“The ballots from Oldtown and the rest of Northvale are coming in now, and once again, I have to say that this evening has shaken out a lot different from what the polls and the analysts predicted. Out of the three boroughs in Oldtown, the Tories take one, and the Social Liberals gain the other two. From Northvale County as a whole, the Tories take three, Labour two, Social Liberals seven, the Royalists six, and the Democrats one. That means that the current government coalition of the Royalists and the Social Liberals still just about retains majority in the Commons, but we’re still waiting for the votes from Cordelia, Raleigh, and New Toronto.”

“So far, the election has proven very different from what the analysts have predicted, the Tories securing far more seats in the Commons than they’ve previously had, Rodger.”

“Quite right, Diana, it seems like the voters have really gone with their conscience after the Harrow Disaster, and chosen to support the parties who’ve declared themselves firmly against further naval spending. As it stands, the leader of the Tories in the Commons, Charles Nowaczyk, has said he is amenable to negotiating with Labour and the Democrats in order to present a united front against the Royalists and Social Liberals. And the Homelanders have to be disappointed with the turnout today, since they’ve only added two MPs to their total, when projections had them gaining at least fifteen.”

“Indeed, and the result in the Commons has direct repercussions for the Lords, where the Tories are already plenty strong. There is a good few backbenchers who’re headed out the door of Goldbrook Palace these coming weeks, most of them replaced by either Tories or Democrats. This marks the first time the Democratic Coalition has had more than twenty peers incumbent, and they’re probably going to make their presence felt.

However, we have to stress again for the benefit of the viewers, this is just the preliminary results from parts of the homeworld; we’re still waiting on the largest cities where the votes haven’t been completely polled yet.”

“Furthermore, Diana, we have to add the caveat that the Royalists in particular will receive a pretty large boost once the votes from our servicemen- and women stationed off-world is tallied. And the votes for the national contingents of Angevin, Nova Caledonia, and the other dominions still have to polled and added as well.”

“Well, that’s an unholy alliance of convenience if I’ve ever seen one,” David Lee commented while clearing scraps of stifado out from his teeth with a toothpick. “I mean, Tories and Labour in bed together in the bloody Commons? I thought Edward getting a girlfriend was going to be the strangest thing I’d see this year, but here we are apparently.”

He received an ugly glare from Edward as he cleared the plates from their living room table, which resembled a battlefield, the four boys having absolutely devoured the beef stew Edward had spent the better part of the day preparing and cooking.

“We’re not having this conversation again,” Edward said in a tone that brokered no argument, and David threw his hands up in a mock gesture of surrender.

“Shut up, David,” Arvind hissed from the other side of the couch, “I can’t hear the news stream.”

“… And we understand that there is bit of tension at Beauharnais House where the Royalists are having their post-election vigil, Dominique?”

The image on the large HD screen that dominated the far side of their small common room (complete with a pair of oversized loudspeakers that Arvind had spent an outrageous amount of money on) shifted to the spacious and luxurious conference hall in the massive gentlemen’s club that served as the unofficial Royalists’ headquarters. The camera panned to show about three-hundred or so Royalist politicians, aides, campaign officials, and others staring with palpable apprehension at the huge viewscreen in the hall. The exit poll numbers were trickling in in real time, and every time another constituency was confirmed won or lost produced careful cheers or moans from the crowd. The journalist in the centre of the frame turned to a very debilitated-looking Linton Sciacca, his usually matriculate brown hair messy and he plastered on the most polite smile he could muster.

“Lord Howeland,” the journalist asked as a trio of Royalist constituency candidates seated at a table behind them groaned loudly as they lost their majorities, “it has been a bit a tough day for the Royalists, wouldn’t you say?” It wasn’t really a question, and Sciacca only nodded wordlessly in response.

“Do you believe, My Lord, that the voters of the kingdom have spoken out against the ambitious, and some seated opposite you in the aisle would perhaps call it break-neck, naval policy that your party has pursued for these past five years?”

