by A K Lambert
So, this would be one of the few occasions where he could report the real facts. Because, after due consideration, the Royals’ escape was of little consequence. And that’s what he told them.
‘...and it is, therefore, the Inner Council’s decision to support the Military’s policy of not committing any further resources to finding them. In conclusion, I would report that five of the Vercetian decoy ships have returned to Preenasette, as have two of our own. I will update the War Council further on this matter at the next quarterly meeting.’
He stood down to polite applause from the assembly.
Up next was Premier Gor.
As was his way, Premier Gor commanded respect in the most subtle of ways. The simple act of looking up and slowly surveying the room induced a stony silence. This particular address to the assembly was a state of the war summary. High and low points, ongoing tactics and new initiatives. Lots of rhetoric but little detail, and a rallying cry at the end. He stood up and commenced his address.
Pilz saw Mancer lean towards Zander. He couldn’t hear them but saw where he was pointing. Zander was nodding. In the gallery seats surrounding the table, Pilz could see a sprinkling of Sestapol police sporting their new black military uniforms, with steep visor caps. Their primary duties were not defined yet, but rumours abounded.
Pilz’s mind drifted away for a moment, and an awareness dawned on him. Sestapol were part of the Reticent Guard! What were they even doing here? Now his two bosses’ interest in the Council Meeting was becoming clear.
Gor began, ‘The balance of the war is slowly swinging our way. The Vercetians are in a panic. The evacuation of their Royals is a sign of this, but as Supreme Commander Zander has just told you, we aren’t planning any further action. In other developmental research, I can confirm that we are making sound strategic advances.’ Gor scanned the auditorium. ‘Our new kinetic pulse body armour with projectile sensing shielding is in phase two testing. There are still some technicalities to be worked on, but I understand we are well ahead of schedule.
‘Underground force field penetration tests are ongoing, but are hitting technical problems. I will personally look into this woeful lack of progress.
‘Troop numbers are higher than ever, as Sub-commander Lysanda has just reported.
Our plan is coming together.’ He paused for a rapturous ovation. Pilz, Zander and Mancer were quite aware of the Sestapol officers leading the frenzied applause, one or two even encouraging those around them to show more enthusiasm.
Gor raised his hands for silence.
‘But we cannot be complacent. A full-scale ground attack will only work with a concerted space offensive as well. And for this to happen, we need bifighters. We are outgunned, and need the Space and Weapons Manufacturing Corporation to accelerate this building program.’ He held the moment for just the right amount of time. ‘Friends. While we develop our strategies the foe is developing quite diabolical ones of their own. During this last quarter alone, our spies have informed us of plans to create cyborg super-soldiers, and of force field penetrating missiles that will deliver horrifying biological payloads. There are no depths the Vercetians will not plumb to win this war and assure the end of our culture. That has always been their intention, and nothing has changed.’ The assembly cursed and shook their fists at the absent foe. Gor continued, in full battle cry, ‘We will stay strong. And we will work tirelessly to make our home safe. Free from the tyranny of the Vercetians. For our children and their children. For Trun Rizontella!’
The crowd rose as one. The roar of approval was thunderous.
Chapter 14
The Holiday Ends
Earth - The Republic of Ireland - 2002
* * *
A couple of weeks after the attack on Grace, things had gotten back to normal on the estate in the southern part of The Republic of Ireland. The security system was fully up and running, and the members of Grace’s Life Team were back to their routines. Outside, the rain had returned with a vengeance. The summer holidays were drawing to a close, and Jon and Mandy would soon be back at school.
The children were sitting in the morning room, sprawled around a coffee table playing Monopoly. Grace was enthralled with the game and kept asking Mandy about all of the famous places in London represented on the board. She had access to everything on the database, but it was much more fun getting the point of view of a friend who lived there.
With no pretences to be kept up, Grace was in her native form. Although she still wore the brooch, otherwise she would revert to broken English.
Jon was using Krankel as a cushion, sprawled across him, his arms outstretched. He tried to flick the dog’s nose, only to be greeted by the snap of teeth trying to nip his hand. Krankel pushed Jon with his back leg. Jon responded by grabbing his tail.
‘Stop it you two!’ Grace’s patience was snapping. ‘I’ve told you both, no more fighting.’
They regarded her like wounded puppies at the rare ticking off from Grace.
In the silence that followed, Mandy asked her about her position as princess.
‘Grace. How does it all work? There are two princes and two princesses, and there’s a ruling council. When will you join the Council?’
‘We aren’t proper princesses and princes in the way you mean. We aren’t born into the role. We are selected at a very young age. It’s a big ceremony, and anyone can put their babies forward for selection. The ones that meet the selection criteria best—they do all sorts of genetic tests and whatnot—are chosen.’
‘And the name?’ asked Jon. ‘You’re Grace to us, but I’ve heard you called Princess Tauriar and another name beginning with M.’
‘Princess Tauriar is my official name, and Manjena is my birth name,’ said Grace. ‘It’s all very complicated, I know, but only my parents use Manjena.’
‘And that’s Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, right?’ said Mandy.
