mother
role she'd been bought for and was taking care of the three kids he'd
inherited, which was a Godsend.
John wasn't sure what he
was going to do but he needed to do something. Rather than sit in the
pod and mope he decided to see what Steven was up to.
Half
an hour later he was letting Steven know how he felt.
"Come
on John, it can't be that bad?"
"No, you try
thinking of sex when your mother is watching you like a hawk and your
sister is the intended target." He looked down, "I just
don't think that it's going to work, but if it does the consequences
aren't worth thinking about."
"What about those
Civil Service people we've been told about?" asked
Steven.
"They're not set up yet," John smiled
sardonically, "It appears that they didn't think they'd be
needed this early in the extraction."
"You
know," said Steven, "they're only concubines, you could
always swap them."
"I know, but I don't know if
I can give my sister away," bleated John.
"Well,
let's face it John, the choice is give her away or fuck her!"
said Steven, "which one would be easier."
"I
think my mother would be unhappy if I gave Gail away," said
John.
"And how would she feel if you bent her over
and gave her one?"
"I'd probably end up dead,"
said John.
"So the better option is to give her
away," said Steven.
He thought for a moment and then
said "I'll tell you what, I'll take her and you can have one of
mine in return. If things get too frantic we can swap them back but
if you can cope it'll be a good solution to your problem."
John's
eyes lit up, "It would wouldn't it, but how do I sell it to Mom
and Gail?"
"You don't sell it," said
Steven, "You go in there and give orders. I'll come along and
we'll do the exchange there and then. By the time they recover from
the shock I'll be back here with Gail and you'll only have to deal
with your mother."
John pondered but couldn't come up
with a better plan. "So which of your concubines do I get in
exchange?" he asked.
"Ladies," bellowed
Steven, "come in here."
The four women in the
pod came running from all directions.
"Line up
against that wall," said Steven pointing and the women did as he
ordered. When they'd stopped moving Steven stood and walked to the
first woman in the line. "This is Emily, she's the mother in
this group," he moved forward and continued speaking, "this
is Angela, this is Wendy and finally this is Nancy."
Introductions
complete, Steven returned to his seat.
"I'd rather
you didn't pick Emily," he said, "but other than that the
choice is yours."
"Two Wendys would be
confusing," said John and then fell into the trap of picking
what he saw, "I'll take Angela if that's alright."
Steven
was more than happy with John's choice. Angela was the youngest woman
in the pod but she was so much younger than the others that she
hadn't really fit in. It hadn't caused any problems yet but the gap
was there and Steven was happy to swap her. He hoped that Gail, who
was only sixteen, would be seen as a child and so would be more
acceptable to the rest of the women in his group.
Steven
stood once more and pointed at Angela, "Get rid of the
clothes."
As Angela, looking confused, did as she was
ordered John asked, "How do you do that, just give the
orders?"
"It's hard," admitted Steven
quietly, "It's a combination of being forceful and being rude.
In normal conversation I still use please and thank you but if I want
something doing I drop those and just say what I want." He
grinned at the younger boy, "I still get it wrong when I'm
dealing with Emily but as she was the one that told me how to do it
she makes allowances for my mistakes."
John was still
looking thoughtful as he followed Steven and the naked Angela out of
the pod. His own pod opened to his voice and he led the way into the
living area. Taking a deep breath, and remembering how Steven had
performed, he yelled, "Get in here, now!" and then stood
there looking nervous.
Sara was the first in and John just
pointed to a convenient blank wall. As she moved to it Gail and Wendy
came into the room.
"What do you want?" asked
Wendy.
"Just stand against that wall," said John
pointing to where Sara was stood, "you too Gail."
The
two women slowly moved to the indicated positions, giving John a
strange look as they did so.
Swallowing hard John began,
"I'm not happy with the way things have been working out and
have decided to make some changes." He pointed at his sister,
"You Gail will be going with Steven, and Angela," he
shifted his finger, "will be joining us."
Gail
just burst into tears, beside her Wendy went white. "She's not,
you're not just giving..."
"Be quiet! Now!"
shouted John.
The room went silent, more in surprise than
in obedience to the instruction.
Taking a deep breath to
calm himself John continued, "Mom, this isn't working," he
said waving his arm around, "and keeping us all together isn't
going to help. It'll be better for everyone if Gail goes next door
and, as I'm in charge here, that is what is going to happen."
The last was said in a very firm voice.
Steven gently
pushed Angela forward, "Gail," he said calmly, "come
here."
Gail looked at her mother, who just stood
there ashen faced, and then at her brother, who was looking more
determined than she'd ever seen him before. Then she looked at the
young man who just spoken. Slowly, as though walking through treacle,
she moved to his side.
Steven looked at Wendy, "You
may come and visit your daughter, but not for a week, and she'll be
steering clear of you for the same time." He didn't wait for an
answer but turned and walked towards the exit, "Come on Gail,"
he ordered and the sixteen-year-old, with tears streaming down her
face, left her mother and brother for the unknown.
---oOo---
Andrew, followed by his household, entered the booth and
after a quick look around he found a seat and settled down. The booth
was one of the many temporary structures that had been set up to
facilitate the indoctrination process for the new colonists. A simple
plastic panel acted as a separator from the similar booths on either
side and the privacy generator kept any noise out and ensured that
whatever happened in the booth stayed there.
As Andrew
took his seat a holographic image was generated in the centre of the
room.
"This is Albion, third planet of the system and
the site of your colony," intoned the AI. "As this planet
is completely benign the amount of support available will be minimal
at first. The pods you currently occupy along with a basic
replicator, medical station and transporter technology will be all
that is available for at least one local year."
Jessica
looked across at Andrew and noted that he didn't look happy at what
he was hearing and said, "Did you know about this?"
Andrew
shrugged; it actually was the first he'd heard of it.
The
AI continued, "The survey team suggested the following locations
as suitable sites for townships, each of them offering a good mix of
water, power and crop raising soils."
"Stop!"
demanded Andrew, "Why would we need crop raising areas if we
have replicators?"
The AI could almost be heard
sniffing before it replied. "The replicators work best when the
source material is close to the finished product. For foodstuffs it
has been found that implementing a basic Soya, alfalfa and corn
rotation pattern provides the best mix of raw materials and can
reduce power consumption and time requirements by up to fifty
percent. This, as I'm sure you can see, results in either an increase
in quantity and variety of food stocks or more time for other
replication tasks."
"So we become an
agricultural planet with the major aim of increasing our population,"
Andrew said and then asked, "What about the military, won't they
be taking volunteers and resources away from us?"
"No,
recruitment from this colony has been put on hold for a minimum of
three years, it is hoped that this moratorium can be held for up to
five years, though that is dependant on the military situation,"
replied the AI.