“First of all, Miss Haberkorn,” Lord Howeland answered in measured tones, but it was clear he was not fond of the question, “I would like to point out that the Royalist party as a whole and everyone involved have carried out a tremendous electoral campaign, and I would like to thank everyone involved. Secondly, I may be the shadow defence secretary, but I am also a peer of the realm and a member of the House of Lords, so I might be the wrong person to ask about details of a general election for the Commons.”

“I understand, My Lord,” Dominique Haberkorn did not give one inch, “but with the Right Honourable Leslie Beckett announcing his retirement at the onset of the campaign, you are the de facto head of defence affairs in the Royalist-Social Liberal coalition. And as leader of the Naval Affairs Committee, you have been instrumental in the composition and execution of naval policy for years now. And you have a–”

Sciacca held up one hand and drew in a breath, the camera zooming in on his face a bit.

“Miss Haberkorn, it is my firm belief that the voters of the Auroran kingdom has polled in accordance with their conscience. And certainly it looks like a significant part of the people that has previously given us their trust and believed in our political platform, has been disappointed with our policies over the past five years. The leadership in the Royalist party will take this to heart and we will endeavour to re-earn the trust we previously had among the electorate. In the meantime, there are still millions of votes to be tallied here on Aurora, and the exit polls from the other worlds in the kingdom are still days out.”

Howeland looked directly into the camera.

“For now, I would like to congratulate His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition on their new-won constituencies, and thank them for these past weeks of campaigning, debates, and roundtables.”

“Weird of them to put Lord Howeland out there,” Peter Townshend commented as he popped the top off another bottle of Lysander White Brew. “I don’t know what the producers at Global Times were thinking when they sent Haberkorn, who everyone knows is firmly republican, out to interview the Royalists vigil. They could have had the good graces to send someone like Oettinger or Porter if they had to send anyone from their political front desk.”

“Yeah, well,” David commented as he sipped from his own beer bottle, “Global Times is Tory through-and-through, and that’s public knowledge. Watch the next one to interview poor Howeland be Král or some such from the Cordelia Sentinel, just to blow some smoke up his arse.”

“My my, David,” Edward said in a dead-pan voice as he slumped down in the common room couch with a half empty bottle of Nemeian Hill Gold whisky and a glass for himself and Arvind, “you almost sound jaded. I take it the Royalists weren’t your first choice on the ballot?”

David shrugged his shoulders and ran a hand through his dyed cobalt fade-cut hair.

“Let’s just say I’m not the biggest fan of their crusading attitude as the champions of the kingdom’s defence. It’s not like they’re the only ones who supports the Royal Navy.”

“Oooh,” Arvind piped up, putting down the glass of liquor Edward had just poured for him on the table, “sounds like we have a Jacobite in our midst boys, better hide away any sharp objects or he might fashion it into a guillotine and declare us counterrevolutionaries.”

“Do you actually think you’re funny, Arvind?” David said with more than a little bite to his voice. “Remember the whole point of having a democracy and a parliamentary system? Who did you vote for that allows you to take a moral high ground, then?”

Visibly stung, Arvind sniffed.

“The Dahons are proud Kingsmen, thank you very much Mr Lee. My family was welcomed here from India on Earth five generations back, and we are to this day very grateful to be given the opportunity to settle in a prosperous society, when so many other nations at the time had started to close off their immigration. And we are appreciative of the power of the monarch as the defender of the rights of the Commons as a counterweight to the nobility.”

He took a sip of whisky before continuing.

“It’s not about moral high ground, David, it’s about acknowledging the greater politics at work beyond just the promises made from one election to the other; for me and my family it’s about political and social principle.”

The common room in their shared apartment fell silent, the only sounds for a while being the analysts on the news stream talking about the most recent exit poll numbers.

