Alarm of War

Chapter 37

Leaving the Planet Cornwall for Space Station Atlas

On Cornwall, the Royal barge waited for the command to lift off with Princess Anne and Sir Henry, in route to Atlas Station.

“This is a bad time to leave Mother,” the Princess complained. “She’s not herself, she needs me. I shouldn’t be going off on a junket.”

“We’ll be back in three or four days,” Sir Henry lied soothingly. Princess Anne had a temper and he didn’t need that just now. “With the Second Fleet off to war, it is important that we have a Royal presence on the space stations to boost morale. Since Her Highness is indisposed, that means you.”

Anne’s eyes flashed. “The Queen is not ‘indisposed,’ Sir Henry, and you know it. She’s depressed, clinically depressed, and she needs care.”

“The Queen is getting the best care available, Princess. We need you here.”

The Princess looked at him, her eyes hard. “What I need, Sir Henry, is to keep an eye on those fools at the Foreign Office. That used to be Mother’s job, and she has not been doing it for the last year. They are so focused on the Tilleke that they have quite forgotten the Dominion of Unified Citizenry! Am I the only one who is bothered that the Dominions — the Dominions! — are suddenly our friends?”

Sir Henry sighed. “Really, Princess, would it not be best to leave that in the hands of the professionals at the Foreign Office-”

“Professional sycophants!” the Princess said scornfully. “All the real professional foreign officers were forced to retire and my Uncle replaced them with his cronies. They tell the Duke exactly what he wants to hear, and what he wants to hear is that Victoria is loved and respected by all because we are strong, beneficent and wise!”

Sir Henry winced inwardly. Queen Beatrice had made very few mistakes in her long reign, but appointing her younger brother to be head of the Foreign Office was one of them. “My Lady, this is not the time to dissect the Duke of Kent’s virtues. We need you at Atlas to-”

Princess Anne made a most un-princessly noise. “Don’t ‘My Lady’ me, Sir Henry, you’ve known me since I was in diapers and I know you too well to be charmed by pretty words and flattery.” She held up one finger. “First, Uncle Harold is a weak, arrogant, self-centered stupid man who thinks the Foreign Office is a plaything for his own personal amusement. I can forgive him for being self-centered, but I cannot tolerate him being a fool. What Mother was thinking of when she gave him the Foreign Office is beyond me.”

She held up a second finger. “Second, you keep telling me that we are going to Atlas, but in fact you’re taking me to the Home Fleet, are you not?” She looked at him coolly.

Sir Henry gazed coolly back at her. “And where did you hear that, Princess?”

“I may be young, Sir Henry, but I do have resources.”

But still young enough that you have not yet learned that you never disclose your assets if you don’t have to, he thought. Still, the little Princess obviously had a very well placed informant. That would bear thinking about.

He looked at his watch. “Princess, we have to go. I wouldn’t ask you if it were not of the utmost importance.”

Princess Anne looked at him unblinkingly for a long moment, then she gave the slightest nod. “Very well, Sir Henry, but soon, perhaps very soon, I may have questions for you that you will answer. Do you understand?”

Sir Henry hid a rueful smile. He bowed. “You are your mother’s daughter, Princess.”

Anne stood. “I am, indeed, Sir Henry. Best not to forget it.”

Chapter 38

In Victorian Space

The flock of drones flew on toward their destination, the Fleet base on the Atlas Space Station. Twenty of them had survived the rigors of the worm hole into Victorian space only to for fail for one reason or another. Their systems shut down and they went ballistic, to coast to eternity and beyond.

The surviving drones picked up the signal from Space Buoy #27, corrected course slightly and sped on. Soon now, very soon, they would detect the radio beacon from Space Station Atlas and fulfill the single duty they had been created for.

Chapter 39

On the HMS New Zealand, near Space Station Atlas

“It was all so confusing.” — Tale of a soldier’s first battle.

It was the third day of combat simulations and Emily was growing tired of it. No, not tired, bored. Captain Grey and Lieutenant Rudd were at Atlas for meetings, so the “Op Force” was headed by the Tactical Officer, Senior Lieutenant Michael Bishop. His problem was that he had no imagination…and when he didn’t win, he changed the rules.

The first day he had made a straight frontal attack, so Emily had pulled back her center and left her flanking forces in stealth mode. When she attacked him from the flanks, Bishop suspended the battle and scolded her for “dispersing her forces too thinly.”

In the next simulation, she used a number of decoys. Bishop launched a frontal attack and obliterated them. Emily noticed that he used a very large number of missiles in his attack. She created another line of decoys. Again he obliterated them with an avalanche of missiles. This time Emily sent a raid around to Bishop’s rear and destroyed his supply collier. Now he could not replenish his missile stores. She made a third line of decoys and Bishop launched a third massive attack. When Bishop approached the fourth line, he did not fire, finally realizing that she was using her decoys to exhaust his dwindling missile supply. But this time they weren’t decoys. When he was on top of her, Emily’s destroyers opened up with everything they had. Bishop once again suspended the battle and scolded her for allowing his cruisers to get so close to her destroyers, saying that in a real battle he would have had two colliers and a fresh supply of missiles.

And so it went. She set traps and he blundered into them, then stopped the battle and in a condescending voice explained to her how she had screwed up. Even the ever-stoic Marine guard by the door had rolled his eyes in disbelief.

This time was no different. Emily had feinted attacks at both of his flanks, causing him to disperse his forces more and more. He finally anchored his left flank with his single, precious battleship, and while she drew off its consorts with a display of force from his right flank, she mobbed the battleship with the ten destroyers she had sitting in stealth mode. One hundred missiles arched towards the enemy battleship, moving closer and closer. No ship defenses came to intercept and her mouth quirked in a half-smile, half-snarl. She had caught him flatfooted.

Then the holo display blinked and the missiles froze in mid-flight.

Emily gritted her teeth.

As she knew he would, Michael Bishop came through the hatchway from the auxiliary CIC, his face dark and