Andrew looked at the hologram that was
slowly rotating before him and saw that the island was marked with
small red lights, the proposed townships. "How many townships
are being established?"
"That figure has yet to
be decided," declared the AI.
Andrew slumped back in
his chair, "Continue the briefing, please," he said.
The
AI did as requested, "As with all colonies the volunteers will
be responsible for the behaviour of their concubines. In this
particular case those concubines will be used to work the fields
until sufficient robotic support capabilities have been replicated.
At which time it is envisaged that additional new townships will be
established to increase living space and to increase the number of
concubines that can be devoted to breeding purposes."
Wendy
looked across to Andrew and held up her hand.
"Pause,"
said Andrew and the AI stopped. "Yes Wendy?"
"Will
we be given a choice as to which role we perform?" she
asked.
Before Andrew could say anything the AI answered,
"The volunteer will decide which task each of his concubines are
to perform, failure to comply on the part of the concubine will
result in it being rejected or recycled."
Jessica
looked shocked and Wendy went wide-eyed at that comment, "Recycled?"
she gasped.
Andrew was frowning as he listened to the AI,
"Yes, recycled through the replicators as raw material."
All
of the women were looking at the young man, waiting for him to say
something. Shrugging he told the AI to continue the briefing.
"At
this time it is not envisaged that there will be any additional
colonists bought to this system for at least a local year, at which
time the additional resources should be available to support them."
The holograph zoomed out, showing a representation of the spiral arm,
"The Sa'arm incursion is not anticipated arriving in this system
in anything under twenty-five years and it is hoped that they will
never get here. Therefore system defence is not considered a
priority."
Andrew, still frowning, asked, "So
the plan is to dump us here, as we are, for at least a year and than
come back and see how we are doing?"
"Not
exactly," replied the AI, "though it may seem like that to
the colonists who are on the planet."
Silence greeted
the stark reply as each person came to grips with the thought of
being abandoned so far from home.
---oOo---
"I'm the Governor?"
"That's
right, Andrew and don't sound so surprised."
Andrew
didn't look convinced, "But surely there's someone out there
better qualified to run a new colony?"
"Probably,"
said the Captain, "but you've got the job and unless you
specifically give it up, or the Confederacy council orders your
removal, it's yours until you retire or," he added with a grin,
"you die."
"But..."
"Yeah,
life sucks," said Roger Wainright looking at the former Prince.
"So now that we've got that out of the way what are you going to
do?"
"What do you mean, do?" asked the
confused young man.
"Do! You know, prepare your
people for the new colony, get things organised, establish priorities
and all that sort of thing," said the Marine.
Andrew
slumped down and looked as though he wanted to cry.
Roger
grinned when the young man wasn't looking, he wasn't too worried, and
most of what needed doing happened automatically when a colony was
established. The AIs had a standard procedure in place now for
indoctrinating colonists and ensuring that they were healthy and, in
the case of concubines, generally obedient. What Andrew needed to
think about, and the whole purpose of this conversation, was the
medium-to-long-term future of his new colony.
"Andrew,
Albion is being set up as a breeder colony. Its overriding aim is to
produce warm bodies." The Marine held up his hand to forestall
the protest that the former Prince was about to make, "Yes I
know that's callous but, in case you hadn't noticed, we're in a war
of extermination. Survival is the aim of the game, which means, as a
race, we have to get out there and spread ourselves. Which in its
turn means breeding." The Marine paused and took a sip of the
drink he'd been holding.
"The initial rush was for
fighting troops, and if it was left up to the Generals, everyone who
leaves Earth would be given a rifle and sent to fight but that would
be the quickest way to lose," said Roger. "We need to get
big enough to stop the Sa'arm on our own," he shook his head to
stop Andrew interrupting, "Yes I know we are part of the
Confederacy but the rest of them don't fight!"
Andrew
looked shocked.
Roger chuckled, "If you think about
it, the other members of the Confederacy have remained firmly in the
background. The Darjee are the only race that humans have been
reported to be in regular contact with and it's only their technology
we've been receiving. The propaganda war has been going very well,
but that is all it is, propaganda. Once you get out here you learn
the truth and the truth is that this war is down to us."
"Let
me see if I've got this right," said Andrew, sitting back and
thinking, "I'm the Governor of this colony and I'm going to have
minimal support from the Confederacy because they are either fighting
or don't associate with Humans at all. In addition I have to get this
place organised, using whatever means I like, and nobody will care as
long as they work and the population is growing?"
"Pretty
much," said the Marine becoming serious.
"Any
form of government I like is acceptable?" asked the former
Prince.
"Any," replied the Marine. "Most of
the colonies, up to now, have stuck with direct rule by the
Governor."
"But they're all military colonies,
aren't they?"
The Marine nodded.
"Centred
around one or two townships?"
Another nod.
"And
the people will all be used to military discipline with a proper
chain of command in place," Andrew steepled his fingers and
suddenly appeared much older than his actual age. "Mom said I
needed to pay attention in my history lessons," he mussed, "I
can see why now."
"AI," Andrew called,
"bring up the map of Albion with the suggested township
locations on it."
The hologram reappeared in the air
in front of the former prince.
"How many family
groups are there and what is the suggested minimum for a township?"
Andrew asked, watching the globe rotate slowly before him.
"There
are nine hundred and eighty-one volunteers with their concubines and
dependants split between the two vessels," replied the AI. "The
earliest colonies were established using the one hundred pod Aurora
class colony ships and this was believed to be the ideal size for
starting a township."
A small blemish on the rotating
globe caught the young man's eye, "Stop the animation please,"
he called before standing and moving closer. "Can you enlarge
this section?" he asked waving his hand at an area of blue
between three of the continents.
The blurring motion as
the AI adjusted the scale caused him to step back. Across the room
Captain Wainright looked on, amazed at how the young man had switched
his focus.
The image now displayed showed a small - well,
relatively small - island positioned roughly equidistant from three
of the bigger island continents. On its northern edge was one of the
red dots that indicated a suitable site for a township. Stroking his
chin, as he looked Andrew thought on his options without saying a
word. He stood like that for several minutes before, "Keep the
small island centred and zoom out until all of the adjacent
continents are in view."
The image twitched slightly
to centre the island and then it was as if the camera rose and more
of the globe came into view. When the third continent was fully
displayed the image froze.
Andrew did a quick count and
came up with a number in the high teens, he scanned the distribution
and it looked about equal across the continents. "That should
do," he muttered before raising his voice, "Divide each of
the continents on display into three roughly equal parts, using
natural features as the boundaries if possible and indicate the best
township site in each of these new zones." Andrew continued to
ruminate on his options as the map grew thin red lines and then nine
of the dots began to blink.
