“You really want to know? Okay, let me tell you what I really want!” She straightened in her chair. “I need time to recover. It could be months, years, or … never. During this time, I want you stay in my life as a friend. I wouldn’t develop a relationship with anyone else, nor would you. Is this something you would like to consider?”
He stared at her in disbelief. “That’s … ridiculous!”
“It is!” she announced as if he had just won a prize. “So that’s it, Sterling. I don’t want to waste your time anymore. We’re done with each other.”
And you could have your Tara, your Larissa, Pastina, whatever! She stood up and left the table. “Please come visit Kyle when you’re back. He’s been missing you.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
She stopped at the door, not sure if she heard it correctly.
“I know you feel guilty for him,” he said gloomily, like someone who had just lost money in stocks, but couldn’t quit or he would lose more.
“But I can’t walk out of your life like this. When you were there, I did nothing to get you back. When you were on the run, I stayed in my house, ate all the meals …” His voice quivered a little bit. “I’m always a lucky guy. And useless! Last time I was here, everybody in the Caparise died, and I became the hero …”
A shrill alarm sounded inside the fortress. Sterling leaped up from his chair and rushed out of the room. He said something quickly to her before he left, but the alarm was too loud for her to discern it. A moment later the alarmed softened to give way to a loud voice. “All hands, battle stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill …”
She leaned over to the doorframe, taking a moment away from the ongoing emergency. If this turned out to be the last day of her life, at least she had lived.
* * *
When Geneva arrived at the Combat Direction Center, the enemy flotilla had passed through the Stony Band. However, they were not coming toward the fortress.
“What do they want?” Howard asked. The situation had not aroused her concern yet. “They are not going to invade our planets with a few squadrons, are they?”
“When did our cadets leave, ma’am?” Sterling asked.
Howard’s face darkened. She asked to see the current location of the ships that departed an hour ago. A screen was turned on showing both the courses of the cadets and the enemy. There was still a long distance between them, but the enemy was clearly running after the passenger ships.
“Fortunately we should be able to get there in time.” Howard ordered her squadrons to depart immediately. Meanwhile, she sent a message to Sparkland, which was the closest help they could hope to get at the moment.
Geneva walked over to Sterling and said quietly, “This is strange. I don’t think Pompey likes playing with hostages.” Or he could have used her to get what he wanted.
“The cadets aren’t his goal,” he said while he was busy checking something on a computer. “But we have no choice.”
His words soon proved right as two supercarriers emerged from the Stony Band and running at full speed toward the fortress.
Two carriers? That was a lot of planes! Geneva was puzzled. Why would Pompey send over so many planes, rather than ships? She saw Howard and Sterling exchanging worried looks with each other. They might understand, but she shouldn’t bother them anymore.
* * *
Half an hour later, the carriers came into sight. With only a few ships left to defend the fortress, they blocked the carriers at a distance but could do nothing to stop the planes that flew over to the fortress. Some of the planes were destroyed by the fortress when they entered its range, but hundreds were following.
Now Geneva also grasped the severity of the situation. The fortress had a terrific automatic defense system to deal with a certain number of hostile objects. Its five limbs were highly maneuverable to dodge incoming missiles, and the external material could withstand a few hits before noticeable damages were shown. However, if hundreds of planes fired at it simultaneously, the result would be devastating.
“You said there’s a problem in the compensation program,” Howard said to Sterling. “What if we just turn on the gravity manipulation?”
“We might be able to alter their missile trajectories, ma’am, but our own defense system would also be useless.”
That would be nice, Geneva thought. A battle in which nobody can get hurt!
“Then let’s give it a try,” Howard said. She sat in a chair and buckled her seatbelt.
Sterling walked over to a control panel and said to the officer standing there. “Let me do it.” He pushed a few buttons and turned around. “I’ve turned on the magnetic field. Those of you who don’t have metal soles should get seated.”
Geneva stared at the large window in front of her. She had been to battlefields several times, but not like this. Countless planes were neatly packed into a two-dimensional array, all aiming at the fortress. Then she saw Sterling turning back again and frowning at her, and suddenly she realized his last command was meant for her. She ran over to a chair—all the furniture was mounted to the floor—and grabbed its armrest. Then there came a moment when all the motions seemed to have stopped, a moment when absolute stillness was enforced, time froze, and the universe went back to a point before the Big Bang … With a wave of Sterling’s hand, an enormous force pulled her up from the ground and bumped her head to the ceiling.
She was occupied with her pain for the next couple of minutes and didn’t know what happened. When she recovered her senses, she found herself sitting in the chair, her seatbelt fastened. Two women soldiers stood nearby and pressed their hands on her shoulders. “What—” Before she finished her question, she felt another sudden change of gravity, this time to her left.
“Yeah!” People in the room exclaimed. She looked up at a screen, which showed during the last two runs, the fortress was hit eleven times. That was very fortunate considering how many missiles had been fired.
Through the window, Geneva saw the enemy planes flying away one after another. “Are you all right?” she heard Sterling asking at her side.
“I’m okay,” she said happily. “Your project worked!”
