by Autumn Birt
“My daughter,” Count le Marc said. He did not introduce her as a new member of Parliament as if the only information of importance was her lineage. Danielle sighed.
The woman moved away, leaving the door open and Danielle still on the other side, uncertain of what to do.
“In. Close the door,” her father snapped, nodding to a corner.
Annoyance at him faded as she absorbed the activity in the room. Four soldiers relayed quiet information to the seven members of MOTHER. Four men, her father and Mr. Eldridge among them, and three women discussed the information while standing over a table holding a map. No, it wasn’t holding a map. It wasn’t a table either. Danielle stared at the flat screen, watching a soldier pan the landscape image northward. She hadn’t seen a functioning computer in a month. She’d never watched such a large video display table. When the mountains stretched upwards into a 3D topo relief, her mouth gaped.
“Captain Prescot says we’ve been pushed back into the valley here,” the soldier said, sweeping a finger over the table. The valley highlighted.
“How bad are the casualties,” a woman asked. “Can we mount an offense?”
“They are holding, but how long they can is uncertain.”
“Find out,” le Marc snapped. The soldier turned away.
Minutes streamed by with more reports. MOTHER redirected troops, David spending time in conference with a woman via a video chat line. A serious and efficient attitude contrasted with shoulder length light red hair and bright blue eyes. Whoever the woman was, she was not afraid to argue with Eldridge, swaying him twice to change decisions made by MOTHER while speaking to sources on her end. The battle lines changed, two pushing forward, three falling back.
“We have confirmation that Prime Minister Diamante was killed. They’ve found his body.”
One of the men swore.
“Well, that is going to complicate things. It took over a year to get agreement to nominate him to the bloody position,” one of the women said.
Her father waved it away as if it were too small a bother. That was how Danielle knew he wanted the position. Prime Minster of Europe, the first of their family to hold such a title. Yes. That was what he wanted. But he wasn’t the only one. Glances danced around the table. Seven of the most powerful people in Europe stood discussing strategy to save a continent they each wanted to rule. Danielle wondered what the room would be like if there wasn’t a war bringing them into agreement.
“You are the Secretary of Defense, Eldridge. You should be making these decisions!” the man who had sworn at the announcement of the Prime Minister’s death shouted. The room froze for a second.
“I’m not at headquarters and in direct contact with our field marshals, am I? We haven’t had this much movement at one time in months,” David replied, rubbing his fingers across his eyelids with the last.
“I can handle things from here,” the redheaded woman on the vid feed said.
David cracked an eyelid open, glance vying between angry and hesitant. “Where are the closest troops to ...”
She wasn’t listening. The redhead turned away, half her face off the screen. She stiffened, one blue eye glancing toward the camera. Toward David. That was when he stopped talking.
“What is it?” David asked, voice gruff.
“The 51st battalion was overrun. There are many casualties. Your son is currently missing,” she said.
David’s face faded to grey before flushing red. “Find him. Dammit, Ms. Prescot, find him. I’m coming back to base and I want to know where he is when I get there.” David turned, finding himself facing Renault. “I’m taking your bloody car.”
“Sir, the offensive?” one soldier asked.
“To hell with it. We are losing anyway. Figure it out.” David stormed from the room.
—
“Head wound, broken arm, leg is a bit mangled, but he should keep it. The stomach wound is the worst though. Swords, nasty business. But he’ll live. He’s lucky,” the home nurse said to Danielle.
Danielle peered through the door at the bandaged man sleeping in the guest room of her father’s maisonette. David sat with his head in his hands, staring at the floor. He hadn’t moved since they’d settled his son in that morning. Now the afternoon light slanted across Derrick’s bed as he lay comatose. She wondered if he dreamt he still fought the FLF.
That question was only the first, and one of the least, that she pondered. She’d normally turn to David, but would not dare bother him now. David had shown up that morning with Renault’s ‘borrowed’ car and a makeshift ambulance behind. The recent attacks made the road to the coast too dangerous, not to mention a boat crossing and journey through another war torn countryside, for David to take his son home to England. Letting them stay was Renault’s only option. Anything less would be uncivilized treatment, even if David was as much a competitor as an ally.
With David indisposed, Danielle was left with one person to ask questions of. She approached her father’s study, poised in fresh clothes that offset her blonde hair and matched her grey eyes. Her father liked it when she looked refined. She wanted him in a pleasant mood.
“Come in,” he said in response to her knock. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, but there wasn’t a wrinkle on his shirt. Such was her father.
“How is the fighting going?” Danielle asked, sitting on the edge of the chair across from his paper strewn desk.
“You could check the outlets,” Renault began, taking a lecturing tone.
“The reports? Such as the newspapers? Shall I go out and fetch one?” They stared at each other a moment. Danielle remembered she wasn’t trying to rile him. “There is no internet, father. We only have power as you saw fit to buy generators ages ago and I think you are tapped into the solar array down the street. I could ask someone to go and find me a paper, but it really isn’t worth risking someone’s life when I know you know exactly what is happening.”
