The King's War

by Andrew Stanek

  Everything that had happened in the past five years flashed in front of Will’s eyes like his body expected his life was at stake.

  “I’m Will. My airplane was called the Dreamer. I built it myself. I - uh - I’m a mechanic. I live in a village in the canton.” All other words seemed to have failed him. He couldn’t explain the death of his friends or the famine or the King’s Guard shelling his house.

  “Why did you fly towards my carrier?” the captain demanded. “Are you a DPRV agent? Did you have a navigational problem? Were you trying to defect? My men have been going through the wreckage of your so-called ‘plane’ and they say there are signs it was hit by AA fire.”

  “DPRV?” Will repeated, confusedly.

  The man from outside poked his head in.

  “Captain, please,” he said. “This man is injured and confused. Maybe concussed. Could you leave his questioning to me?”

  The captain turned and grumbled something in a low voice that Will could not make out.

  “Admiral’s orders,” the other man said.

  “Fine,” the captain snapped. “You take care of him.”

  He turned and left. His guards wordlessly followed him. The first man also withdrew. Medical personnel arrived to check Will, carrying kits like Martin’s but better stocked. They shined a little flashlight in Will’s eyes and checked him for concussion. When they were satisfied that he wasn’t disoriented, they treated his various scrapes and bruises with disinfectant, and then left.

  A minute later, the second man entered the room and sat down at the table.

  “I’m sorry about that earlier interruption,” he said jauntily. “I’m 1st Lt. Gunther Norris, ship’s senior intelligence officer.” As he talked he had placed a little device with lights on it on the table and pressed a button. It whirred to life.

  Will, however, was not listening to what Lt. Norris said, nor paying any attention to the little device on the table. Instead he was staring at the man’s arm. Lt. Norris’ arm looked like an arm, but it wasn’t flesh and blood. Rather, it was glinting aluminum and chrome, with large rivets and screws for joints and hints of wire between the gaps in the plating. Parts of it were painted an unnatural silver color, or else black or tan. The tips of the artificial fingers were tapping the table.

  “Oh, my arm,” he said, following Will’s gaze. “This is a prosthetic. I lost my real left arm in an IED attack - roadside bombing - years ago.” He held out the bionic appendage for Will to look at. The wrist turned over and the fingers wiggled.

  Will’s mind flickered back to Old Pete and his stump.

  “How does it work?” Will asked, gaping at it.

  “Yeah, I guess you’ve never seen something like this before. They wired the motor controllers to the nerve endings in my shoulder so I can move it like I’d move a regular arm. In previous models, they had to wire the prosthesis to the muscles instead and it was very clumsy. I know it doesn’t look much like a real arm - I get a lot of looks - but it works a lot better than anything I’ve had previously. It’s top of the line. Absolutely cutting edge. Sorry to say it but, you know, even in the military most people who need these don’t have them yet. They have to make do with older models or nothing at all. Still, isn’t modern technology amazing?”

  Will still stared at it. He did not understand what was happening. He thought of Martin, standing in his dusty surgery, proudly patting the rusty x-ray machine he’d never used. Martin had said the same thing. “It uses x-rays to take pictures of your bones. Isn’t modern technology amazing?”

  Lt. Norris dug into his pocket, drawing out Will’s residency papers and slapped them on the table. Then he clasped his hands together, his bionic fingers interlocking with his real ones.

  “I think it is important that we answer the captain’s questions first. According to these papers, your name is William Gurnsley, resident of the Tenth Canton. You said you were a mechanic. Is that correct?”

  Will nodded mutely.

  “So you are a civilian then?”

  “I’m not one of the King’s men.”

  “King? What King? Are you a DPRV agent?”

  “DPRV?” Will repeated.

  “The Democratic People’s Republic of Vermark.”

  “What do you mean? I’m from Vermark but I’ve never heard of that.”

  Norris paused - he looked as confused as Will felt. “DPRV is the name of your country. West Vermark is a Democratic People’s Republic. It’s - not actually democratic, per se, but that is a prefix used by regimes and nations that have adopted far left socialist ideologies and communism.”

  Will frowned.

  “What’s Communism?”

  Chapter 21

  Lt. Norris and Will stared at each other.

  “Communism,” Lt. Norris said slowly. “It’s the collectivist philosophy that all men are absolutely equal and should strive towards a socialist society of workers motivated by the common good rather than personal betterment. Under communism, there is no personal property, only common property shared by everyone.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Will said plainly. “It sounds like something Martin would have known about. But my country doesn’t believe in anything like that. We have a King. King Edward.”