"Add the next best
township site on each continent and flash that one in green,"
said Andrew and watched as another dot changed appearance.
He
turned to the Marine and asked, "Captain, is there anyway of
seeing if any of the volunteers are heads of companies or something
similar?"
"I'm not sure," said Roger before
shifting emphasis in his voice, "AI?"
"We
have their former employment on record," replied the disembodied
voice, "There are three chairmen, two managing directors, two
chief financial officers and a chief information officer
listed."
"Humm... That gives me eight,"
Andrew said to himself, "where can I find another one..."
Roger
Wainright watched the young man but said nothing; he didn't want to
influence any decisions, though he could think of one group that
probably existed amongst the volunteers. The young man's next
question proved that he'd thought of that same group.
"Are
there any ex-general's, or the Air Force or Navy equivalents in the
volunteers?"
"There is one retired Admiral, one
Brigadier and an Air Commodore," replied the AI.
"Bingo,"
said Andrew. "Have any of the continents been named yet?"
"No,
none of the land masses on Albion have been given labels."
"Right!
This one here," he said pointing to the continent North of the
small island, "is Saint David." His hand swung to the right
and down, "this one will be Saint Andrew and the third one will
be Saint Patrick." He returned his finger to the small island
situated between the larger continents, "and this island will be
known as Saint George."
Roger found himself nodding,
recognising the patron saints of the home nations.
Andrew
smiled at the Marine, "Well, that's got the place named, all I
have to do now is Govern it."
---oOo---
Andrew and Roger had a break for refreshments before
Andrew called on the AI again, "Please have my sister, Steven
Brown and John Prendergast come here, will you."
Roger
looked at the Prince, "The Earth First leaders' son?"
"That's
right," said Andrew, "I don't know much about him but the
chances are he'll have different ideas and beliefs to me." He
shrugged, "It wouldn't be a good idea to have all the people
close to me with the same mindset, not in the long run."
After
a short pause Andrew switched gears completely. "These two ships
we're on have a total of two thousand pods between them, don't they?"
he asked.
"Err... Yes," said Roger a little
thrown by the sudden change in subject.
"Do I get all
of them?" Andrew asked.
The Marine Captain made the
decision on the spot, "Yes," he declared, he'd live with
any flak over the decision when it came.
Nodding, Andrew
turned back to the map and studied it while he waited for the people
he'd summoned to arrive.
His sister's arrival broke him
away from his thoughts and then the two young men arrived together,
fortunately before his sister could start giving him a hard time
about his abrupt summons.
"OK everyone," said
the Prince, "grab a seat and get ready for a couple of shocks."
Andrew dropped back into his seat and observed the others. The looks
he was given at that announcement nearly caused him to smile but he
waited until everyone was seated before continuing.
"This,"
he said waving at the projected image, "is going to be our new
home."
The raised eyebrows and muttered comments of
'we know' had him raising his own eyebrows but he ploughed on. "Now
for the first of the scary bits, I'm the Governor!"
He
waited for a response and was a little disappointed when there wasn't
much of one.
"OK," he said, "If that
wasn't enough to scare you try this, you are each going to be running
one of these continents," he waved at the three landmasses with
their outlined areas.
That, for Andrew, produced a much
more satisfying result.
"Are you mad?" asked
Steven.
His sister chimed in with, "Where did you
come up with such a stupid idea?"
The young
Prendergast just sat there with his mouth wide open clearly
shocked.
Off to the side Roger had to wonder at the idea
of using such young people to rule what would become vast continents
but he held his peace and waited to see where the surprising young
man was going with this.
"I would say it's simple,"
said Andrew, "but it's not and I don't want to give you the idea
that this will be easy, because that would be a lie too." He
waved at the Northern continent, "This is Saint David and you
Elizabeth will be ruling it as the Duchess of Saint David. Likewise
Saint Andrew for you Steven and Saint Patrick for John where you will
both be Dukes. I will be here on Saint George." His hand had
swept around the displayed map as he spoke.
"Each of
these areas," he said indicating the way the continent had been
divided, "is going to be a Province and they will be ruled by a
Marquis or Marchioness. I've already got nine people lined up to run
them, though they haven't been told of their good fortune
yet."
Andrew looked around; "They will be the
people who will be doing the real work because they will have a
township to run at the same time as overseeing the development of
their province. You three will establish small communities where the
green lights are flashing and watch what is going on around
you."
"Why not just have three townships per
continent and make us a Marquis, surely that would be easier?"
asked Steven staring at the map.
"You're possibly
right, in the short term," said Andrew, "but when the
second wave of colonists arrive in a year or two your towns will grow
to full size and other towns will be established on the continent. By
then you will have seen how the experienced people run their towns
and will be ready to do the same with your own."
He
looked at the three of them and saw doubt in their eyes, "This
way also ensures that there is someone who isn't bogged down in
running the day-to-day operations and who can act as an independent
judge if anything untoward occurs."
John frowned as
he looked at the map and then stared at Andrew, "And you'll just
be on this small island?" he asked, clearly thinking that it was
strange that he got a continent and the Prince somewhere
smaller.
"Yes," said Andrew and took a deep
breath, "but I'll also be your King."
---oOo---
The five people in the room stared at the map and
tried to assimilate what Andrew had been saying.
John was
the first to recover, "I take it that you've got a full nobility
sketched out?"
"After a fashion," replied
Andrew. "I know what jobs will get what title but I haven't got
a list of people to put in those slots."
"So
what do you envisage?" said John still looking at the
map.
"Eventually every one of these continents will
be populated," said Andrew after getting the globe to begin
rotating again. "Each of them will be run by a Duke. All of the
Dukes, or Duchesses," he said with a smile to his sister, "will
be on my advisory council."
"Each of the
continents will be split into provinces, which will be ruled by
Marquis and those people will make up each Duke's advisory council."
Andrew looked away from the map, "Each of the provinces will be
split into counties and they'll be under the direction of a Count.
The counties will then be split down into smaller areas which, at the
moment, I'm thinking of calling Manors and these will be looked after
by a Baron."
Andrew had the hologram cleared away,
"That is as far as it goes at the moment, beneath the Barons
will be the rest of the volunteers, call them vassals for now. The
concubines will be the serfs, really just property, as they are
now."
Steven started, paused, then began again.
"Don't they have any say in things?"
"The
concubines, No," said Andrew, "And the vassals won't have a
lot of input for a long time. I reckon a hundred years or so from now
the vassals will get to form a Parliament and we can go to a two-tier
system of government, similar to home. But that's a long way off and
until we get there we will have absolute power."
"But
absolute power corrupts absolutely," declared Steven with
authority.
