I smiled as the full moon came into view, hovering in the air as the cloud parted and casting its silver light across the city. “Well, one day, people will know who you are and what you have done for them, I have no doubt they will love you for it.”
Alice’s smile brightened as she nodded. “That would be nice.” I put my arm around my oldest friend, her head resting lazily on my shoulder as we looked out at our creation. It was strange to be able to look at the features of the landscape and remember the conversations that led to their construction, the vast majority of those conversations were held with Alice. Yet nobody knew how much they owed to her. It was then and there that I resolved to finally fix the problem that had plagued Alice and I for a quarter of a century. I was going to announce her existence, brilliance and true nature to the world.
Penny was curled up against Jonathan on the sofa’s opposite me other as the 25-year-old news broadcast started to play on one of the screens.
“I remember watching this report about an hour after I stepped off the Chariot.” I mused softly, “I must have been running on adrenaline because I don’t remember the report ever being as daunting as the times that I’ve watched it since.”
“I was two.” Penny chimed up innocently. Jonathan threw a cushion at her.
“The world watches with bated breath as tensions between the newly recognised Atlantia and the United States heated up dramatically after the president issued an order to arrest the foreign dignitary as he left the UN. After a tense stand-off, the NYPD allowed the Atlantian Speaker and his entourage to leave, an NYPD spokesman said that decision was made to – and I quote – minimise the risk to life of the officers and civilians in the area.
“The President has outraged the people of New York, however, by referring to those officers as ‘cowards and traitors’ in one of his now familiar social media outbursts. The UN and scores of world leaders have openly criticised the President for what they are calling a blatant and dangerous breach of international law, criticisms that David Turnbull has flatly refused to address or even acknowledge.
“What has really escalated tensions, however, was the President’s order for the US air force to intercept and engage the Speakers aircraft over international waters. This has been called a clear act of war by the international community and is the natural conclusion of the threats made against Atlantia and their supporters during today’s session of the UN. The viscous air battle took place approximately 30 miles out to sea, a dogfight that resulted in the loss of 12 air force jets, there is no word on the fates of their pilots as of this time.
“In the last few minutes, we have heard from the state department that the Commander in Chief had ordered diplomatic relations with all 158 countries who supported the Atlantian application for recognition – including the UK and all of Europe – be suspended immediately and the process of leaving NATO be enacted. Experts across the political spectrum have rallied against this calling the President’s actions ‘reckless’, ‘dangerous’ and ‘leaving America isolated on the world stage’. Protests by thousands of concerned citizens have broken out around the country, the largest of which due to take place here in Washington tomorrow.
“But the real news today, is that President Turnbull has ordered the immediate and complete recall and mobilization of the United States armed forces around the world; abandoning US bases abroad and recalling troops from conflict zones in Nations which voted against him… There seems little doubt that the United States is preparing war.
“In yet more troubling news, rumours of military build ups in Russia have sparked a state of emergency in Europe, with the US pulling out of NATO - and David Turnbull refusing to aid Europe militarily after his humiliating performance at the UN - the Russians may have found the opportunity they have been looking for the past 70 years to reassert their dominance over that continent. Atlantia have promised to provide Spartan soldiers to help our former allies if the Russians decide to attack, but how many they will send and how long they will take to arrive, is currently unknown.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing a terrible moment in history, the world is on the brink of another war and although Atlantia seems to be the catalyst that is making this happen, there can be little doubt that the American and Russian leaderships are the ones driving the aggression. Allies who we have defended - and who in turn have defended us – since before many of us were born are now targets of this erratic President’s wrath.
“Congress has already been called for an emergency session to counter the David Turnbull’s orders with members on both sides of the Isle deeply concerned about the direction that the President is taking this country, but – under Turnbull’s orders - the first shots of the next world war may already have been fired, those orders being issued and carried out long before congress is expected to make a decision. As I have said, we may already be on the path to war… indeed, we may already be at war.
“In the meantime, we can only watch and wait, in the hope that cooler heads prevail before this situation deteriorates into open conflict between the most powerful armies on earth.
This is Jane Porter for MSNBC news, in Washington.
Epilogue
I sighed and leant back into the leather office chair behind my desk in the Bastion, Alice sat on one of the chairs opposite me, looking at me calmly as she had been for the past hour. It had been a little over a week since our last interview, Jonathan was sat in the chair next to Alice and had finished reading the article before I had. Penny had spent much of the past week working from her office downtown. She had decided after that night to call an end to this round of interviews and work up the first part of the story before we moved on to the next, she had presented me with the draft version of her article a few hours ago and I had agreed to read it immediately.
“You seem to have left a lot out,” Jonathan spoke to break the silence. I cocked an eyebrow at him to continue. “There is no mention of the negotiations before you engaged Nassan’s forces in Africa, and Turnbull’s declaration of war seems to have been skimmed over a bit.”