He shook his head. Now she saw sweat on his face. “We were lucky this time,” he said. “They either aimed at the center or the limbs. I tried to avert the missiles to the gaps between the limbs. They gave up because they had no clue what happened.” Then he lowered his voice, as if fearing the enemy would hear his words. “If they hadn’t aimed, but fired uniformly at us, then no matter how I varied their courses we would’ve gotten more hits.”
Well, at least they were safe for now. Geneva took a deep breath and rubbed her head.
“I have to stay here until our ships are back,” he said. “My room number’s BO-3. Would you be able to find it?”
“I have a room,” she said in a barely audible voice.
“Oh …” He smiled, a little embarrassed. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
* * *
When Geneva left the Command Direction Center, she saw one of her bodyguards waiting for her in the hallway. Together they entered Limb B, which was quiet and empty with all the dorms shut. What time was it now? She wondered, fumbling inside her handbag for her watch. She had taken it off in the club for fear that Sterling would recognize her.
It was past midnight. No wonder she was so exhausted. She wanted to put the watch back to her bag but dropped it instead. As she bent over to pick it up, she saw the bodyguard, who had been walking slightly behind her, reaching for the gun attached to his waist. Still bending, she felt blood rushing to her head and she held her breath. What should she do? Throw herself at him and try to seize his gun? Or run ahead as fast as possible? While she was unable to decide what to do, she saw his hand moving away from the gun and heard footsteps coming toward her.
She straightened and saw the bandaged guy walking in her direction. “Gavin!” She quickly remembered his name.
�
��Yes, ma’am?”
She had to find an excuse to have him be with her. “I’m looking for Sterling’s room. Do you know where it is?”
“You should’ve turned left after you passed the club … Let me show you.”
She turned around and walked along with Gavin. The bodyguard was following behind as if nothing had happened.
“I heard Commander Prichard is also here.” She tried to chat with Gavin to show the bodyguard that she didn’t suspect anything. “Was she one of the two girls with you guys earlier in the club?”
“No, ma’am.” Gavin pointed at a door and stopped. “But we do hang around together sometimes.” He opened the door for her.
“Oh really?” She stopped at the door but didn’t go in. “Can I ask you another question?” Then she seemed to have remembered her bodyguard and said to him. “I’m fine, Jacob. Thank you.”
After she saw the bodyguard disappearing in the hallway, she gestured Gavin to enter the room and told him about her suspicion. Gavin immediately called the security and asked them to come and arrest the bodyguard. During the following hour, Howard, Sterling, and people she didn’t know kept coming and going. They said the bodyguard had denied any intention of hurting the queen, and since there was no solid evidence, they could do nothing but escort him back to Sunphere for an investigation.
Now even Geneva wasn’t sure if she had been right or simply paranoid. She also felt sorry for causing the trouble, when everybody could have relaxed and gone to bed. She told them to call it a day and left for her room surrounded by a few woman soldiers whom Howard absolutely trusted. They would take turns to guard her door for the rest of her stay. But shortly after she was settled in, she heard some impatient knocking on the door. She opened the door and saw a barely functional Sterling holding a pillow and a blanket.
“Is there a couch?” He looked over her shoulders with half-open eyes. Then without waiting for an answer he walked past her, threw himself at the couch, and immediately lost consciousness.
Geneva stood at the door for a while. So he was here to protect her? Would he be able to hear anything if a squad of enemy broke in with firing magazines? Remembering the presence of the two women guards, who acted as if they had seen nothing, she closed the door, entered the bedroom, and climbed into bed. For the first time after she came back from Thyphol, she slept through a dreamless night.
Chapter 24
Geneva went directly to her office when she arrived at Sunphere on Monday morning, and found several urgent messages waiting for her. The first was from King Jonathan of Rainprus, calling for a Joint Defense Conference at the end of the week. She reckoned it probably had something to do with the Colonial Rebellion in the RB. The second was actually for Sterling. His foster parents had a terrible car accident over the weekend: Harold died on the spot, and Crystal had severe injuries on her legs.
“Oh no …” She leaned back in the chair and covered her face with her hands. She remembered the dinner she had with Harold, the deep and resonating voice, the broad smiles. No, this type of tragedy shouldn’t happen to a person like him! And she would have to miss his funeral because of the conference.
“Please send a message to the fortress and ask Captain Presley to come back immediately,” she said to Ms. Lander. “But don’t tell him anything yet.”
Ms. Lander wrote on her notepad. Then she fidgeted with her notes, making no eye contact with the queen.
Was the next news even worse? Geneva sat straight in her chair.
It turned out that somebody tried to kill her newborn when she was away. There were four nannies that took care of Alfred on a regular basis. During naptime only one of them was around. On Saturday afternoon when a nanny who was off duty came back to fetch some left personal items, she found no adult in the room and the baby’s face being covered by a damp cloth. His skin had turned blue, but fortunately he was rescued in time.
“The suspect is on the run.” Ms. Lander wiped the sweat on her forehead. “The police said they believe she’s still in the country.”