"And that is the one real problem I can
see with this system," said Andrew. "Not so much now, as I
think we are all going to be to busy expanding our colony. But
further down the line, when expansion slows then it could become a
problem and, I hope, that by then we will have been transformed into
some sort of democracy."
"Why not just go for a
democracy now?" asked John.
"Because a democracy
wouldn't work," said Elizabeth, answering for her brother. "A
democracy is all very well when you can take time to make decisions
and everyone, not just the powerful, can be involved. But like a
committee it isn't very good when decisive leadership is called for."
She smiled at Steven, "In a way that was one of the problems
with how things were run at home, the politicians were trying to be
decisive but they had become separated from the people."
"Uhmm,"
said Steven and then thought better of whatever he was going to say
and changed the subject. "So how are we going to settle Albion?"
he asked looking at Andrew.
"Each of you will be
getting roughly three hundred family groups, to be divided into three
townships of about ninety groups and a thirty group town for
yourselves. The remainder of the family groups will be with me on
Saint George."
Andrew thought for a moment and then
continued, "Before we get to Albion you'll need to get together
with your Marquis or Marchionesses and decide where you intend to
develop next because we will be putting empty pods into those
locations to assist. After that things will have to be done the old
fashioned way using wood and stone."
"Who are
you going to make into a Marquis?"
"I don't
know their names, Sis," said Andrew, "and I'm going to
allocate them on a random basis so there can be no suggestion of bias
on my part."
"When?" asked John.
"We'll
get together tomorrow and call them in and inform them of the good
news." Andrew grinned, "and I hope they take it as well as
you three have."
"As though we had any choice,"
said Steven.
Which bought chuckles from everyone.
---oOo---
The following morning the Duke's Council, as Andrew insisted
on referring to it, met again.
"Has anyone had any
major thoughts on what we discussed yesterday?" he asked as
everyone settled into their chairs.
"You mean other
than that you are mad?" asked Steven.
Andrew grinned,
"Yeah, other than that."
"Not really,"
said Steven, "I guess I'm waiting to see how this pans out
before I get too excited at the prospects of being a Duke."
"Me
too," said John. "I keep thinking that we're just a bunch
of kids playing at being grown ups and then, when I remember how the
rules had changed and that I am one of the grown ups, it's a sobering
thought."
"That it is," agreed Andrew and
after a pause he asked, "So is everyone happy to continue as we
are for now?"
On receiving three affirmatives he had
the AI summon the people it had identified the day before.
"What's
going to happen now," said Andrew, "is that as the people
come in they will be invited to sit. Where they sit determines which
of you they will belong to."
"So that's why
we're set on the three sides of this table with all the extra
chairs," said Elizabeth.
Her brother grinned at her
and nodded.
They didn't have to wait long before the first
man arrived. He stuck his head through the entrance and saw the
youngsters sitting there and frowned.
"Excuse me,"
he said, "Can you tell me what's going on here?"
"I'll
do that in a moment, sir," said Andrew, "We're just waiting
for a few more people to arrive so if you could just take a
seat."
The man looked puzzled but moved forward and
sat down on Steven's side of the table. The procedure was repeated as
each person arrived until the nine selectees were seated. When the
ninth person had entered the room Captain Wainright appeared and
stood at rest by the exit, he looked for all the world as though he
was there to ensure that no one left.
Andrew looked at the
nine older people around the table, several of whom were becoming
agitated, and attempted to smile. "Good Morning," he began.
"For those of you who don't recognise me I'm Andrew, formerly
the Prince of England and now the appointed Governor of
Albion."
When at least two of the newcomers tried to
speak Andrew held up his hand. "Please," he said, "let
me finish what I have to say and then we will have time for your
questions."
He waited until everyone had settled down
again before continuing.
"How they decided I was to
hold that position I can't say but as the Captain and the AI will
confirm it's now my job. As such I've had to decide how the planet is
going to be run and who is going to be doing what when we get there."
He managed to smile, "Which brings us round to your part in my
nefarious plan."
"AI, the map please," he
called and a hemispherical slice of Albion appeared on the table. "To
make it simple to see where people fit in I am granting titles and
positions of authority. These three landmasses are where we will be
settling, each of them is to be ruled by a Duke or Duchess."
Andrew looked up from the map and indicated his sister, "The
Duchess of Saint David will be ruling this continent which turned
yellow, the colour of a daffodil. The Duke of Saint Andrew," he
said indicating Steven, "will rule this continent," which
turned purple, matching the flower of the thistle. "The third
continent will be looked after by the Duke of Saint Patrick,"
and it duly turned the green of the shamrock."
"Wait!"
he snapped as one of the men started to rise. "You really don't
want to leave before you hear your part in this plan."
The
man sank back into his chair, subdued by the manner in which the
former Prince spoke.
"Each of you will be looking
after a Province, that's the area outlined in red, and will have the
title of Marquis. Marquis of what will be up to you, but you will
make up the advisory body for your respective Duke or Duchess."
He looked around the table and saw a mixture of interest, confusion
and disbelief. "And you," he said indicating the only woman
in the newcomers, "will have the title of Marchioness."
The
woman looked up for a moment and then glanced back at the map, "I
take it I'll be expected to take one of these Provinces?" she
asked pointing to the continent of Saint Patrick after glancing at
John alongside her.
"That's right," replied
Andrew.
She glanced back at the map and almost as if she
couldn't believe what she was doing, she ran her finger around the
coastline of the nearest Province to her.
From a little
further down that side of the table a slender man gave a short cough,
"If we are running these Provinces, what will we be
commanding?"
Andrew smiled to himself, surely this
was the Admiral.
"You'll initially be setting up and
looking after a township of about ninety family groups," he
said. "As time goes by you will supervise the establishment of a
full infrastructure for your Province, with Counties, other towns and
villages as required."
"And these will all have
their own Marquis?" questioned a swarthy looking man from the
end of the table.
"No," said Andrew. "Each
Province will have a Marquis, yourselves. The Counties you establish
will be the responsibility of a Count and under them will be Barons,
who are looking after Manors."
"That's pretty
medieval," commented the swarthy man.
"That's
right," said Andrew, "And until we are established and the
planet is populated it's going to stay that way."
The
woman looked up and asked, curiously, "Why aren't there any
Earls in your scheme?"
Andrew smiled, "Because
there isn't a female equivalent to an Earl," he said. "The
title normally used by a woman in that position back on Earth is
Countess and I felt that, as that's the same title a woman who is a
Count would use, it would belittle the position of a female Earl. So
I ignored that rank completely. I was considering just using the
single title for both sexes but found I couldn't think of a Lady as a
Duke or a Count, so I dropped the one title that didn't fit."