“Well, if we’re sharing,” Peter said after a moment, “I voted for Labour.”

Never the most comfortable with serious discussions or social tension, Arvind leapt at the chance to be his usual quippy self. With a widening grin on his face he grabbed the melodica Peter and Edward had bought him for his birthday as a joke gift that sat on one of their bookshelves, and started to play The Internationale. David and Edward couldn’t help but laugh as Peter groaned and drank more beer.

“I retract my earlier statement, Mr Lee,” Arvind said after a few bars, “this one is the socialist revolutionary in our midst.”

“Look, I’m as worried as the next one about the Alliance marching into neutral space like the Corridor or the Lorelei Pocket and simply annex the systems there now that everything points to the hawks in the Liberal Progressive winning the Chamber and the House in a few months. God knows that wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done that, President Uriel Konstantin tried that shit less than sixty years ago, but I don’t believe that countering their aggressive foreign policy with a progressively larger military is the way to go. The Elysians aren’t morons, they know the Royal Union is economically superior to the Alliance, especially since we aren’t a unitary currency commercial sphere, and we have a wider and geographically closer network of trade than they do. We can hurt them much worse financially than militarily, and we should be using that as diplomatic leverage rather than relying on having the biggest stick possible.”

“You forget,” Arvind countered, now back into serious mode, “that the Royal Union relies on the Auroran navy to protect them, right? To the point where most of the other polities don’t have interstellar capable naval defence forces of their own, and the two with the largest fleets, Dionysia and Corinth, fucking hate each other. Driving a wedge between our so-called close allies wouldn’t be very hard at all.”

“Not to mention,” David pitched in, “the Alliance is much more of an industrial juggernaut, and their overall population is much larger than our own. I mean, talking about diplomatic solutions to a cold war that has been going on for close to a century is wishful thinking at best, and downright dangerously naïve at worst.”

“Dangerously naïve? To wish for a peaceful solution instead of this rampant militarisation of space? To wish for a world where accidents like the Harrow Disaster doesn’t happen, because we’re not desperate for more warships is being naïve?”

“Frankly, yes,” Arvind answered, “I think it is naïve to believe that because one side is willing to put down the weapons that the other side will automatically do the same. Especially when that side has in the past proven to have little to no qualms about claiming neutral systems as within their ‘natural sphere of influence’ and prop up their own regimes there, regimes that are lapdogs to the political oligarchy on Elysium.”

Edward rose from the couch, his head starting to ache. It had been a long day, he was naturally averse to conflicts and arguments, and he’d frankly had about enough of political debates to last him for a long time by watching streams and participating in another one in his own living room was too much.

“I’m going to put out the trash,” he said and exited to the kitchen without waiting for a response. Fresh air might do him good.

Grabbing the huge rubbish bags lazily accumulated over a week of none of them wanting to take responsibility, Edward walked down two flights of stairs that led into the small backyard of the apartment block. It wasn’t anything particular that separated Bellweather Street 28 from any of the other blocks around; they were all red-bricked Neo-Georgian complexes about ten stories high, with white arched windows and doors. The fenced backyards all had storage and garden sheds, and for the most part some plant beds and vegetable allotments, as well as garbage bins that drones emptied every two weeks.

He slung the bags into said bins, slammed them shut a bit harder than intended, sheepishly listening to the sound carrying a bit before sighing loudly. Casting an anxious look over his shoulder to confirm he was indeed alone, he fished out a small packet from his back pocket. Gingerly, he put a cigarette to his mouth and twisted it to trigger the self-lighter. Edward wasn’t ready to admit to his friends that he had picked up such a self-destructive habit.

