Queen Josephina I

  Location: Harper’s Center, Barrowsford, Star Kingdom of Windsor

  “What!” The wine decanter exploded in the Queen’s hand as the news reached her ear. It was a very undiplomatic reaction.

  She was dining with select loyalist members of her planet’s new government. The new Prime Minister was sitting on Josephina’s right, with her husband, and she’d been working up to the formal declaration that a new government had been formed in Josephina’s name, so the Queen’s outburst threw everyone off.

  The words had been whispered in Josephina’s ear by her trusted personal attendant, Theodore. Theodore was part executive assistant, part spymaster, part bodyguard, and one hundred percent loyal. She’d brought him to Barrowsford with her so he could work his magic, which she saw essential to the governance of her new domain.

  “Your Majesty?” the new PM looked and felt a little awkward saying those two words, but she still said them respectfully, if only for the fact that she’d just watched her sovereign crush a glass bottle with her bare hands. So far, no one on Barrowsford seemed to have any enhanced physical or mental attributes.

  “Something dreadful has just come to my attention,” she accepted the cloth napkin from Theodore to clean the wine off her arm. None of the glass had punctured her skin. “There has been a terrorist attack on our troops and the energy infrastructure of Stonewall Valley.”

  Gasps echoed through the dining room followed by grim, determined faces. The newly elected government of Barrowsford wasn’t soft. They were the deprived masses that had been forced to live under the tyrannical rule of the Commonwealth and its corporate puppet masters. They were ready to fight and die for the new freedom Josephina had brought to them. The new Queen could see in their eyes that they just wished peace would last a little longer.

  She had one eye on them and one eye on what the alien bioseed was feeding directly into her ocular nerve. Data and video were streaming across her vision. All of the soldiers’ helmet cams had been recording when the attacks occurred. All the attacks were different, yet followed the same premise. There was an initial attack, something large enough to overwhelm the physical defenses. A vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED)s seemed to be the weapon of choice. After that came a ground attack. Troops in mismatched armor, weapons, and generally lacking in tactics rushed the battered barricades. In some cases, the royal marines recovered in enough time to engage them, and in others they did not.

  A second wave of soldiers followed and they either ran into heavy resistance, tripping over the dead bodies of their traitorous friends in the process, or they helped overrun her marines. Her mind scrolled through the videos until two stood out. Both showed large soldiers leading the charge against her troops. One, she couldn’t tell the sex, was encased in the same suit of armor that her techs were dismantling and studying in the basement of her palace. She didn’t want to call it a dungeon, but the term fit. The second was a large man in mismatched, basic Commonwealth armor. She knew there was a story behind the wardrobe choice, but she was too busy watching his actions.

  He moved with speed and confidence. He was over the barricades and tossing grenades through shields before the marines even knew what hit them.

   She’d yet to gain any meaningful intelligence out of her prisoners, but it seemed that they weren’t alone.

  The aliens the Empire was trading with had told of ingenious ways to transport troops across the galaxy, but the Empress had forgone that technology in favor of advanced warships. Instead, she’d purchased the technology to disrupt that mode of travel. These scramblers interfered with the transmission method, either killing the people in transit or disrupting their landing. There were many factors that determined the death versus dispersed outcome, but the two chief factors were distance and lock on target.

  

  “Theodore, please send word to Vice Admiral Westwood to step up patrols. We have reason to believe enemy scouts are in the area, and I want them found and destroyed. Also, contact Colonel Buckton. I want a full briefing on the situation after dinner. Prime Minister, you are more than welcome to attend.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. I want to find these terrorists as much as you.” From the look on the other woman’s face, Josephina believed her.

  “Another bottle of wine then,” she called and a fresh bottle practically materialized at her shoulder.

  Against normal protocol, but only because it was necessary with the people of Barrowsford, Josephina got to her feet and poured the wine for her guest before raising her own glass. “To those who have fallen. We will never forget.”

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  “And we will never surrender,” the PM added as they downed the tangy liquid that was fruitier than any other wine Josephina had ever tasted.

  The Queen gave the elected leader a smile and wondered if this native woman could be a trusted ally or someone she would eventually have to dispense with. She really didn’t care either way.

  The dinner finished up fairly quickly after the bad news, and they continued on to the briefing. Colonel (COL) Buckton was the commander of the royal marine detachment that had arrived to reinforce her own lancers in providing security for the newly conquered planet.

   she reminded herself. She frequently made the mistake. Her own lancers were now royal marines, while Victoria’s soldiers held the imperial title.