---oOo---
Almost without realising it the people around the
table had accepted the plan that Andrew put forward, no one suspected
that the nannites they'd all received during their medical
examinations had anything to do with it. The group settled down to
discuss and amend the plan and fill in the details as they went along
as if the whole thing had been their own idea.
The first
thing that Andrew had them do was introduce themselves, which caused
a bit of surprise.
"You don't know who we are?"
asked the man whom Andrew had labelled the Admiral.
"No,"
said Andrew, "I asked the AI for people who had experience
running various organisations, businesses, the military and that sort
of thing, and you nine came out on top. When you entered the room you
sat where you wanted, which decreed what continent you'd be on."
Andrew looked around, "It may not have been the most scientific
way of doing things, but given that we arrive at Albion in three
weeks time and we will have to be ready for that event I had to do
something now. I was always told that it is better to do something
than sit around dithering and decide what to do too late. At least
this way there will be people on hand," he waved his arm to
indicate the people at the table, "to deal with any problems
that arise."
"Then we better make those
introductions," said the man rising to his feet. "My name
is Lawrence Ramage and I was an Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy,"
he sat down.
The woman who was sat on the same side of the
table stood, "I'm Sybil Marlin," she said, "I was the
chairperson of, Oh it doesn't matter now, call it a fashion
business."
As she sat the third newcomer on that side
of the table stood, "My name is David Zayas, I was a chief
financial officer of, well, let's just say that it was a pretty big
corporation not that that fact, as Sybil just pointed out, makes much
difference anymore."
He sat down quickly and before
anyone else could rise Andrew looked at John, "John, they don't
know you."
"Oh yes," said John getting to
his feet, "My name is John Prendergast, I er... urm..."
"And
you're the person I've made Duke of Saint Patrick," said Andrew.
He looked around the table, "I know the people I've put in as
Dukes don't have the experience that you do but they are my choices
and are willing to learn from all of you."
He allowed
his eyes to do a lap of the table before calling, "Steven."
"I'm
Steven Brown, son of George Brown and have been titled the Duke of
Saint Andrew."
As he sat the swarthy man stood, "My
name is Ellis Durst, I was a chairman of a manufacturing
company."
The plump man next to him rose to his feet,
"Cuthbert Buell," he said, "Former Managing Director."
He dropped back down and the third man, who Andrew had noted on
arrival because of a severe limp simply waved and said, "I'm
Jonas Swinney, I was the Chief Geek at a computer firm. Forgive me
not rising but I broke a leg a week ago and it's going to take
another couple of days before I get full use of it back."
Andrew
nodded his appreciation and then turned to his sister and raised an
eyebrow.
"I'm Elizabeth Windsor, Duchess of Saint
David," she said and sat.
The youngest looking man in
the group stood, "I'm Martin Cundiff, I held the position of
Managing Director at a fairly large construction company."
Alongside
the young man was sat a well dressed gentleman how rose to his feet
with ease and said, "Allen Graber at your service, I was a
chairman of a financial company." He sat down and looked to his
neighbour.
"I'm Gabriel Treece," he said, "and
like David, I was a chief financial officer." Finished he sat
down and looked around.
At the head of the table Andrew
smiled, "Welcome to the Grand Council," he said, "now
all we have to do is get a planet organised in less than three
weeks." He looked around the table; "Shall we begin?"
---oOo---
"I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do,"
said John, "but I want to get as many of the families who are
Irish and bring them to Saint Patrick."
"You
want to set up a New Ireland?" asked Sybil, "Are you
Irish?"
"No to both," said John, "but
I thought it would be a good way to get a bit of community spirit
going and that could be useful when things get tough."
The
former Admiral looked thoughtful, "And if we give each Province
an Irish name it would reinforce that perception."
"It
would," agreed John.
"What about the troubles?"
asked David.
"From the little I know that was based
on something that happened hundreds of years ago and had become
irrelevant - just an excuse if you like for thugs to run riot and
demand money," said John. "The last thirty years or so it
had been about civil rights, and well, they're totally different out
here so if we can avoid allowing religion to have any say in policies
I think we can safely ignore the past."
Sybil was
nodding and Lawrence agreed, "I've seen more trouble caused by
religion than anything else."
David looked a little
miffed, "I'm Jewish and I intend to stay so," he
declared.
"And so you should," said John, "My
dad said that religion was great for the individual but terrible for
the nation. I think that is how we should look at things, your
beliefs are your business and no one else's."
"So
no state church, no blasphemy, no race relations act?" asked
Sybil.
"Definitely no state church, so blasphemy is a
non-starter. Race relations will only be an issue if racists are
allowed to push their views and I don't think Andrew or the
Confederacy will allow that." He looked around the small group,
"I don't know about you three but I always felt that if you
talked at length about something that could become a problem it
tended to happen, whereas if you just kept an eye out for it,
generally, it didn't occur."
David looked sceptical
but Sybil and Lawrence seemed to agree.
"Anyway,"
said John, "what are you going to call yourselves?"
---oOo---
Across the room Steven was putting forward a similar
idea to John's, an idea that he had discussed with his friend the
evening before.
"Scotland in Space!" blurted out
Jonas.
"Well I think it's a good idea," said
Ellis.
"You would," said Cuthbert, "You're
a Jock."
"True, but I'd be willing to adopt you
as fellow countrymen so I can't be all bad," replied a smiling
Ellis.
"Maybe not," replied Cuthbert, "but
what makes you think I'd want that?"
"Why not?
You'd even get a kilt," said Ellis.
"Calm down,"
said Steven with a grin, "I had no intention of making kilts
compulsory, I mean, have you seen my legs." He was happy that
all of them seemed to be getting on so well and hoped that things
would continue this way. "What do you think is going to be the
biggest problem we'll have?"
It was Jonas who
answered first, "People and jobs," he said. "Even with
the numbers we've got we are going to be short of bodies. There are
an awful lot of kids on these ships and they are going to take
looking after which, in turn, reduces the number of people we are
going to have able to put in the fields. And that is where the second
problem will be. The people we've got with us are not from an
agricultural background, they're office and factory workers with no
experience of farm work. If we're not careful we will end up like
Vietnam after the war and be sending soft people out into a harsh
environment where all they will do is suffer. All that does is breed
discontent, which I'd think, is something we want to
avoid."
"Definitely, but what can we do about
it?" asked Steven.
Jonas answered the question.
"Obviously get more people, but where the jobs are concerned I
think we'll need to be very careful. Explain what is happening and
why - I know the AIs have already told us but I believe we need to
keep repeating the story. Then do everything we can to mitigate the
workload. Spread it around - automate as much as possible - only
perform in the hardest areas for short periods- offer incentives and
rewards to people who work well," he said. "And then do
anything else that we can think of that will lower the physical and
mental shock to the people who find themselves in the
fields."