Grace nodded. ‘I won’t join the council until I’m forty. That’s about forty-four of your years. And I will replace the eldest Councillor—Bana Tauriar—when she’s eighty. The four Councillor names never change, two men and two women: Tauriar, Domeriette, Ventar and Camcietti, named after the first four elders hundreds of years ago. There’s always a ten year age difference between them. With me so far?’
They both nodded. Jon stretched, his hand demolishing the houses Mandy had on Old Kent Road.
‘Jon, you are the biggest oaf I’ve ever known. Your clumsiness has no limits.’
‘It wasn’t me, it was the smelly hairball,’ complained Jon, digging the sleeping Krankel in the side.
As she crawled under the table to retrieve the little green plastic houses, he leant over and stole her King’s Cross Station card, giving Grace a wink.
Mandy finished straightening her houses and looked up at them.
‘What?’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Why have you turned bluer, Grace? What have you done, O’Malley?’
She studied the board—all seemed okay. Then she spotted the missing card.
‘Where’s my station?’
‘You’ve got to catch me if you want it back.’ And Jon went running out of the room, with both girls in hot pursuit. Krankel made to get up and join in the chase, but decided against it and flopped back down.
Just outside, Jon and Mandy missed Douglas wandering past, but Grace went straight into him. He managed to keep his balance and catch her.
‘So, where is the little princess with the lightning reactions and reflexes?’
‘That’s only when I’m at work. I’m playing now.’ She smiled and was gone.
An hour later and they were all back sprawled over the floor and the sofas in the morning room. Grace’s hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane had caught Jon and Mandy a couple of times each, which had effectively ended the game.
Grace was moaning.
‘What am I going to do when you go back to school?’
‘You’ll be seeing me most weekends,’ said Jon, a manufactured wounded lo
ok on his face.
‘And we’ll be back for the half term and Christmas holidays,’ Mandy chipped in.
‘I know, I know,’ said a dejected Grace. ‘I just feel we need some bond or oath that will seal our friendship. In our Decennial Ceremonies, we have poems that reaffirm the faith and loyalty of the nation and the Ruling Council, every ten years.’
‘Come on,’ said Mandy. ‘Let’s all try and write something. ‘She jumped up and got everyone pens and paper, and they all settled down to the task. After thirty minutes and much cursing, paper screwing up, questions like “what rhymes with hunk?” Mandy exclaimed, ‘I can’t do this!’ putting paid to any further deliberations.
‘I’ve done two,’ said Jon. ‘What about you, Grace?’
‘I can’t do poems in English. Something to do with the translator—it’s not creative enough.’
‘So that just leaves Jon,’ said Mandy. ‘What chance have we got? Come on then, O’Malley, give us what you’ve got.’
‘Okay then.’
* * *
‘There once was a girl that was blue,
Who was stuck on a planet named Poo,
Saved by local hunk Jon,
She had friend number one,
And there was also this other girl too.’
* * *
Mandy growled at him.
‘I’ve another.’ He jumped in. ‘True Friendship.’
* * *
‘True friendship spans the galaxy
and remains always in our heart.
We are touched by the stars,
And nothing will keep us apart.’
* * *
Grace and Mandy looked at each other in amazement. ‘Perfect,’ they said in unison.
Grace said, ‘Stand in a circle and hold hands, and we’ll recite it together.’
They all checked the words again and were ready. Grace made them in interlink their fingers and locked hands at a shoulder height, creating a perfect dramatic triangle.
She spoke again, quietly, ‘True friendship.’
* * *
‘True friendship spans the galaxy
and remains always in our heart.
We are touched by the stars,
And nothing will keep us apart.’
* * *
Just as they finished, Krankel howled, a very rare occurrence. He wanted to be part of this moment. Jon and the dog played like a pair of kids, but Mandy was pretty sure that Grace and Krankel were communicating at a much higher level.
The children looked at each other and smiled. The start of a hopefully long and meaningful friendship.
‘And finally, Birjjikk.’ Lord High Elder Carrakk leant back in his seat and scratched one of the horns on his forehead.
‘I put her third. Aggressive and resourceful, but lacks the strength and skill of Graffojj and Denttikk. She made too many errors. And, someone needs to teach her some respect,’ replied Lord High Elder Robbijj.
‘Are you sure you were facing the arena, Robbijj?’ Lord High Elder Sammanna snapped, continuing the bickering done throughout the Cadre 188 Academy mid-training assessment. ‘Never on this planet can you even compare Denttikk with Birjjikk. She’s strong, and a reasonably skilled fighter but it all ends there with her. Grant you, Graffojj is the strongest and most skilled fighter at present. But this is still early days in their training. Birjjikk’s potential is prodigious.’
Carrakk jumped in before Robbijj could reply to Sammanna. ‘She has contempt for authority and is hot headed, I agree, but those were the very traits of a young Robbijj I seem to recall. And she was the only one to tame the bear over the last three Cadre assessments.’
‘I think that seven hundred years has muddled up your recall, Carrakk. Too much estivation,’ replied Robbijj. ‘I was never that bad. And the bear was a fluke.’