He sat back, regarding her with mild amusement. “Very well. You are correct. I do know. It isn’t good. We’ve gone from sporadic encampments of FLF that had been hiding amid cities to open conflict ... everywhere. The entire countryside is a morass of chaos.”
“We are losing,” Danielle said, accepting the inevitable.
Her father frowned. “No. Not yet. This is the thick of it, the peak. I don’t know which side will gain the upper hand ... and keep it. A few days ... if we are still alive then, but we should know where we stand in a few days.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Danielle asked, meaning it and surprised to find she did. Maybe there was something of her brother’s or the le Marc blood in her.
“Well, I can show you how to use a gun in case they storm the house.”
“From what the nurse said, they are using swords now.”
Her father laughed. Danielle stared at him, wondering if she’d ever heard him laugh before. He’d certainly never done so at something she had said. It was an amazing feeling.
Emboldened, Danielle edged for more news. “How did they manage to find David’s son?”
“Quite a few died trying to get him out from what I heard. But Ms. Prescot did as David asked and threw our resources into saving Derrick and what remained of his battalion. The redirection probably didn’t help our current situation, but ... may not have hurt it either.”
Renault appeared receptive, lounging back in his chair with his gaze resting lightly on her. “You know, a woman I met at the Assembly, she said MOTHER had been disbanded.”
Renault’s gaze focused as he stiffened, Danielle kept her face unconcerned. He relaxed. She released her breath. “And what do you think?”
“I would say that MOTHER runs the war,” she answered.
“We run the country. But do not say that to anyone else.”
“Is that why you put me in Parliament? I’m your spy?”
“Partially yes.”
“What is the other part? Spread word of your suitability for the next Prime Minist
er?”
Renault’s eyes were more blue than grey and right now they held ice. “You will do as I tell you to do. You are not to speak to anyone else of MOTHER or what you saw in that room. You are not to speak of what you learn about the fighting and the war. And yes, if I tell you to sing praises for something, you will score an aria!”
Under his stare where he perched half risen from his chair, Danielle caved. She could not fight him. Not alone. Tears stung her eyes.
“Yes, father.”
A knock broke the long moment of their silence. David pushed open the door at Renault’s invitation.
“How is your son?” Renault asked, calm voice holding concern. Real concern. Of course her father would intimately feel for a threatened son.
“Resting. I ... thank you. Thank you for letting us stay.”
“You are lucky to have made it this far,” Renault replied.
“I know. I should contact Arinna. The fighting ... they need guidance. Her husband leads our armed forces. Did you know that, dear?” David asked her.
“Captain Prescot’s wife is your aid? Why do they call him Captain? Shouldn’t he be a general?”
“War is confusing. He shouldn’t even be here. They should have both been back in America when it fell,” Renault said, tone ambivalent.
“American? I had thought ... Canadian,” she said, blushing.
“No. American. Were American, I suppose. She doesn’t take the risks she should. Too afraid for her husband,” David muttered. Renault raised an eyebrow. Danielle read the irony in the look even if David did not. “I should go back to Derrick.”
“I’ll go,” Danielle blurted. Quickly, she added, “You haven’t eaten. Please, I’ll watch over him for a bit. You need to rest.”
Danielle kept her hurried exit measured, relieved to escape her father’s calculating stare.
—
Derrick lay unconscious for the next four days. Twitches and occasional words indicated his coma wasn’t deep and that there was reason to hope. Danielle found herself by his side whenever she was awake. It wasn’t like she had duties despite now being a member of Parliament. And it was the one place her father would not bother her.
Outside, the war’s fury inched toward favoring the EU. But it was difficult to confirm. Her father called it guerrilla warfare, though David said it was worse than that. It was something new, local terrorism on a massive and continuing scale. They didn’t know how to strategize, not yet. David spent his time split between talking to Europe’s forces and his son’s bedside. The house felt as tense and uncertain as the war.
And then Derrick regained consciousness.
Rejuvenated by relief, David launched himself into the war effort. In his absence, Danielle spent time with Derrick, confessing her problems with her father and the loss of her brothers. He clung to her words instead of the pain of his wounds as she helped change bandages. At least her childish problems served a purpose.
“No one will tell me how the fighting is going,” Derrick said to Danielle one afternoon after his father had hurried to duties kept behind closed doors.
“I think they don’t want to worry you,” Danielle replied.
“No. They don’t want me to be interested. As if not telling me will keep me from going back.”
She stared at him. “You want to go back and fight? But ...” Her gaze fell to his bandaged waist and leg.
“I’ll heal. They need soldiers. I’ve seen people fight with worse.” He glanced away when he said that, as if not looking at her would hide the fate of those who fought on.
“I’ll go and see what I can find out.”
“You think they’ll tell you?” he asked. Danielle blushed, embarrassed by how much she’d confessed to him.
“I can always listen at the door,” she replied.
When she padded quietly to her father’s study, what she heard wasn’t about the war. It was David and Renault strategizing. The idea frightened her more than the explosions she heard beyond the window glass.
“We have to end the war to be war heroes,” David said.
“Well if we don’t win the war, we also won’t have to worry about who is Prime Minister,” Renault replied. “The power cannot go to Miralda or Ilse.”
