by Rob Buckman
“I doubt it.”
One by one the lights came on in the park as the old lamplighter peddled his way around on an antique pedal cycle. The lights were a throwback to days gone by, more electronic than gaslight, and the lamplighter was an android. No one minded, and it lent a charm to the park. Android he may be, but he always skipped lamps where lovers sat on a park bench and kissed. Memories are made of stranger stuff.
“So why did you come? Just to say thanks?”
“Partly, and to see the man who saved my life.”
“You are welcome.” It was hard to keep the bitter tone out of his voice.
“I came to say that if you should ever want to join the Royal Navy, contact me.”
“So who are you?” Mike asked, more out of curiosity than anything.
“I’m Admiral Sanders, Chief of Naval Operations, the Royal Navy, that is.”
“And why on god’s green earth would I want to join the bloody Royal Navy?”
“Because there is a war coming.”
“War!”
“Yes.”
“With who?”
“My guess is, the Sirriens.” That didn’t sound as strange as he might have suspected. The Sirriens were making a lot of noise about trade routes and such lately. On more than one occasion, they’d attacked Free Trader ships, much to their sorrow.
“Sooner or later, Avalon is going to get drawn into the conflict, on one side or the other. In this war there no such thing as neutrality.”
“Why would Avalon join the Sirriens for god’s sake?”
“Political expediency.”
“Like hell. No way is the president going to side with that bunch of morons.”
“Can you be so sure?”
“Yes! My grandfather and great grandfather might be assholes, but they’d never put the future of Avalon alongside that of the so called Sirrien Empire.” A slight smile crossed Admiral Sanders’ face as he listened to Mike. Clearly seeing there was no love lost between them.
“Anyone who can do what you and Admiral Tregallion, did deserves a chance to do something better with their life than what they seem to be giving you around here.” Mike had to agree. Even when he turned 18 and could legally use his captains’ ticket, he didn’t want the responsibility. Until then, he'd be in a legal limbo. Admiral Sanders held his hand out. “Thank you. Thank you for having the courage to come to the rescue of so many people.”
Reluctantly, Mike shook hands. For the moment, the man’s words were enough. After that, Mike knew what he had to do. One way or another, his grandfather could legally make him take the three-day hyperspace jump back to Avalon and purgatory, by force if necessary. That didn’t leave him with many options. His remaining obligation to Avalon was his mandatory military service having already fulfilled his educational requirements. As an old hand around the docks and shipping yards on Christchurch, it was a simple matter to find a ship’s captain that didn’t ask too many questions and was willing to sign him on to work his passage. And so, less than a week after his meeting with Gordon Tregallion, he disappeared off the planet without anyone being the wiser. He didn’t even bother packing a bag as that would have tipped off anyone who might be watching him. He left the house one evening to go for a stroll a few hours before the tramp freighter was due to leave port and quickly vanished into the shadows of the trees in the park and then the warehouses along the docks, before boarding the shore boat taking the crew up to the ship. By dawn the next day on Christchurch he was beyond his grandfather’s reach. The chains he’d forged since then weren’t that long, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t avoid ending up in positions where he had to make life and death decisions about other peoples' lives.
His thoughts flicked to his service in the Royal Marines, again being thrust into a life threatening position where he had to decide the fate of other people. His first meeting with Taffy and Jenks and their fighting retreat on Borland. He smiled slightly remembering the names he’d called the crown prince before he knew who he was during that fight. That train of thought inevitably led to the Lady Anne, the Princess Royal herself, and the feel of her warm, compliant body against his. At their first meeting, they were fire and water, polar opposites, or so they’d thought, until she’d saved his life, and he hers. Even so, he never in his wildest dreams would have ever thought he would fall madly in love with a real live princess, and heir to the throne. How they were going to work out a marriage between them he didn’t know. He wouldn’t be an acceptable husband to the government, despite what her father, the King might say. There was the line of succession to consider, where they live, royal duties… It gave him a headache just thinking about it.
CHAPTER TWO:
Admiral Rawlings stood at attention as they fired the traditional salute over the graves of the fallen men. Behind his impassive face he hid a slight smile, contemplating the forces that had conspired to cause the shuttle accident that had killed the First Sea Lord and two senior fleet admirals. Accident or not, he didn’t care, only that the roadblock to naval progress had been removed. In the wake of the disaster several senior officers and a few captains had sought early retirement rather than wait until they were summarily removed or arrested. Now that their benefactors and protectors were no longer able to cover for them, an honorable retirement was better than the alternative, that of a general court-martial. Their crimes were long and varied, from misappropriation of funds and naval equipment, to willful misconduct, to cowardice, and in one case, possible homicide. Now that their shield was gone, the naval investigators could do their job and get to the truth. This development wouldn’t get all of them, just the most significant ones. It would also impel a few others to seek early retirement before the long arm of the Naval Police came knocking at their door. This would give him room to rearrange his ship captains and dump the more unreliable ones on the beach where they richly belonged. That in turn would mean the captains could then go about ridding their crews of the malcontents, shirkers, and general lay-a-bouts the fleet was infected with. Unhappily, it wouldn’t do much for the sad state the fleet was in from a physical point of view. He’d still have outdated, under-gunned ships; no match for any strong Sirrien fleet that came through the warp points.