"We'll need to ensure that people don't
feel isolated," said Steven. "We talked of towns but it
sounds like scattered villages would be better. That will probably
cause problems with resource allocations and that in turn could lead
to the people in the backend of nowhere feeling that we aren't
thinking of them."
"Communications are going to
be key," said Ellis, "We need to get our message across to
the people and, more importantly, have a way for them to get their
points back to us. Separation, with so few people available, could
kill the whole project."
"Killing the project is
not just the financial disaster that it would have been back on
Earth," said Cuthbert, "it's fatal, it leaves people dead
and is not an option."
Steven suddenly began to feel
pressure. Up until now it had been an interesting game. All of a
sudden it was real and he was the one at the top who had to make it
work. "Then we'd better make sure that the project succeeds,
hadn't we?" he said, looking around the group.
---oOo---
Elizabeth looked at the three older men with her and
smiled sweetly, "My brother has named our continent Saint David
and I know that those two," she waved an arm at Steven and John,
"are planning to grab all the Scots and Irish to populate their
Dukedoms. Should we do the same with the Welsh?"
"I
doubt if it would be practical," said the youngest of the
men.
"Why's that, Martin?"
"Well,"
he replied, "in the first place, there aren't as many Welsh as
there are Scots and Irish. And secondly I doubt if your brother would
have room for all the English on Saint George."
"True,"
commented Allen, "So we'd end up with a mixed bag anyway. If you
throw in all the other ethnic groups there are likely to be on these
ships I think we'd be in trouble if we tried to go down that
route."
"So we go for everyone that the other
three don't want?" asked Elizabeth.
"That's
right," said Allen.
"Give me your tired, your
poor, your homeless," paraphrased Gabriel. "Well it worked
for the Yanks after a fashion so it should work for us."
"Just
so long as we avoid the segregation and ghettos they had," said
Martin.
"So no Chinatowns, or Harlems," said
Allen.
"Nor Knightsbridge and the Gorbals,"
added Elizabeth then after a quick look around she said. "Right
what do we want that those two," she nodded in the direction of
the other groups, "are unlikely to think of?"
"Being
a bit competitive, aren't we?" asked Allen, with a smile.
"Dead
right," said Elizabeth. "We are here to succeed and the
best way to drive the whole colony forward is to make it as
competitive as possible. Communism is fine in theory but if you want
rapid grow, both in terms of people and resources, then good old
competition is the way to go."
"In that case,"
said Gabriel, "the others are likely to be looking towards
agriculture, as that is what the AI talked about in the initial
briefings on Albion."
"Yes?" said
Elizabeth.
"So let's concentrate on whatever
technology is available," said Gabriel. "Do enough farming
to get by but put most of our resources into grabbing and developing
the sort of high tech. Stuff that will be useful in ten, twenty years
time."
"You know," said Allen, "that's
not a bad idea. I'm sure that we can do enough to get by without
throwing ourselves into the farming thing wholesale and if that's so,
then we could develop the tools that will allow us to move onwards."
He grinned again, " and then we can be filling the whole planet
whilst they play catch up."
Elizabeth smiled; she was
going to win, especially as the 'boys' didn't even know they were in
a race.
---oOo---
"So how are we going to go about this?"
"Hopefully
I've managed to get the AI to do most of the work," replied
Andrew. "Then it will be down to you and your people to get
things organised however you want them."
Elizabeth
looked at her brother and didn't know whether to scowl or laugh. This
whole set up was almost a joke, except that their own, and everyone
else's, lives depended on how things went and that thought was
starting to feel very heavy.
"I take it, that that
means you've decided to go with the 'boy's' idea of splitting the
Scots and Irish off?" she asked.
"And anyone
else who has a surname that will fit in with either of those groups,"
agreed Andrew.
"What about you, are you using
nationality as a deciding factor?"
"No,"
said Andrew, "I'm going for any volunteer who's had military
experience and if that doesn't provide sufficient bodies I'll look at
the concubines the volunteers have already picked. If they are
ex-military then they'll be coming with me too"
"What
are you thinking?" asked Elizabeth, frowning at her
brother.
"My first thought was Sparta," he
replied with a grin, "but then I remembered all the homosexual
shenanigans that went on and decided against that, I like girls too
much."
"Come on, Andy, be serious," she
said raising her voice.
"Really," he said
seriously, "what I'm doing is getting all the warriors in one
place."
"Why?" she asked?
"For
two reasons," he said. "The first is to reduce the
likelihood that you three will try to depose me
violently..."
"But..."
"Hold
on, Sis. I never said you would, I said it was to reduce the
likelihood and before you kick off I don't expect that thought to
occur for many years, if it ever does. More importantly it will put
together the beginnings of a small fighting force just in case they
are needed."
The two siblings paused for breath and
were joined by the Dukes of Saint Patrick and Saint Andrew. Steven
grinned before performing a short bow, "Your Majesty, I hope we
find you well this morn?"
Andrew chuckled before
taking a swing at Steven, "Pack it in will you, this is
serious."
"OK," said Steven looking
about.
The hold was filling with people as the volunteers,
including those from the other ship, arrived to hear their
fate.
Captain Wainright, who was over by one of the
entrances, nodded to one of the grey uniformed crewmen and crossed
the hold to the four youngsters.
"Everyone's here,"
he said, "Shall we begin?"
Andrew nodded and the
Marine turned back to the crowd.
"Good Morning,"
he announced his voice amplified sufficiently so that everyone could
hear him. "What's going to happen here is that we are going to
be splitting you up into the different settlements that will be being
established on the planet. You will get a chance to meet the leaders
of your settlements and will also be introduced to the, admittedly
limited, technology that will be put at your disposal."
Captain
Wainright indicated three banners, the saltire cross of Saint Andrew,
the golden harp of Saint Patrick and the red dragon of Saint David
that had been hung from the walls of the hold. "When the AI
informs you which of the Dukedoms you're assigned to I want you to
make your way to the respective flag." He paused for a moment
before concluding, "Those the AI doesn't name will gather
together here before the stage."
As he fell silent
the AI took over. Next to Andrew John asked, "Why did he make
the announcement, rather than you?"
"Because,
technically, the Marines are still in charge until we land on the
planet and, at this moment, I doubt if most of the people would
actually listen to me."
John frowned but didn't
continue the discussion before Captain Wainright joined them.
"I
think you need to get over to your flags," was all he said and
he found himself standing next to Andrew alone.
"Well,
they can take a hint," he said before turning his attention to
the younger man. "It looks like you're going to get enough
people for your village and without too much in the way of conflict
of interest with the other Dukedoms."
Andrew looked
the big Marine up and down and decided to ask a question that had
been bugging him ever since he'd been made leader of the
colony.