He had been ecstatic when Professor Chantelle Winton had called him the day after the Year End Performance and told him that several of the observing professors had been deeply impressed with his playing, and that his A on the semester’s module had been confirmed with Honours. That night, he and the others had gone to the Humble Boatsman to celebrate, and everything had seemed fine up until the third pint had been placed in front of him. Feeling his chest tighten, Edward had hastened to the washroom and locked himself into a cubicle, and his panic levels had shot through the roof as the tightening had expanded from his chest and into his arms and hands. The muscles in his fingers had snapped shut, closing his hands against his will as he rode rolling waves of anxiety and panic. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before he regained control, and he managed to re-join the others, nervously blaming his absence on yesterday’s dinner.

But he knew better than that. Edward Heatherland knew that it was the result of months of stress, of incessantly hard work, hours upon hours every day at the piano, the crushing sense of responsibility he owed his parents for letting him pursue music off-world instead of going to a university on Amaranth. And because of what Artemisia had said to him after the end of the performance that evening.

“You know it would never work between the two of you, right? That is, even if her feelings would happen to be reciprocal.”

She didn’t need to be specific as to whom she was referring to, Edward was perfectly aware. He had skipped the pub-crawl with the rest of the orchestra that night. Instead, he had made a short stop at a drone-operated cornerstore, gone straight home to the apartment, locked himself in his room and drank a whole bottle of whisky before passing out on his bed, salty tears caking the corner of his eyes and his cheeks.

The sound of cheering from an open window in one of the other apartment blocks brought Edward back to the present. With one last pull on his cigarette, he scrunched it against the garbage bin and put it back into the packet; he didn’t dare to throw them away where any of his flatmates could find them. Hopefully they were done discussing politics by now. He turned to walk back up the stairs to the apartment. Maybe he could get a few hours of practice in on the piano in his room before he had to go to sleep…

The Marquess Sélincourt flung off his black uniform ulsterette caped coat as he stepped into the inner office in Admiralty House, a woman from the Naval Steward’s Division whisking it away discretely, making sure she didn’t meet his gaze. Sélincourt was perfectly aware that his status as a prestigious peer of the realm and an admiral of renown was enough to make people nervous around him. Still, the haste with which she retreated was a bit unusual…

“Thank you, Ensign” he said as the junior officer hurried out the door back to the outer office, closing the door quickly behind her. He turned his attention to the only other person in the room, their black-and-gold Day Dress uniforms having the same number of golden bars, but Alistair lacked the diamond-studded crowned anchor with two swords that the man by the window wore on his collar.

“I appreciate you taking your time to come at such short notice,” Sir Hugh Donegal said, turning from the window to face his visitor.

“Oh nothing of it,” Alistair replied, taking off his peaked cap and shaking it a bit to remove excess water, “only wish the weather could have been better. The meteorological report said the rains wouldn’t start before the afternoon, and nothing quite like this much.”

The First Lord Admiral smiled politely, and walked over to his palatial blood-oak office desk and pressed the intercom button next to his computer.

“Commander Stanton, please make sure we’re not disturbed for the next twenty minutes or so,” he asked the Chief of the First Lord Admiral’s Office, who was the head of his secretariat, his outer office, and the one who monitored his communications.

“Of course, sir,” was the immediate reply, “I’ll tell anyone who comes a-calling you’re having an extended working lunch.”

“Excellent, Stanton, thank you.”

Donegal turned back to Alistair, who had stopped by one of the bookshelves in the large office to admire the selection on display. The office itself was a marked upgrade on even the usually magnificent Admiralty House interior design. Blood-oak furniture, argentwood flooring, and tasteful linen cream curtains gave the room an earthy atmosphere, but didn’t drown out any of the natural light that came through the large windows that faced Admiralty’s inner courtyard. Well, with the heavy rain, it was a bit subdued now, but gilded chandeliers lit the relatively large room well enough. Hand-woven carpets covered most of the argentwood floor, and an old mechanical clock stood in one corner, ticking melodically away. Traditional oil paintings decorated the walls, and only the bookshelves, viewscreens, and the conference table with an inlaid 3D holoprojector betrayed it as a workspace rather than a noble’s drawing room.

“Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, huh,” Alistair commented as he withdrew the hardcover book from a shelf. “A bit outdated in this day and age, wouldn’t you say, sir? If I recall correctly, his entire thesis is based on secondary sources and from the opportune timing in the advancement of naval technology at the close of the 19th century.”

Donegal walked over to his cart of refreshments and produced two crystal snifters.

“A drink, Lord Alistair?” he asked over his shoulder as he poured mahogany-coloured liquid from a bubble carafe in one of the glasses.

“A bit early for me, I’m afraid,” the aristocrat replied while skimming through the book in his hands. “I’m joining Lady Adeline for dinner later, and we both know New Acre is a very generous host, and her wine cellar is of a most impressive size.”

“I really think you could need a drink, Alistair.” Sir Hugh’s voice made Alistair turn his head as warning bells went off in the back of his mind, and he put the book back on the shelf.

“Very well, if you insist,” he replied, and Hugh walked over and handed him a glass somewhat more filled than was customary.

Alistair sniffed while swirling the glass before taking a sip.

“Ah, a New Ayrshire single malt,” he said appreciatively after a moment, “not exactly my favourite, I’m more of a Thunder Bay or Luin brewery man myself, but it certainly isn’t offensive on the tongue, far from it.”

Donegal nodded and smiled, seemingly pleased and impressed by Alistair’s palate.

“In regards to Mahan, Lord Alistair,” he said after a sip of his own, “I think his work has aged rather well, much like this whisky. Yes, he wrote in the context of the late 19th century, but I am of the humble opinion that many of more succinctly made points are more applicable in our interstellar setting. Take for instance the importance of commerce protection, and the need for a major power to not only maintain but also safeguard a large merchant marine in order to retain economic flexibility.”

“I can agree with that, certainly,” Sélincourt replied, “the 19th century was the age of the railroad, and even with those contraptions carrying trade and goods across the land borders of Earth, control of commercial sea lanes was paramount. Even more so in the 29th century; there are no other ways to export or import than by interstellar travel.”

“Quite, and commerce protection is only feasible if a power has access to naval bases from which to project power through deploying hulls abroad from its own home systems. Even with the dominion worlds of the Kingdom, we would still only be able to cover less than half the Royal Union’s sphere of economic influence; not to mention trading routes in neutral space.”

“So, granted Mahan’s first point is still valid, what about his second major tenet about naval blockades being the supreme deciding factor in war? That is by modern standards demonstrably false.”

He took another appreciative sip, and started to pace the room slowly while Donegal sat down in an upholstered chair by one of the windows.

“You can destroy all orbital infrastructure of a planet,” Alistair continued, “but the planet itself would in all likelihood be self-sufficient for years to come. Unless we’re talking about some recently colonised backwater, any planetary industry would be mostly able to sustain its population for the foreseeable future, and the only planet in human space reliant on import of foodstuffs to feed its own populace is Earth. And since using even the smallest shipboard weaponry on ground targets is going to cause such horrific kinetic energy upon impact as to be worse than any so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ of old, orbital bombardment to force compliance is completely out of the question. Well, out of the question unless you want to immediately become the worst genocidal maniac history has ever seen.”

“I’ll concede you that one,” Donegal said while stroking his beard thoughtfully, “blockades have gone the way of the dodo since the scale of polities has dramatically increased from being limited to nation states on a planetary surface, to nation states being the planetary surface. But his third point is perhaps the most important; decisive battles are what dominate modern naval doctrine, and the core to ensure victory in decisive engagements is the ship of the line.”

Alistair pursed his lips for a moment while formulating his arguments.

