Queen Josephina I

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

“Please, Your Majesty…”

First it was Vice Admiral Westwood, then Colonel Buckton, and now they’d enlisted Theodore’s help. Josephina glared up at her personal attendant.

All but the VADM sat in the operations center buried beneath the palace complex. They’d been there since the Commonwealth fleet’s arrival was detected. They’d been there when their sensors identified gluon power plants on a number of the Commonwealth ships. They’d been there when the VADM admitted they wouldn’t be able to intercept all of the Commonwealth formations before they reached the planet. Now, they were all telling her to run.

“No,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “I am Queen, and this is my world.”

She knew she was being stubborn. If she stayed, and her troops lost, she would be a valuable prisoner to the Commonwealth. She’d been the Empire’s Chief of Intelligence and a close personal friend to the Empress herself. The information in her mind could do great damage to the Empire. Logic dictated that she run, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was one of three other monarchs, just below the status of empress. She’d been entrusted with this planet, and to run at the first sign of trouble was unbefitting to her station. She would not, could not, leave.

“Formation Charlie is ten million kilometers out. They will settle into orbit in a little over four hours. The window of escape before we’re in weapons range is down to twenty minutes.” The COL reiterated. He might be in charge of the imperial marine garrison, but he couldn’t tell her what to do. He needed…

“Incoming QE burst,” the communication’s officer announced from a corner of the room. The young man blushed as all eyes, including the eyes of his Queen, focused on him. He discretely forwarded the message to the COL.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, the decision is no longer yours to make,” the COL looked a little too smug as he turned the display so Josephina could read it.

At the top of the message was the Imperial seal, which said to anyone reading that the orders contained within came from the Empress herself. Josephina scanned the screen. The words felt like a punch to the gut. Victoria was recalling her to Windsor for all the reasons Josephina knew she should be retreating for in the first place. She could not be captured.

“Your Majesty,” the COL’s words cut through her reverie. Two imperial marines now flanked her. She was still several centimeters taller than her armored guards, but height wasn’t much of an advantage against their rifles. The nano-blade on her hip was, but she didn’t go for it. This was an order from her Empress and she would obey.

“I will accompany you to your shuttle. We have two cruisers and Ides of March in orbit on the dark side of the planet. Your flagship will take you back to Windsor while the cruisers provide support against Formation Charlie.” All three ships were modern builds and would be able to put up a hell of a fight against the larger Commonwealth force.

“And…”

“I will be staying with my troops, Your Majesty. I’m just a lowly colonel,” he answered her question as they started walking.

Two of her own armsmen fell in step as they exited the operation’s center, and all but shouldered the marines aside. The marines remained on their flanks, but no one was going to get between them and their Queen.

“We should…” soft pops echoed faintly through the corridor followed by a much louder boom. Her armsmen got between her and the end of the corridor.

“We’ve got contact from north of the palace.” The COL was dialed into the defensive network. “Our units are taking care of it. Keep moving.”

“Collies?” she asked as they picked up their pace.

“Rebels,” the COL’s face was grim.

“Rebels!” her shock almost brought them to a stop. “The city is supposed to be secure. Now I literally have enemies at my gates and we didn’t know about it.” Her armsmen kept her moving despite the anger rolling off her.

“The Colour Sergeant is on it, they’ll be nothing but hamburger meat in the next thirty seconds.”

She heard the booming retorts of the palace’s mech guard entering the fight. The soft pops faded away pretty quickly after that.

“Perimeter breech at the east entrance!” Now the COL sounded much more worried.

She was sick of being in the dark. She activated her IOR and activated the back door she’d made into the defensive network. The Imperial forces didn’t want her to have access to their data if they had to enforce something against her will, but she’d picked up enough skills as a spy to make sure she had that access anyway.

She searched the feeds of the soldiers assigned to protect the palace. She filtered out the living ones and narrowed down nearly a dozen assigned to the east entrance. The feeds were gone now, but rewinding them from storage was simple. She watched quietly as three armored soldiers burst into the palace complex and slaughtered the marines. Her IOR quickly plotted the best route to avoid the new soldiers and time it would take to make it to the launch pad in the rear of the complex.