‘Gentlemen,’ Sammanna interrupted. ‘I see a future Player in Birjjikk. And a great player at that.’ She banged the table with both fists—not for the first time during the meeting. ‘I will claim sponsorship of her right now for the Rebutti Dynasty, and will look forward to reaping your hard earned Game Tokens for many years to come.’
‘We do not need to make that decision for ten years,’ Robbijj stated. ‘She could be dead by then, and very likely will be.’ He paused for a moment, deep in thought, before continuing, ‘I will claim sponsorship of Graffojj for the Accett Dynasty and bet you fifty Tokens that he will become the Cadre Player—if Birjjikk manages to stay alive long enough to contest him.’
‘And I will bet twenty five Tokens with Robbijj, for the Cammaggama Dynasty,’ Carrakk added with a wry smile. ‘That’s if you’re up to it, Sammanna?’
‘I accept both wagers. It will be a pleasure to top up my Dynasty’s funds’. Sammanna’s smile was much more pronounced, her brown and worn teeth fully exposed. ‘I foresee a major power shift in the Game over the next couple of hundred years.’
‘Business concluded, gentlemen.’ Sammanna stood up to leave the chamber and stretched. ‘A little sleep for a few years, then I’ll then check up on my girl.’
Part II
The Changing Face Of The War
Chapter 15
The Needles Deception
Preenasette - The Needles - 2005
* * *
Joellen Grainter was one of the most experienced commanders in the Vercetian military. He loved his job. His devotion to his career left him with no time for luxuries such as a wife or a family, but he had always wanted a soulmate. Unfortunately, he’d set his sights too high and never had the nerve to do anything about it.
Today, however, he felt pressure—for more than one reason.
Kam Major, the military commander of the Vercetian army, had decided to observe this routine mission to check an anomaly in the defensive shield surrounding their country. She often joined missions with the briefest of notice, to keep her troops on their toes. Grainter was good at his job, but it always seemed to be a lot harder when she was there. Apart from his team and the vessel crew, he also had two shield techs on board. They were threading their way through the Needles, a myriad of small islands between the two main continents of Bala Verceti and Trun Rizontella. His transport was a hovercraft—fast, quiet and cloaked. They would be undetected unless someone was specifically looking for them.
He looked with admiration at the High Commander leaning over the shoulder of the navigational engineer; small talk about the route they were taking, he presumed. The war wasn’t going well, and it showed on her face. He moved closer to her and spoke. ‘Do you think there is an underlying strategy, High Commander, with these continual probes to our shields?’
She looked up at him. At fifty years old, she was a fine looking woman, even though years in command of the Vercetian military showed on her face. Frown lines around her eyes and mouth gave her a perpetual faint grimace. He had never seen her smile. If she found something amusing, it would manifest as a gleam in her eye, and no more. He was sure that if she ever relaxed, a beautiful woman would be revealed. ‘I’m not sure, Commander. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern, but they are certainly taking an active interest in the Great Shield, keeping the shield Artificial Intelligence, and our forces, stretched in the process.’
Stretched indeed, thought Grainter. Monitoring the 1.2 million hoverpods that formed the matrix of the shield was a massive task for the AI and the support maintenance engineers. Adding in military forces to back up the current string of anomalies was a drain on resources. Worth it, though, to keep the war in space rather than on the ground.
The Great Shield was an impressive feat of engineering achieved by their ancestors. One of the techs was happy to explain it to Grainter earlier in the trip. ‘Each pod has its own solar powered trilithium battery unit that operates a primary propulsion system, a small laser cannon and a trans-ionisation shield. But when the matrix of pods have linked, it becomes more, much more than the sum of it’s formidable parts.’ He had carried on describing the nature of the linking— lase
r guided locking systems and Tricadium fibre interconnecting power conduits— but it was beginning to go over Grainter’s head. When he got to the alternative power sources—backup power fed into the matrix from the geosynchronous space stations and geothermal heat sinks from the oceans—he was ready to leave.
All Grainter needed to know was that the shield remained on standby power levels until an approaching vessel, a missile, or someone carrying a weapon tried to pass through it. Then it would come to life.
The hovercraft slowed down as it approached the shield. Grainter instructed the engineers to start their investigative work.
Trun Commander Mavar Hallot took up a position at the carefully constructed throat of the cave that opened out to the Sea of Needles. They had found a weak point in the Vercetian shield. There were three matrix pods adjacent to the mouth of an island cave, and due to the nature of the overhanging rock formation, the field passed through solid rock before forming a barrier at the mouth. This rock interference created a weak point in the shield. They had excavated from the far side of the island to get in the cave, behind the shield. This gave the Trun the opportunity to study and probe the field, and possibly, find a permanent pathway through it, undetected by the Vercetians.
Unfortunately, a ham-fisted engineer got too close to the shield face with a weapon in his toolkit and triggered a sensor. ‘This isn’t my weapon,’ engineer Cobb protested. ‘I’ve no idea where it came from.’ This didn’t stop Hallot from dressing him down in front of everyone. It was now a case of waiting to see what the response from the enemy would be. They had set up local monitoring and picked up what they thought to be a heavily cloaked vessel, probably coming to investigate.