“In principle I agree with you, sir, but even the powerful battleships and battlecruisers of the Royal Navy are fragile beasts when left on their own. Yes, a modern battleship is the pinnacle of military technology and is able to completely lay waste to anything smaller than itself in mere moments if the combatants are engaging one-on-one. But they are slow, vulnerable despite their size and heavy armour, their guns are large and ungainly when tracking smaller vessels, and they lack the sensory capabilities to keep complete watch over the battlespace, especially when munitions start flying and electronic warfare suites begins singing their siren songs. A battle fleet is completely at the mercy of a force of smaller enemy vessels if undefended by escorts of their own… You know this, of course, sir, I hope you don’t feel like I’m belittling you right now.”

Donegal waved an arm in a dismissive gesture.

“Quite far from it, Lord Alistair, I’m more impressed with your zeal than anything else. I have read all those articles you posted in the Royal Journal of Naval Studies and the United Services Journal, and while I imagine you’re the one most exasperated by the previous Admiralty administration’s pig-headed decision to subvert funding from escort class ship construction and R&D, I was very angry about it as well.”

The First Lord Admiral chuckled, the tone of which sounded almost morose to Alistair’s ears.

“I didn’t plan this at all, but somehow this actually segues into what I invited you up here to discuss, Alistair.”

He finished the rest of his glass in one gulp, rose from the chair and put the empty snifter on the cart, before turning back to the nonplussed admiral.

“I am sending you to Amaranth, Lord Sélincourt.”

“Amaranth? I’m not quite sure I follow…”

It took Alistair’s brain a few moments to connect the dots.

“You’re giving me Reserve.”

His voice was drained of all emotion and he clutched the glass tightly, the tensing muscles hidden by his white gloves. Donegal held up a hand in an arresting motion.

“Before you say anything else, let me explain a few things…”

“You’re giving me fucking Mothball Fleet?” Irritation bubbled up to the surface and not even his social skills compiled after many decades of hobnobbing with the nobility could stop the outburst in time.

“You’re sending me to command the Reserve Fleet, the motley collection of ships too old or too useless to be, in good conscience, deployed to active service. The formation of skeleton manned hulls laid up in ordinary that are simply counting the days until they’re sent to the breaker’s yard. Because I can’t think of any other command on Amaranth senior enough for a full Admiral of the Red, other than that particular station.”

“If you’d just let me explain,” Donegal answered patiently, “you’d also remember the fact that Reserve Fleet is also the station where newly launched hulls are sent to shake down and train their new crews before they are fully commissioned into the Navy. Alistair, I know this seems like a slap in the face on the surface, but just hear me out.”

He refilled his glass and sat behind his desk chair, and motioned for Alistair to sit down in one of the chairs opposite. After hesitating for a bit, the aristocrat did, albeit after a slight detour to the refreshment cart to top up his glass (near full to the brim this time).

“The election last week did not go very well for the Royalists and the Social Liberals, I don’t think you need to be told, but let’s be thorough and cover all the bases here. Yes, they still have a majority in the Commons, but it is a tenuous one of barely fifty-three per cent, and given the divergence between the wings of the Social Liberals on several key issues, they’re reliant on support from the Homelanders, and they were more or less sunk in the Commons, losing nine MPs instead of gaining the predicted fifteen. And one of those key issues is defence spending, in particular the naval budget. Many Social Liberals are leaning towards the Tory-line of reducing naval expenditure in order to both free up funds for other budget posts, and give the Alliance less of an incentive to expand their own navy. Which is why every naval bill for the next five years is going to be a political war of attrition in both Houses, and even if Koyanagi isn’t in charge of Admiralty any more, we still might be starved of the ships we would need five years down the line.”

After pausing for a brief moment for another sip, while also casting a quick glance at his wristwatch, he continued.

“All of that to say that the current wave of ships under construction might be the biggest and most capable that we might see for the next half decade. Take into consideration that the Tories, Labour, and to a certain extent, the Democratic Coalition will do their utmost to slash naval spending, especially on large hulls. Ironically, we may during the coming years actually get approval for those cruisers and destroyers that we desperately need, but at the cost of almost complete stoppage of ship of the line construction.