Alice smiled, With the inclusion of Charlotte and myself, Jonathan was one of the few people alive that knew of Alice’s real nature and full involvement in the past 40 odd years; he was more than aware of her contribution to the creation of the nation he called home. Alice liked Jonathan, she admired his logical thinking and often joked that Jonathan’s ability to see the bigger picture surpassed even my own. Jonathan was a true statesman - being groomed to one day take on the planned position of Vice-Speaker – whereas part of me still identified as an engineer. He had picked up on the holes in the story that even Penny had missed.
“Jonathan…” I started slowly, “one day you will be in a position of real power in this administration, and it will be your job to ask the difficult questions, just as it is now. The answer to your question, at least in regard to Africa, is that there were no negotiations.” Jonathan frowned, in his experience, there were always negotiations.
I stood from behind my desk and looked out over the city; once again, the last embers of daylight were being stolen by the night. “I led this country with a degree of arrogance and self-superiority that – looking back – beggars’ belief.” I started, “In the early days, I was not the leader I am now, it took the war to teach me that. In Africa, Nassan was targeting civilians, it was a genocide, ethnic cleansing on a scale not seen since the Second Korean War. That made him the bad guy and that’s all I ever saw; I was in the right, he was in the wrong and my moral judgement was beyond reproach. It didn’t even occur to me that a huge number of his men had been forced to fight for him under pain of death and I’m not sure it would have matter if it had. They were committing atrocities and needed to be stopped. So, I slaughtered them, by the hundreds of thousands.
“Well, that can be forgiven, considering the atrocities.” Jonathan said slowly, seemingly unconvinced by his own words.
“No, Jonathan, it can’t.” I turned back toward
s my desk and its two occupants. “I didn’t just fail to negotiate a peace with the rebels – whose motivations I still don’t know – I failed to offer any means of surrender to the rebel soldiers until they started throwing down their weapons, how many deaths could have been avoided if I had offered them a way to surrender? I just decided they should die for what they were doing so I allowed them to be massacred.”
“So, you’re saying you shouldn’t have gotten involved?”
“No, the genocide needed to stop. But I acted as if my moral judgment was all that mattered, we have never had the death penalty in Atlantia and the right to a fair trial is one of our highest laws, yet the only person in the rebel army who received anything close to that was Nassan himself when I delivered him to the Hague. Everyone else – unless they laid down their arms – were slaughtered.” Jonathan was frowning, his brow furrowed in concentration and concern. “You’re right to look troubled, the defining moment of Atlantia’s existence before UN recognition was – essentially – a war crime.”
“what about Turnbull’s declaration of war?” Maria asked after it became clear that Jonathan wasn’t going to say anything more. “How did you know his actions were an act of aggression? I never understood the reasoning there.”
“I didn’t, same problem; Arrogance and self-superiority, I interpreted his actions as an act of war so – as far as the country was concerned – that’s what they were.”
“Hold on,” Jonathan spoke back up, “his actions were an act of war, the video of his meeting with Krustov, the recalling of his military, Russia’s build up on the European border, they were getting ready for war!”
“Yes, getting ready for war, they hadn’t declared it yet.”
“But you were attacked!” Jonathan exclaimed, “even that news report said that.”
“Were we? Turnbull revoked diplomatic relations - well within his rights - and ordered my arrest, which was perfectly legal considering I had committed crimes on US soil.”
“What crimes?!? Not giving him technologies that he had no right to?!?”
“No, Jonathan, the murder of five people, three of them premeditated, and that not including the thousand or so deaths at the cabin when...”
“But they were responsible for Maria’s death!”
“And how would that argument hold up in an Atlantian court?”
Jonathan’s argument was stopped in its tracks. The truth was that the Atlantian courts would have sentenced me to a whole life term for much less than the crimes I was guilty of in the US.
“Turnbull’s first real act of aggression came when he ordered his air force to attack during our flight back to Atlantia, but how was that different than when they had attacked us leaving the cabin? They are the flaws and hypocrisies that blight our early history, it is only a series of circumstantial situations that separated us from the old world that we are so quick to criticise. In Africa, Nassan was targeting civilians, that is the only detail that separates what we did from a war crime. Turnbull’s attack that started the Spartan Wars wasn’t really an attack, my actions are only excused by the fact that the US and Russia really were gearing up for war which they did eventually start.
“I can take it further, the second congressional intervention – the founding of the Atlantian Bill of rights – my ruling has gone down in Atlantian legal and constitutional history as one of the governing principles of our society when the truth of the matter is that I was in a bad mood, think about that for a second; your life is now governed – at least in part – by legal doctrine dictated by a man losing his temper. It is only excused because the ruling is widely seen as a good and fair one, the manner in which I made it has been conveniently excluded from our national memory.
“You see, the story of Atlantia can be split into lots of smaller parts, and each part seems to have a moral. The first part of our story – the one I have been telling Penny – was about power; the acquisition of it, who has it, who wants it and what people will do to obtain it or keep it. It doesn’t matter if is political power, financial power, military power, technological power or power for its own sake. The second part of the story is about honour; if power is only about ‘when’ and ‘where’ that power is used, then honour is about ‘why’ and ‘how’. It is the difference between doing things for political or military expediency and doing something because it is the right thing to do and needs to be done in the right way. As I said in my speech on Founder’s Day; Atlantia isn’t just a country, it is an ideal we must measure ourselves by, but when I measure my own actions against that ideal, they fall short in more ways than I can ever adequately describe.