  It hadn’t escaped her notice that the imperial marine regiment outnumbered her own royal marines nearly two to one. Victoria might have given planets and titles to some of the high nobility, but she wasn’t a fool. The five thousand imperial marines were there to ensure the interests of the empire were maintained. They were technically under Josephina’s command, but she knew the second she ordered something that went against whatever orders the COL had from the Empress, the COL would no longer be her subordinate. The same were true with VADM Westwood in orbit. The Imperial Admiral’s warships outnumbered her own Houses’.

  While the spymaster part of her mind acknowledged all of this, the rest of her ignored it. Victoria was her best friend, and there was no way she was going to betray her or the empire. Josephina might be a Queen, and Victoria an Empress, but they all served the Star Empire of Windsor.

  “Your Majesty,” the COL bowed deeply at her arrival. Unlike the natives, he was brought up with a proper education on the hierarchies of society.

  She acknowledged him politely, but skipped the pleasantries. They got straight to business.

  “The rebel soldiers hit our checkpoints in red,” the COL explained as the holo-screen highlighted several areas throughout the space around Stonewall Valley.

  The city, second largest next to the capitol, was fully under their control. However, it was nestled in a valley where two of the continent’s largest mountain ranges intersected. Strategically, it was a nightmare because of all the mining that had occurred since the planet was initially settled, and since all of those maps had been destroyed during the battle for the planet. Theodore’s sources pegged the rebel HQ being somewhere near the city.

  “We had several casualties, most were just injured and will make a full recovery with regeneration, but we lost good men and women as well.” The casualty figures scrolled, and Josephina saw that most of the dead had come from the two sites where the armored figure, and the large man had attacked.

  “Do we have tracking data on the vehicle stolen from Site Bravo?” she inquired.

  “Negative, your majesty. We lost the feed when it entered an unknown tunnel system. The magnetic ore in these mountains is playing hell with our scanners. It could still be underground, but more than likely someone has dug through and removed the transceiver.” The COL didn’t beat around the bush.

  She expected as much, but now they were getting to the good part. The COL and VADM had ships and troops on alert status. The marine quick reaction force was too far out to do anything but secure the destroyed checkpoints and provide medical aid for the wounded, but the ships in orbit were able to take the fight to the enemy. Unfortunately, only one ship had firing solutions, and it had to pick its target.

  The rebels attacking Checkpoint Delta had been hit with a kinetic orbital strike that left a hundred-meter crater in the mountainside, and disbursed their organic matter over several square kilometers. It was an overreaction in terms of force, but it was also a healthy reminder to the rebels.

   Josephina was fine with the level of force used, and was only unhappy that Delta hadn’t been attacked by the armored warrior or the large man.

  She thanked the COL for his briefing, said goodnight to the PM, and made her way down to the basement/dungeon. She changed out of her expensive, royal outfit, and put on a plain smartcloth uniform with insignia of a marine sergeant. Funny enough, it was the same as a Commonwealth sergeant, just with the chevrons upside down. She grabbed the tablet sitting next to the door and did a quick review of the footage over the last few hours.

  There was nothing new, so she pushed open the door. The large Commonwealth woman was hanging from the ceiling with her arms strapped behind her back. Her toes barely scraped the ground, and she was sweating profusely. The skin around her shoulder joints was bright red from the strain her full body weight was putting against them, but they hadn’t popped out of their socket yet.

   the woman had endured hours of the torment, and she hadn’t broken.

  “Good morning.” It was actually evening, but messing with the woman’s sense of time was its own form of torture. “Have you thought of anything you wish to share?”

  The woman slowly raised her head, and with murder in her eyes, spit in Josephina’s general direction. The monarch easily sidestepped the luggie and slapped the woman casually across the face. That got a growl in response, like a caged animal, before she casually took her seat behind the woman. The Commonwealth soldier tried to turn her hand and reacquire Josephina, but her body couldn’t move like that.

  “Let’s start with the basics again,” the former chief of intelligence for the Star Empire crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. She’d done countless interrogations, and one thing was always true. Time told all secrets.

  “How many people came with you, and what are they armed with? How were you delivered? What is the Commonwealth’s timetable for its counterattack?”

  The woman lashed back with her leg to try and donkey-kick Josephina, but she was carefully out of range. However, the maneuver did what gravity had failed to do. There was a soft pop and the woman screamed.

  “My my,” Josephina tsked the woman. “I could help with that if you simply answer my questions.”

  “Sit on something and rotate, bitch,” the woman replied through gritted teeth.

  “No thank you,” Josephina replied, “but that is a good idea, maybe I can make that happen for you.”

  The woman didn’t say anything in response, so Josephina repeated her questions.

   she reminded herself as she settled in for the long haul.

  Since it is President’s Day I have time to get this out earlier. Enjoy!

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