  “Maybe we should start with a simpler question. How is it that you came to be here - on this ship?”

  And Will started to answer him. He told Norris everything. Will talked about his burning house, hit by the shells of the royal artillery, how he’d said goodbye to his friends as he left for the capital, the leaflets, the famine, the expedition to the mountains, the prison camp, the execution, the soldiers who begged for food, the sacks of grain with the Black Force logo beneath the army patch, the homeless boy, the dream of building an airplane, the naval officer who chewed tobacco and ordered his first airplane destroyed, how Nate had died on Martin’s table, how Martin had spoken out and disappeared too, the empty city the scrawny soldier had told him about, the Dreamer, the flight, the antiaircraft fire, and at long last how he had come to crash into the flight deck of the carrier.

  Norris listened to all this respectfully. At the end of it, he sighed.

  “Where to begin?” he asked, frowning. “We’d better start with what you call the King’s War. About a hundred years ago, back when we still used telegraphs and rotary phones and prop airplanes and all the other things you’ve described, Vermark was split between communist and capitalist factions under the influence of the superpowers. The communists wanted the collectivist society that I have described; the capitalists wanted a market economy - where people buy and sell things at market,” he added, seeing the look of confusion on Will’s face. “These two countries remained divided for a time, fighting each other occasionally, until their differences exploded into a full blown war about seventy years ago. This is what you call The King’s War. The man who you say has no arm, like me, is presumably an elderly veteran of this phase in the fighting. Keep in mind that it broke out when the country had already been under communism for a long time. The man you call King James Edward - son of King James, son of King Samuel - is known to the rest of the world as James Edward King, President of the DPRV, general secretary of the communist party of Vermark, Captain-General of the DPRV Central Military Commission, and so on. He is a direct male line descendant of all the other King-family communist dictators who have ever ruled in Vermark. Your country is a hereditary dictatorship, but - the idea that it is a monarchy - is new to me,” Norris continued. “The War you call the King’s War, the Vermark War everywhere else, started and ended under the rule of Samuel King and halted with a ceasefire about sixty-five years ago. There was never a formal peace treaty, but the war is over, and has been for a long time. I think your friend Martin got a piece of the truth when he said that James Edward King is using the ‘King’s War’ as a mechanism to control his people. By making them fear the constant threat of invasion, he can compel them to obey. But no invasion is coming.”

  “But the
fighting,” Will protested.

  “The fighting was real,” Norris answered smoothly. “Twenty to thirty times a year - that is, about once every two weeks, give or take, the DPRV provokes the ROV - they’re the Republic of Vermark - guards across the ceasefire line’s demilitarized zone, which is drawn through the forest you could see from your village. They conduct an artillery drill or fire machine guns across the demilitarized zone, which sometimes prompts clashes. Kidnappings across the border used to be common... gunfire is more frequent now. The leaflets you found were in fact ROV propaganda, just like the army told you it was. ROV activists launch them across the border when the wind is favorable to try to convince people to defect or rebel against the DPRV. They attach money to them so people will pick them up. The DPRV People’s Army usually responds with gunfire, but even if there are no leaflets, there do something threatening every few weeks. More recently, they’ve started taking naval actions. Several months ago, a submarine from the DPRV People’s Navy targeted and sank the ROV corvette Marianas, killing all 54 sailors aboard. This was the ‘battleship’ reported sunk in your media. Since then, most of our clashes have been at sea rather than at land. That’s why our carrier battlegroup has been deployed to these waters. Your friend Nate’s gunboat engagement was widely reported in our news. I’m sorry that he died. There was one casualty on our side.”

  “But who are you?” Will said, curiously. “Are you rebels?”

  “No. The people you call rebels are the Republic of Vermark - ROV. At the time your nation split, a hundred years ago, the DPRV and the ROV were both dictatorships separated by ideology. That’s now changed. The ROV has become a stable democracy and one of the richest and most advanced nations in the world. From what you’ve told me about your life in the DPRV, your nation is stuck one hundred years in the past, and is still a dictatorship. As for us - we’re the Blue Force - what you call ‘the Black Force,’ apparently - an international task force that was dispatched to Vermark during the War to support the ROV against the communists. We’ve been here ever since. It sounds like your people, in forgetting what the war was fought over, have also forgotten the difference between the ‘rebels’ and the ‘Black Force.’”

  “Why did other countries send people to fight us?”

  Norris gave a wry smile. “We regard communism as our enemy - or used to. Communism is mostly dead now. The bloc collapsed.”

  Will shook his head. “You said that communism was about everyone being equal.”