"Captain," he asked almost diffidently,
"how is it that everyone has accepted my leadership so
easily?"
Roger Wainright looked at the young man and
was again reminded of just how fast on the uptake that the young man
appeared to be. It had taken himself six months before he'd asked the
same question of his superiors. "It's all part of the treatment
we're given on pick-up," he said. "The initial nannite
injection includes one that has been dubbed the 'respect' nannite.
What it does is it influences the person to 'respect' those who are
placed in a position of authority. It doesn't make them obey, just
view your opinions in a favourable light. The thing to remember here
is that as long as your orders, requests, whatever, sound reasonable
the person will be inclined to go along. If they don't comply with
those ideals then the person's own feelings will guide them."
"Isn't
that a bit dangerous for troops?" asked Andrew.
"In
some circumstances it could be," answered the Marine, "so
the nannite is flushed from our troops’ bodies after they've
completed training."
"And for the rest of us?"
asked Andrew frowning.
"It's going to be there
forever," said the Captain, "or so I've been led to
believe."
"Uhmm," was Andrew's only comment
on that revelation as he turned his attention back to the people
milling around the hold but he was wondering what other 'surprises'
had been slipped into his blood stream without his knowledge.
---oOo---
"I'm Brigadier Nobel Khanna formally of the
Indian Army," explained the swarthy Asian to Andrew. "I was
attending the garden party in your honour with a contingent of
children from the Indian Embassy. When the extraction occurred I came
along with the rest."
"Are there any more
members of the Indian military with you?" asked Andrew.
"Not
that I am aware of, your Majesty," replied the Indian.
"Well
Brigadier," said Andrew, "according to the AI you are the
ranking officer attached to Saint George. So for your sins you are
now the head of the Army and will be responsible for organising,
training and equipping the force." Andrew smiled, "But
before you get too excited, this," he waved his arm at the small
group of people clustered near the stage, "is the entire force
you'll be working with. At least for now."
The
Brigadier looked around and couldn't help himself, "I hope you
haven't got anything too strenuous in mind."
Andrew
chuckled, "Not until we've all gone through the augmentation
process, I haven't and in all seriousness I hope you are never needed
to fight. The forecast is that the Sa'arm won't reach Albion for at
least thirty years, and that's only if the human race doesn't do
anything about it in the meantime. The more likely estimate is that
it is going to be something like a minimum of a hundred years, if
Earth behaves as is expected, before they can get here, and by then
the Confederacy should be putting major dents in their expansion
plans."
"So you want us to be a training team in
case of trouble and, I assume, to enforce your authority if the need
arises?" the Brigadier asked suspiciously.
"That's
pretty much it," said Andrew, "though I doubt if anyone
will have time to ferment a revolt. We'll all be too busy surviving
to worry about any sort of power games."
Andrew
glanced around and took in the diversity of his small group. With the
majority of the continental populations being boosted to the required
level by the use of ethnically white Anglo-Saxons, Andrew had
inherited the remainder. It was a mixture of Chinese, West Indians
and Asians from India and Pakistan along with a sprinkling of odd
hangers-on.
He grinned at the Brigadier and added the
comment, "Though you may end up acting as a policeman when the
Inter-Continental games are held."
"You're
planning that far ahead, already?" asked Nobel Khanna in
surprise.
"What I want to do," replied Andrew
seriously, "is bring all the good parts of the old Commonwealth
here and, if possible, get rid of the bad parts. That means I fully
intend to have a Commonwealth Games at some stage, but it may not be
for a while."
"But a Commonwealth has to be more
than just the home nations, doesn't it?"
"It
does," said Andrew and then changed the subject. "The AI
tells me that the tall gentleman at the end of the line is Air
Commodore Wright-Philips. I'd suggest that you use him as your
assistant and see what you can come up with, but remember, your
priority, at least initially, has to be the establishment of your own
home."
"Yes, your Majesty," replied the
Brigadier as he walked towards the tall figure at the end of the
line, his mind thinking of the young woman he'd picked up to
accompany him.
---oOo---
"You know what would be really helpful?"
asked Allen. "Not necessarily immediately, but fairly soon after
we get Saint David established."
"What?"
asked Martin taking the bait.
"Ships!" declared
Allen.
"Ships, Why?" asked Martin. "We'll
have a transporter net to get around."
Allen rolled
his eyes, "Not for use on the planet," he said before
fixing Martin with one of his grins, "Think about it. We are
going to be stuck out here on the edge of the galaxy for at least a
year before anyone gets around to coming for a visit, and that's a
minimum, not a maximum. If we have a problem - of any sort - we are
going to have wait at least that long before someone can bring help."
Allen switched his attention to Elizabeth. "Now I
know we could yell for help on the sub-space communicator but if we
had some means of transport, and the way I'm looking at it any old
bag of bolts would do, we will be in a position to get our own help."
He smiled, "And we would be free to do anything else we liked
with the ship once we've got her."
"Such as?"
queried Elizabeth, though her own mind generated a few quick
ideas.
"Obvious things spring to mind like getting
extra people, especially if we find we need some specialists in
agriculture or what-have--you," said Allen. "If we have to
wait for one of the big colony ships to make the run it might be too
late, and we couldn't guarantee that they had the specialists we
needed on board."
"Then there are the other
possibilities, like perhaps technology, or seeds, or weed killer,"
he said which got a chuckle. "And another option, which I hope
we never need, is weapons. Earth may not have a large supply of the
sort of things that the Marines would use but there are some others
that could do serious damage to a dickhead if the need arose.
Unfortunately we won't have the capacity, unless we stop producing
food stuffs, to do it ourselves for some time," Allen lost his
grin as he finished.
Then Gabriel broke the growing
silence by commenting, "And less obviously but possibly a whole
lot more interesting is the fact that we could go and visit the
various member races of the Confederacy and see what we could find
there."
Martin looked from Allen to Gabriel and back
again before his own brain spat out a thought, "I wonder what it
would take to manufacture our own ships?"
Elizabeth
looked from one Marquis to the next and thought hard before starting
handing out tasks.
"Right," she said, "time
to re-write the plan of action again," before turning to Allen.
"Allen, see what you can get from both of these ships before we
arrive, if we can find a use for it I want it, strip the ships bare
if they'll let you get away with it."
She turned to
the youngest man, "Martin, I want you to look at the idea of
ship-building, working on the theory that ships for local travel,
in-system I believe it's called, are essential and that interstellar
stuff would be a Godsend. See if you can get them to send us stuff
from the Confederacy, obsolete, jury-rigged, whatever."
Finally she turned to Gabriel, "You've got the short
straw, Gabs, I want you to sort out all of our people, not just your
own township but this pair's as well and the people that are going to
my small town."