Later that same day the King put his signature to this year’s honors list with a flourish, nodding in satisfaction and handed it to John Cromwell. John smiled as well as he looked down at the names on the list.
“Should I add …and may you rot in hell… your Majesty?” The King shook his head and wagged his finger at his private secretary.
“John, I’m shocked you’d think I’d ever consider saying something like that. Very politically incorrect.” He scolded. John Cromwell smiled and soft footed across the carpet.
“That wouldn’t stop you thinking it.” He murmured.
“I heard that.”
“Heard what, your Majesty?” John asked as he slowly closed the door behind him.
Even if, as King, he couldn’t say what John Cromwell said, he was right, he could think it. There were eight men on that list in the military and government that could now be removed from their positions of power with little fuss. He knew the Prime Minister would have a conniption fit and probably have something to say about that. Putting people on the honor list was one thing the monarchy could do that the PM didn’t control. Preparations long since made were put into effect ensuring people loyal to the UK, the crown, and his point of view could move into those vacated positions and take control. It was a drastic move, and smacked of something Charles the First might have done. It hadn’t worked out so well for him.
Charles quarreled was with the parliament of England who, at the time, sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the divine right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, much as parliament was doing now without the people's consent. Many in parliament, i
ncluding their leader, Oliver Cromwell, perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical, absolute monarchy, and so precipitated the civil war between the Royalists and the Roundheads, as Cromwell’s forces were called. By the end of 1648, Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army had consolidated its control over England and had Charles arrested, imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, tried, convicted, and executed on the trumped-up charge of high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished, and a republic called the “Commonwealth of England” was declared. Cromwell died of natural causes nine years later in 1658, and was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell. He didn’t last long and was forced from power less than a year later, whereupon Charles II took the throne, turning the short-lived commonwealth into a monarchy once again by popular demand.
Not, the King thought, that he was trying to emulate Charles the First, far from it. Like Cromwell, all evidence pointed to the Prime Minister and his cronies attempting to abolish the monarchy and recreate the Commonwealth of England with that misbegotten lardass as its first president. He remembered Mike Gray’s words, that he represented the voice of the people of England, and in good conscience, he’d be damned if he’d let the PM hand over the country, and possibly the world, to the Sirriens. It was a long running joke between himself and his loyal private secretary; John Cromwell would jokingly say, that if Richard didn’t do a good job as King, he might just do what his unlamented ancestor had done and take over and do the job himself.
Therein lay the trust that started when they were both young boys at that horrible private school his parents had sent him to. Young John Cromwell had had no idea who he was at first, but they’d quickly formed a mutual protective alliance against the older boys who’d sought to bully them. Both had stepped up more than once to take the punishment the other should have received, thereby cementing their relationship into an unbreakable bond. Even with the signing of this year’s honor list, and promoting several key members of parliament to the Lords, and getting them, and their vote out of the Commons, there were still a few places he couldn’t reach, and he hoped the Lady Anne was having better luck in that department. Lord Seaford, the Duke of Cardiff, Lord Ross, and the others of the group made a clean sweep one night. With the help of a select group of Royal Marine commandos from the King’s bodyguard they arrested the top echelon of MI5 and Naval Intelligence, plus a baker’s dozen of Sirrien spies. The King promptly placed Lord Seaford in charge of the newly combined secret service and intelligence operations, and he in turn appointed Taffy as chief of operations. The raid was so well timed that none of the people they arrested had had time to destroy critical documents and data. Seaford already had an army of loyal supporters mining those documents and data to discover who else was involved. Sadly, so far, they’d been unable to find any link between the Sirrien spy network and the PM. Even as well hidden as the raids were, it didn’t take long for the information to get back to the PM.
The Prime Minister stormed back and forth across his office at 10 Downing Street in a fury as reports of the coup came in, seeing all his carefully laid plans disappear, his power base eroded. In a calmer moment, he realized that he could still win. It all depended on the Sirrien Empire and what it did next. If they did what he expected, he would still be the first president of the Republic of Great Britain and Earth, the monarchy nothing but a fading memory. There wasn’t much he could do about Naval Intelligence, except indirectly, as their authority came from the Admiralty. With so many of the top people, his people, now gone, and lesser men, in his opinion, taking their place his control over the Admiralty had suddenly vanished. If all went well, it wouldn’t matter, now that the main phase to cripple the Royal Navy was in place. He still controlled the domestic front, and his loyal supporters out in the marches made sure they kept a tight grip on who voted for what, and whom. Between himself and his chief whip he’d managed to keep his own backbenchers in line, but there were one or two rebels that he needed to keep a close watch on. The one thing he didn’t need right now was a “Paris Revolution” taking place within his own party. Sipping his whisky and soda, he mentally stepped back to look at the broader picture. There were advantages and opportunities just waiting for someone to grab them. The once great US of A was a mere shadow of its former self. With so many of its people and government hightailing it to the stars, what remained behind was nothing more than a caretaker administration.