It was going to be close, so she picked up her pace.

***

CPL Nickelbaucher

Location: CWS George W. Bush, Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

“Get it on there, Nicki,” the SGT commanded as he fastened his own grav-plate to the deck of the Spyder.

No one ever called him by his first name, Mitch. It was always Nicki. He wasn’t sure he liked that because he wasn’t sure if it was a genuine, brother-in-arms nickname, or they were making fun of him. Nicki was also a girl’s name, so it was tough to tell if they were covertly referring to him as a bitch.

He knew a lot of it came from him being the new guy, even if he was a CPL and fire team leader. The new guy was still the new guy. He hadn’t gotten some respect from his fellow senior enlisted until the WARNO for their current mission came down from HQ.

Everything had been a mess for Mitch Nickelbaucher after the Battle of Lancashire. Most of his battalion was KIA or MIA, so the powers that be shuffled things around and deactivated the battalion until they got a fresh group to prop it back up. That meant Mitch and the rest of CPL Cooper’s old team were sent back to Thor and scattered to the wind.

Goldsmith had been injured in the battle, not bad, but enough for him to ride out the rest of his enlistment in the hospital. He was out now. Stern was still in, but he’d lost contact with the idealistic young man after he shipped out to some Core World for training. Stern really wasn’t Infantry material, and someone probably finally saw that. Mitch had looked for Cooper, but his old, sketchy team leader had vanished. He’d survived the battle, which Mitch was sure of, but then his records went blank. It was odd, but he had much bigger things to deal with. The one good thing about his old team leader was that he’d kept his word about the recommendation. It took about a month longer than it should had with all the personnel shuffling, but Mitch finally got his second stripe.

His shuffling finally ended up on board the George W. Bush, or just the Bush for the cruder infantry members. He got sent as a replacement to Delta Company of the 9422nd Marine Battalion that served as the assault force for the Bush. The 9422nd along with its sister battalions in the 942nd Brigade were about to be the first Infantry soldiers to take the fight back to the Windsor’s. Since Mitch was the only person on board who’d actually faced the enemy in battle, he’d started to earn some cred for the first time since joining the unit.

“Got it, Sarge,” he put his full, inconsiderable weight against the plate and pushed. With a crack it slipped into place and the SGT’s PAD started running the diagnostic.

Mitch wiped the sweat from his brow, and waited for the news if they were finished. The SGT gave a thumbs up and Mitch sighed with relief.

“Thanks, guys, we really appreciate it. Rolling around the back of this bird was a sure way to get us all dead,” a man with the corporate logo of Gold Technologies grinned down at them.

Unlike some marines onboard, Mitch had nothing against the Corpies. They fought for a company instead of a nation, and they got paid a lot more, but most were veterans, and since he was new, he found he got along better with the Corpies who were generally nicer to him. But that wasn’t the only thing he liked about them. He liked that he was going to be able to hitch a ride and take cover behind the fifty ton beast sitting in the back of the supped up Spyder.

Mitch had only seen tanks in holos, and he honestly wasn’t too sure about their strategic value in warfighting after becoming obsolete hundreds of years ago, but Gold Technologies didn’t just pour money and manpower into something that was going to get destroyed in five seconds. Something must have changed, and something standing between Mitch and a Windsor’s bullet was good in his mind.

“We need to suit up, full kit,” the SGT ignored the Corpie and stomped down the ramp.

The rest of the flight deck was full of activity as the marines got ready to do a legit planetary assault. More importantly, they were the first boots on the ground. They needed to secure the LZ’s and start to expand them so the other brigades could get in the fight once they finished off the Windsor’s navy.

Mitch knew that intel only had the Windsor’s total ground forces between five and eight thousand strong, but he also knew if they had mechs numbers didn’t mean much.

A single mech could take out hundreds of soldiers and keep on trucking, so maybe this tank would have its work cut out for it.