The silence was as thick as the heavy door. “You are serious about this?” David finally answered.
“You don’t agree? This plan will save your son.”
“For the price of the Prime Minister’s seat?”
“You or I. Who it is will be chosen by fate and how the end of the war plays out ...”
Danielle moved away, surprised to find one thought in her mind. “Or me,” she whispered as she paced the floor of her room. She had a parliamentary seat, one meant to be used to help her father. But if she helped David instead? She trusted David. He would protect her. She trusted his family, Danielle realized. Derrick would have a parliamentary seat too. He could help her. If he didn’t go back to the fighting.
Danielle hurried out of her bedroom, but slowed before she reached Derrick’s room. She still hadn’t figured out what to say when she opened his door.
“What’s happened?” Derrick said, struggling upright.
She sat in the chair next to his bed. “I ... No. It isn’t the fighting. That isn’t what is wrong.” Derrick studied her face as she paused. “From what I have heard the fighting is still a mess. Communications are sporadic and the reports contradict.”
“Or the fighting changes so quickly the information is old by the time Command hears it,” he said, glancing away. He spoke with the battle weariness of someone who had seen the unsteady flow firsthand. “What is it then?”
“My father,” Danielle answered, voice wavering. “I don’t know what will happen when you and your father leave. I don’t want to be alone here with him.”
Derrick took her hand but before he could reply, the door opened.
“Good. You are both here. We have something to discuss with you,” David said, entering with Renault behind.
Derrick continued to hold her hand, which kept Danielle from finding an excuse to leave. “What is it? And how is the fighting?”
“It has shifted in our favor. I will get you reports if you don’t believe me. Captain Prescot and his Lieutenant that you’ve gone on so much about – Jared Vries? They are making headway. Lines are forming. The FLF will not win Europe,” David said.
“You make it sound so easy,” Derrick retorted.
“I know it is not,” David said slowly, emphasizing each word as his gaze paused on his son’s injuries. Derrick looked toward the window, expression hard.
“Why do you want to speak to both of us?” Danielle asked as the silence grew.
“We have a proposal for you,” Renault answered smoothly.
“What is it?” Derrick said, bristling. Danielle squeezed his hand, nervous of Derrick’s anger. He needed to hear whatever plan her father and his had hatched. They wanted him to leave the war as much as she did. The three of them working together were sure to sway Derrick. Somehow.
“We can assume the fighting will have impacted the EU Parliament. We’ve had reports of missing members. Seats will need to be filled. It is my turn to choose the next position with no family left to inherit. I intend to choose you,” Renault said to Derrick.
“Me? You want me to leave the war to play politics? When we aren’t even sure if we’ll win?”
“You were elected to the UK Parliament prior to the war, I’ll remind you. I had thought you’d seen the importance of politics,” David said.
“Importance? Yes. When we were at peace! Now, we are barely surviving. Communications are too slow. You think you can direct everything from the old NATO headquarters utilizing the best technology while soldiers in the field are using swords!”
“If you have so many ideas on how the war is fought, join Parliament and do them. Stop trying to work through Byran,” David replied. No words to respond found their way to Derrick’s lips.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” Danielle said.
Her father cleared his throat, gaze sweeping David before falling on her. “We are two of the strongest families in Europe. Our unity can help guide this country not only out of war,” Renault said with a nod toward Derrick, “but also through the rebuilding that must come after.”
“Unity?” Derrick asked slowly.
“We’d like you both to agree to a betrothal to demonstrate that the times of divisions of countries and individual politics are behind us,” David answered.
The room settled into silence for the space of a breath.
“Yes,” Danielle answered.
“What?” Derrick snapped, questioning her as much as their fathers. Trembling with the unexpected hope of an escape, she silently pleaded for Derrick to at least not say no.
Renault appeared as surprised as Derrick at Danielle’s quick answer. “It makes sense,” Danielle said, turning to Derrick. “It is a political match, true. And might seem premature as the outcome of the war is still tenuous. But they are right. Together, we can help guide the way forward. And now you can change what is wrong with the war. I’m already in Parliament. I’ll support anything you say is needed.”
Derrick stared at her. She knew him well enough from the last week that she could see he was tired, his wounds listing him to the left in the bed. He didn’t have the energy to fight, not the three of them. And he was as well bred as she. There was no polite way to refuse.
“You accept this?” he asked. His sincere navy blue eyes cut through the charade being foisted on him.
Danielle buried selfish needs and squeezed his hand. “Yes. This is an opportunity for us ... for Europe.”
He studied her a moment longer. Derrick dropped her hand as he turned to his father. “Fine. I will go along with what you ask as well.”
Danielle was happy enough that she could ignore the bitterness in his answer.
Loss
February 2062
“But they aren’t supposed to be there.”
Arinna’s heart pounded in her ears. She stared at the vid screens, no longer trying to make sense of the battle she’d been pulled in to consult on ten minutes ago. It was over. The screens, the long distance ones that still worked, showed a massive, spreading cloud. The blast knocking the primary vids offline was so strong that she gripped the rail in front of her to brace for the aftershock.