The Americas had split into two parts with the Confederacy States on one side occupying two star systems, and the Union of the United States on the other now occupying three smaller star systems. The balance of power was now about equal. If there were a war between them, this time the US of A wouldn’t have a strategic industrial base or manpower reserve to help them win. Not that he could see a war in their immediate future, and overall they tolerated each other very well. Overall, the Earth was ripe for the picking as so many of the once seven and a half billion people had fled to the stars or been wiped out by the plague. No one was sure, where the plague had originated, or if it was natural or manmade. Either way it had wiped out two and a half billion people, mostly in China and the Far East and had swept across India, Asia and into Europe. It had also stopped warlords and such from taking over as any large group of people, such as a military force, soon fell victim to the plague. Europe, Russia, England, and the US did manage to find a cure and stop it before it wiped out the human race, but that only spurred people that could to leave. Just then, a knock came at the door to his study.
“Come!” He answered brusquely, hating it when he was interrupted during his “planning” as he called his musings. The door opened and the Chancellor of the Exchequer walked in looking none too happy.
“Abrahams, why the glum look?” The PM suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“I have just received the dispatch case from the palace.” The Chancellor answered as he sat down on the other side of the desk from the PM.
“Whisky and soda?” The PM asked, seeing Wesley shake his head. “So what did his ‘High and Mightiness’ have to say?” In answer, Wesley threw a thin folder onto the PM’s desk.
“See for yourself.”
The PM flipped the folder open, and one glance had him almost foaming at the mouth. The Chancellor had to listen to ten straight minutes of expletives demeaning the character, family, ancestry, personal hygiene, sexual preferences of the royal family as a whole, and the King in particular.
“He vetoed every bill we sent up for his signature…” He spluttered. “He can’t do that… it’s against the law. He’s just supposed to rubber stamp the bloody things and send them back.”
“Apparently not this time,” Wesley Abrahams knew that trying to calm the PM down was impossible once he got like this.
“I’ll force him to sign them, or enact them without his damn signature.” He saw Wesley shake his head.
“There is no way, short of putting a gun to his head, that you can force the King to sign this into law, or approve the new budget.” Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a massive headache coming on. “As to enacting them without his signature, you’d have a total revolt in parliament.”
“Those bloody weasels will do what I tell them, or else.”
“And if someone calls for a vote of ‘no confidence’?”
“What!”
“You heard me. A full vote is secret, and you know how the Tory’s will vote. But how about the backbenchers of our own party? Are you sure which way they’ll vote?”
The PM had the sinking feeling that he didn’t know for sure which way the backbenchers in his own party would vote. He could scream, shout, and threaten, but other than knowing the total vote, he’d have no way of knowing exactly who’d voted for, or against him. Of course, they’d all say they voted for him, just like the bunch of back stabbers they were. If that happened and he lost the vote of no confidence, he’d be forced to hand in his resignation and call for a general election. Right now, it was a fifty-fifty split on his chance of winning
reelection, especially now that his largesse were sharply curtailed. The fickle pubic would turn on him like a rabid dog if their freebees were suddenly cut off.
“We can still enact the budget, right?”
Wesley Abrahams shook his head again. “Not without his signature. Even if we did it in secret, you know the word would get out that the budget didn’t have his stamp of approval on it. What then?”
“The bloody Tory’s would be screaming for my head on a pike.”
“We’d do the same if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“But… but we need the money from the additional tax on smoke products, fuel, and beer for our social programs. Now that he’s killed the budget cut on the armed forces, especially the Navy, we have to make up the shortfall from somewhere.”
“Yes, the three staples could always be relied on for extra income.” Wesley sighed. Both the labor and the conservative government in the past had jacked up the tax on those three items, no matter how much the general public screamed. “This time, you’ll just have to cut some of the unnecessary social programs.”
“Yes, and lose us votes in the next election if we do that.”
“True, the freeloaders on the dole are a fickle lot, aren’t they?” Wesley smirked. Unlike the PM, he had very few illusions about the loyalty of the general public. Cut off their free lunches, and they’d turn on you like a pack of starving wolves.
While the good times were rolling, everyone was making money hand over fist, even the great unwashed. As long as the government kept shoveling out the money for doing nothing, they were content to keep voting the same party back into power. As Sir Winston Churchill once observed. …If you reward non-production, you get non-production… The PM sucked down more of his whisky and… well it was just whisky now. Wesley Abrahams silently thought that the PM was a detestable man in many ways. It was a shame that he knew where so many of the bodies were buried, politically speaking that is. The only reason he’d agreed to serve in this cabinet in the first place was due to the skeletons in his own closet, not out of loyalty to the party.