“The greatest shame of my life is that the difference between having power and using it honourably was - not only was a lesson that Maria had tried to teach me years before - but one that took a war and countless deaths for me to learn.”
I turned my attention back towards the majesty playing out beyond the windows. The National Review was only a few months away, meaning that every aspect of the nation and society I had helped create would receive a personal inspection from me and a few select members of the council. I could never really bring myself to openly admit how close we came to losing it all during the war, or how much danger we were still in, at least not to anyone besides Alice and Jonathan. Penny had taken the admission of multiple murders in her stride, they hadn’t affected her, but the weekly threats against the country – and the regularity at which those threats were attempted – was a terrifying proposition and they certainly affected her. Maybe her reaction to that would be different.
I supposed we would find out when she returned for the next part of the interview.
“come on, please?” Penny pleaded with me as our meal was finished and our final interview came to an end. I know we have finished the story for the first part of my article, but the readers want an idea of what’s coming up next, like a sneak preview or something… please?”
Jonathan, Alice and I exchanged amused glances as the young reporter hopped excitedly from one foot to another.
“I think she’s gonna start humping your leg if you don’t give her something,” Jonathan laughed.
“alright fine,” I relented with a faux huff of exasperation. Here’s something coming up in the next part of the story…”
Coming up in The Age of Atlantia – Book 2
The Spartans Wars.
Harry Rivers stood on the deck of the USS Cole, a cigarette between the nicotine stained fingers of one hand while his other supported his weight as he leant against the guard rail between the aft superstructure and the flight deck of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer. He – and his ship – were part of a massive flotilla heading for the rogue, criminal nation of Atlantia; more than 30 war and support ships were spread out around him, the hulking shadow of the Nimitz class supercarrier USS Carl Vinson only a few hundred yards off port.
Niggers, Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, liberals and other undesirables; that’s who he blamed for the current state of his beloved country. Honest, god-fearing white Americans were becoming a minority race in the US and most people were either too ignorant to notice or too stupid to care – well, not him.
Harry was a navy man – as were his daddy and his daddy before that – his daddy had been on the USS Constellation during Vietnam and his grandpappy had seen action at Midway, Leyte Gulf and the battle of the Coral sea under the great Chester Nimitz, the man who name was used for the aging carrier class, one of which was blotting out large parts of the burning horizon in front of him.
He had been part of the old 7th fleet after it was recalled from the Sea of Japan before he had been dishonourably discharged for conduct unbecoming. “Pfft!” he spat to himself, “conduct unbecoming! I had been providing a public service, they should have thanked me!” Memories of that night came flooding back; a particularly fiery sermon by the clan sect’s preacher and a few beers had him itching for a fight. When that coon mother fucker had stepped towards his property lin
e, his .22 rifle – always loaded and ready – put a nice big hole in that monkey’s back.
He smiled to himself as he remembered the gurgling, laboured breathing as the nigger took his final breaths. A quick stamp on the head had finished him off. The police had called it murder, even saying that he had manipulated evidence by dragging the monkey’s disgusting body the few feet onto his land. But his lawyer – another proud clansman – had pointed out that the victim – ‘victim’ – was close enough to his land to constitute a threat and the ‘stand your ground’ law in the great state of Florida made the killing justified. He had walked, a smile on his face – not being able to pass up the opportunity to wink at the family of the dearly departed as he left the courthouse.
The Navy hadn’t been quite as understanding. The JAG corps had started digging, they uncovered his affiliation to the clan through some admittedly unwise posts on a few online message boards and they had hauled his ass out of the service. Of course, his courts martial had been chaired by another nigger so the result wasn’t much of surprise.
However, when the cowardly and treasonous 1st Fleet had disobeyed orders, mutinied and parked themselves off the Irish coast, the great and noble President David Turnbull Jr had dismissed the entire armed forces and re-recruited a new breed of military personnel; ones who were a required to swear an oath, not to the flag or the constitution, but to the President personally, they were expected to follow his orders to the end; an expectation that Harry was more than happy to fulfil. Atlantia and its terrorist sympathising, former US citizens were the new enemy, and – like the commies before them – America would show them who was the real superpower in the world.
He had taken his chances and re-enlisted, his discharge and criminal record – far from being a hinderance in the new military – had been seen as a bonus, an already trained former sailor with a desirable voting history and a track record of action against the undesirables of the Nation; Undesirables who – when President Turnbull finished the work that his esteemed daddy had started – would be more than willing to fuck off back to wherever the hell they or their ancestors came from. The country would grow to accept the true natural order; that blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Queers and Atheists were morally and spiritually inferior to the White man! Another lesson he was eager to teach the liberal Atlantians.
The Rise of the Speaker Page 46