Geneva made a sad smile. Having grown up in a royal family, she knew too well that a conspiracy aimed at a monarch or her heir could rarely be solved by the police. Even if the nanny was caught, she bet that the woman knew nothing about the person behind it. Now it was also clear what happened in the fortress over the weekend wasn’t just her imagination. Her enemy wasn’t an ordinary person, and she would have to find it out using other approaches.
* * *
Geneva, Oakley, and Lloyd arrived at Jonathan’s palace four days later. She was happy to find Stella waiting for her outside the conference room.
“Congratulations, Stella!” They hugged each other. The engagement of Princess Stella to Rear Admiral Earl Charlie Swinburne had been newspaper headlines for weeks. “Oh, look at you!” Geneva said in admiration. Nobody had thought that Stella and Charlie would become a couple, just like nobody had foreseen that Geneva and Sterling remained separated after they had kids.
But there was a mixture of happiness and melancholy in Stella’s eyes. “I’ll see you at dinner.” She glanced at the people filing into the room and left.
Geneva took out her phone and checked the messages and emails. Still nothing from Sterling since he went home. Even though they were not in a normal relationship, he should know how much she cared about his family. At the very least, they were her children’s grandparents.
The phone rang abruptly, and she hit the answer button. “Hey, how’s everything?”
She was embarrassed to find that the call was from Fernando. “Ur, yes, Fernando, but I only have a few minutes.” She walked away from the conference room and stopped in front of a window. “You found the maid! What did she say? … I see, so he went to the hotel where my mother stayed …”
She looked back at the conference room and saw Lloyd standing at the entrance and gesturing her to come in. She nodded at him and lowered her voice. “As I remember, Quincy served in our Third Fleet for a year. We should still have his DNA record, right?” She paced along the window, trying to make a decision but failed. “I’ll think about it. Call me back tonight.”
She entered the room and sat together with Oakley and Lloyd. The meeting hadn’t started yet. At the front of the room, Jonathan was discussing something with Charlie and another officer in their seats. Behind them two planetary maps were showing on the screen, one for Planet RB-3, and one for RB-4. Thyphol was colored blue on the map of RB-4, while several other countries on both maps were colored red.
After a while, Jonathan stood up and gathered people’s attention. “First, I’d like to thank Sunphere for their amazing performance at the Starlight Fortress over the weekend. Frankly, I still don’t quite understand what they did, but they seemed to have improved our defense system …”
That was an understatement, Geneva thought.
“The question is, how long could we keep the peace even if we had the perfect defense. At the moment, Thyphol is too busy putting down its colonial insurgencies to covet our planets.” The red areas on the maps flashed as he spoke. “But once Pompey solves his problem at home, he will, for sure, start harassing our system again.”
Now the largest colony on Planet RB-3, which had no color yet, began flashing in yellow.
“After being unwillingly ruled by Thyphol for more than a decade, the colonies are finally working together for a common future. Although Hunglevia hasn’t joined in, its First Space Lord contacted me recently, saying that they are planning on taking action soon, and they want us to help. That’s why I’m gathering everyone here today.” He looked around the room. “I’d like to hear your opinions.”
Geneva wasn’t unprepared for the news. On the way here she had a discussion with Oakley and Lloyd about the purpose of the meeting, and both men had guessed correctly. Their recommendation was to watch the situation a little longer before taking military action.
“If we decide to help them,” Queen Hayleigh asked, “how many forces do we need to
send over?”
Jonathan sat down. With his prominent belly, he must be tired after standing for a while. “It’ll have to be a lot. The war between Thyphol and us is different from the rebellion. Over the past few months, we saw various degrees of mercy when Pompey fought his tributaries. Sooner or later those would be his countries and his soldiers again. I mean, without external interferences. If we set a foot in his territory, however, that’s going to be different.”
“Our strength is not comparable to Thyphol’s,” Matthew said. “But if we wait for all the conditions to ripen, we’ll never accomplish anything. We should grab the opportunity and give our enemy a fatal strike.”
Geneva didn’t approve of immediate action, but some of Matthew’s words intrigued her. One shouldn’t wait for the best time to do something, because the best time may never come … Her mind strayed away for a few minutes. When she was back to the present, she heard Hayleigh asking Jonathan, “How reliable do you think they are? What if they break their promise after we get there?”
“Then you mustn’t have followed the news,” said Owen. “Let’s forget about our own peace. Those colonial peoples are shedding blood to regain their long-lost freedom, politically and economically. How could we claim to have justice, sympathies, when we stand aside watching others suffering from tyranny and enslavement? And history has shown that no evil force could last forever …”
Geneva curved her lips to one side. She had said similar things when she gave speeches. No evil force could last forever, but usually it did last for a while.
There was a moment’s silence following Owen’s words. Then Jonathan said, “What is your opinion, Queen Geneva?”
“Sunphere will spare no effort in participating in this operation if it’s deemed to be worthy,” Geneva chose her words carefully. “But we think it’s better to wait a little longer for the situation to clear up. And we need more time to finish the project at the fortress.”
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