Gabriel rolled his eyes but grinned
when he looked back at the Duchess.
"And I'm going to
be having a word with a Marine I know and, if I can wangle it, the
Captain of this ship."
She glanced around at her
group and gave them a feral grin, "Time to win people, lets
roll," she stated and headed for the door.
---oOo---
"You wanted to see us, Sir?" asked the first
Marine from the hatchway.
Captain Wainright looked up from
the holographic image he was studying with Andrew.
"Yes
I did. Come in and grab a seat," he said waving towards the
seats on the opposite side of the display.
The two Marines
settled into their seats and glanced towards Andrew who was regarding
them in turn. The Captain nodded to Andrew who licked his lips and
began speaking.
"Actually, I was the one that wanted
to speak to you. The Captain, when I explained what I intended to
discuss with you was willing to go along with me."
He
watched the two men who had both focused their attention on
him.
"Captain Wainright has informed me that you, as
I understand it, are going to tell your former commanders about what
you've been part of here?"
"That's right,"
said the blond, the Aussie, by his accent.
"Is that a
problem?" asked the man with the darker hair.
"Not
really," said Andrew, "I just thought I'd put forward a
proposal that you might want to consider when you tell them."
"And
what's that?" asked the Aussie still sounding
belligerent.
"First of all," said Andrew, "I
need to know how you feel about the monarchy. Are you in favour of a
King or Queen, or do you like the idea of a Republic?"
"I'm
a monarchist," said the New Zealander, "just like my dad,"
he concluded with a grin.
"I'll be honest," said
the Aussie, "I was leaning towards Australia becoming a Republic
but not to the extent that I was prepared to go around causing
trouble to get it." He looked the former Prince in the eye, "In
reality, I guess, it would have given Australia its own figurehead
but I don't suppose that it's that important anymore."
"So
you wouldn't have a problem bringing Australians to a place that was
ruled by a King?" asked the young man.
Andrew watched
as the Aussie Marine put two and two together.
"You?"
he asked.
"That's right," replied Andrew.
"Why
would I want to bring them here?" asked the Aussie in
return.
"This place would be established, after a
fashion, which would make things easier for those who you brought,"
said Andrew. "I don't know how much trouble it was to find a
planet and then get things in place to bring us here but I can't
imagine it was easy. If you want your own planet then you'd need to
go through all of that. However if they come here, to one of the
empty continents, then it will just be another colonisation run."
Andrew looked up, "and that would appear to be no big
deal."
"So you're proposing an easier extraction
and the price is having you as a King?" asked the
Aussie.
"Pretty much," said Andrew. "It has
the advantage that we gain a greater population from a more diverse
background which has to be good for the race but it's the ease of
expansion that I favour and," he grinned, "you nearly speak
English so communications shouldn't be too difficult."
It
was the New Zealander who spoke next. "Would we be lumped in
with his lot?"
"Not unless the people who came
felt it would be the way to go," said Andrew. "There are
twenty 'islands' on Albion, each of them about the size of Australia,
so there is plenty of space to begin with. I plan to open up the
planet to the other member nations of the Commonwealth with a few
provisos, most of which Confederacy technology will be able to do
away with in time."
"What are those provisos?"
asked the Aussie.
"Loyalty to the Crown," said
Andrew, "hence the question of your feelings towards the
monarchy. The ability to speak English," he held up his hand to
stop an interruption, "I know the Confederacy can fit us all
with translators but having to speak and think in English forces a
certain mind set onto people. Nothing overt but it does give a common
reference for everyone."
"Anything else?"
asked the Kiwi.
"Not at this stage," replied
Andrew.
"Who else are you thinking of
approaching?"
"At the moment, no one," said
Andrew. "Unfortunately I don't have access to anyone else but I
plan on approaching the Canadians, who I'm sure will be glad to get
away from the Yanks and the South Africans. Before you ask," he
said, "that includes 'all' of the different racial groups -
though I think the Afrikaans will want to go with the Dutch if they
can manage it."
"I also intend to grab as many
from the Caribbean as I can manage though I'm planning on sticking
them on one island for now, I suppose it depends on how many others I
get, especially from the sub-continent." Andrew shrugged, "If
I could I would work my way through every country in the Commonwealth
and allocate them space here on Albion. That way we'd save as much as
possible of the heritage of our planet but I have to work with what I
can get and you two, I hope, are the start of it."
The
two Marines sat silently for a couple of minutes, glancing about and
then returning to their own thoughts. Finally the Kiwi broke the
silence, "You know, back in my normal unit, my boss is a
Canadian," he declared.
Andrew let out a sigh, "Thank
you," was all he said.
---oOo---
Andrew, Elizabeth, Steven and John gazed at the screen
displaying their new home and contemplated the past month.
It
had been a very busy period for the four of them. What with learning
the character of their people and the idiosyncrasies of the homes
they were going to. Add in the problems with finding the pros and
cons of their new bodies and generally absorbing the fact that they
were no longer on or of Earth and you got an idea of what they'd gone
through.
"So Sis," asked Andrew, "did you
get what you wanted from the two Captains?"
"Eventually,"
replied Elizabeth, "Well, after a fashion," she
admitted.
Andrew raised his eyebrow and his sister
continued. "They've agreed to provide at least two ships that
can be used to carry people and resources but they won't be colony
ships. So we won't be getting any more pods to house new colonists
in." Elizabeth frowned, "They won't be providing crews for
the ships either, though Captain Fairburn did agree to give the
volunteers of my choice a quick course in ship handling when we had
the ships available."
Andrew looked worried.
"Don't
fret brother of mine," said Elizabeth with a smile. "The
AIs run the ship and can act as training instructors for any crew
members appointed. Captain Fairburn told me that if the ships are in
orbit here the AIs can keep them there and the crews will be
proficient, if not experienced, in a couple of months. His people
will just provide that final polish that will keep everyone
happy."
"What about you two," asked Andrew,
"are you happy with the way things are set?"
"I'd
like more time?" said John.
"Wouldn't we all,"
said Steven, "but, even allowing for that, I'm about as ready as
I can be without actually being there." He looked around, "I
guess that's true for all of us," he said. "Until we're
actually down there everything is just an exercise in imagination.
The real work starts once we land!"
"That's
true," said Andrew, "I suppose I'm like everyone, I've got
a list this long," he said holding his hand out at shoulder
height, "of things I'd like but I don't know if that's real or
just wishful thinking."
"Well we'll find out
pretty soon," said Elizabeth.
The four fell silent as
a tremor slid through the ship and all apparent motion around the
planet came to a halt. The silence was broken as the AI
announced:
"Attention! Attention! Welcome to Albion."
---oOo---