And that is why I need you in command of Reserve Fleet. Reserve is where we send our ships to shake down, but it is also our primary training formation; no other fleet sized station in the Royal Navy conducts as many wargames as Reserve. You will have mandate to carry out as many exercises as you want, and will be given quite free reins as to where within Kingdom space you choose to carry these out. Granted, you will be short of crew and staff for the mothballed ships, and the men and women of the newly launched Vanguards, Courageous and Fearless ships will be for the most part inexperienced. But that is why you, Alistair, are the only one among my admirals up to the task. I can’t send New Acre or Harper-Rowland, for while they’re both excellent battlespace tacticians, they’re too focused on the here and now. Goldspyre is primarily a small-scale formation expert, not adept at handling large fleets. Lady Suncrest is the only other officer senior enough that I would consider, but we need one of you two in command of Home Fleet, and she has only been in the seat for eight months. Lord Sélincourt, you have the experience, the expertise, the reputation, and the strategic capability to pull this off.”

“What do you mean when you say, ‘pull this off’? Am I to act as a glorified drill sergeant for the next five years?”

“Not the way I would have put it, but basically yes. What I, what the Royal Navy, needs you to do, is to ensure that the new wave of ships of the line are manned by the best trained possible crew, who have been through the most imaginative and impossible drills you can think of. And that the crews of the mothball fleet are brought up to the same level of readiness. God knows we’re having huge problems manning all our ships, and I’m afraid that if the interstellar political situation sharpens, we will be forced to make some unfortunate decisions regarding the training and education of our officers and enlisted. The Royal Navy prides itself on having the best trained and best motivated men and women in the galaxy. Your station will be our insurance that remains the case. I will make sure Dame Vanessa’s department regularly rotates the crews of the ships laid up in ordinary, so you’re not stuck with the same people. Think of Reserve under your command as an extension of King William Academy, emphasising on practical demonstration rather than theoretical education.”

Alistair said nothing for a few moments, simply tapping the top of the First Lord Admiral’s desk with a finger while periodically sipping his drink. The only other sounds were the click-clack of the mechanical clock and the faint hum of activity in the outer office.

“I can see why you were chosen to become First Lord Admiral, sir,” Sélincourt said at length, “you can certainly spin a yarn. I am almost ashamed to admit how much sense this all makes, despite the fact that I hate everything about it from a personal perspective. Can I at least have some time to think about this?”

Donegal sighed and shook his head.

“I’m afraid not, and I truly am sorry that you haven’t been informed about this sooner, but this was a contingency cooked up by me and Adrienne on the off-chance that the pro-Navy parties lost the election. And I can appreciate that this sounds a bit in a grey area when it comes to the apolitical stance of the Royal Navy, but we have to be grown-ups and acknowledge the facts. Incidents like discovering the Elysian stealth drone network, increasingly worrying reports about Alliance Space Navy activity in the Lorelei de-militarised zone, and even the surge in warship construction in the Myndowen Empire and the Berenice Star Federation is something that must factor into our decision-making. And the current composition of Parliament following these generals, is forcing our hand.”

Alistair nodded, finished his drink in one swig, and rose from his chair. Correcting his peaked cap, he snapped to attention.

“Very well, sir, I will make due preparations in anticipation of receiving my official posting orders. If there was nothing else?”

First Lord Admiral Sir Hugh Donegal rose as well and returned the salute, before opening one of his desk drawers and withdrawing a deep gilded wooden box.

“Only this, Lord Sélincourt,” he said and handed him the box, “congratulations on promotion to Admiral of the White.”

Alistair wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or grimace as he heard the words and he opened the box to find a neatly folded Royal Navy ensign, the red St. George cross over a field of white with the crowned anchor with seven stars in the top left corner. And on top of the flag, almost smirking insultingly at him, was the large golden brooch of a Grand Knight Commander of the Order of St. Andrew.