  “It is.”

  “I don’t think anyone back home knew anything about that. Are you sure that King Edward - or Edward King - really has something to do with communism?”

  “Quite sure,” Norris said, still smiling a little sardonically. “The woman you call Ms. Diane was probably the village political officer, or possibly the head - or wife of the head, if he couldn’t be asked - of the local party cadre. Either way, she was responsible for enforcing the party’s will on the village. You’ve described a ‘village farm,’ which is a communal farm with communal supplies, a staple of communism. Your ‘town meetings’ - where your whole village received diktats from the central leadership - is characteristic of some forms of communism, designed to enable mass mobilization. The rations, the common tools, the control on movement and education... I can see quite clearly that the mechanisms of the communist party are still in place everywhere, but all the ideology has gone. It’s been forgotten. This idea of a new monarchy under the communist party has replaced it.”

  “It’s hard to believe,” Will said, shaking his head. “We had markets.”

  “The markets were illegal though, as you said. They were sustained through a system of bribes and the military turning a blind eye.” Norris sighed. “Now... we have to confront the really central question. Why haven’t you heard any of this before?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Happily, I do. James King was the father of current dictator James Edward King - who goes by Edward to distinguish himself from his father. James King began to pursue a so-called ‘military first’ policy several decades ago. The ideological foundations of the country had been in decline since the collapse of the communist bloc anyway, and James King officially prioritized military pragmatism and absolute state control over belief in communism. Many communists were actively purged by the military in an effort to reduce ideological control over the system. Some of them may have ended up in the mountain prison you saw... I’m sure you’ve already gathered that the ‘exiled’ people were in fact sent to prison camps. In response to the growing gap between his country and the ROV - which James King believed was an existential threat - he also attempted to develop nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are extremely powerful weapons,” he added, seeing Will’s look of confusion. “The rocket tests you witnessed were elements of the DPRV nuclear program. In response, the rest of the world placed the DPRV under embargo. No one trades with West Vermark any more. The country was always isolated, but since free thought is discouraged in the DPRV, far more than it ever was anywhere else in the Communist bloc, and since the DPRV was dependent on imported technical expertise, the nation has not advanced technologically. It’s still stuck in the past. From your testimony, it sounds like things outside the capital are just like they were a hundred years ago with few changes.”

  “Even in the capital, I never saw things like you have here,” Will said, glancing apprehensively at Lt. Norris’ bionic arm. “They’re like miracles.”

  “No, they’re just more advanced technology.”

  “But I - I would look at gasoline additives, like tetraethyl lead, and think how advanced our technology was. You have things like those planes... and this ship...”

  “Oh, and we don’t use lead additives in gasoline to prevent knocking anymore,” Norris continued smoothly. “The lead gets burned and settles in the soil and the drinking water. Drinking lead damages people’s brains, particularly those of children. But to get back to what I was saying... While I don’t know for sure, I can guess that international isolation and a lack of trade meant that no ideas flowed across the border either. In fact, even before the embargo, the DPRV deliberately curtailed trade with other countries to prevent outside news from flowing into the country. James King went to very great lengths to secure the border, and as a result we no longer get many defectors. It sounds like Edward King has continued these policies. It’s true that the waters off the coast are mined, but more likely than not, fishing has been disallowed for political rather than safety reasons. Defections by boat used to be common. The land border with the ROV is heavily secured. Almost no one comes by land. So the outside was sealed off, and the King dynasty controlled everything on the inside. They struck communism from the curriculum and made themselves Kings in more than just name. No one would stop them. And to maintain their control or support for their government, they allocated most resources to the military and said that an attack could be coming at any moment.”

  “What about the famine?” Will asked.

  “Your country suffers from periodic famines due to cyclic patterns of drought, which are getting more and more common over time. This is largely due to government policy and isolation rather than the lack of rain. Believe it or not, the idea that you’re allowed to keep a third of your grain - and you only have to give two-thirds to the government - is new. In the past, the farmers from your village and canton would have had to give all of their grain to the state and depend on the ration system to give them enough to eat. The two-thirds rule is probably part of agrarian reform designed to make the state more resilient to drought. It sounds like it has worked to some extent, though you could vouch for it better than I could.”

  “You’d have to ask Harry,” Will said.

  “And I probably will when I speak to him. But until then, I can only say that I know the lack of animals in your village was probably part of agrarian reform. The elimination of livestock may reduce the effects of drought, since livestock require more water - and indeed
more land - per unit calorie to cultivate. Nevertheless, your country has always suffered from periodic droughts that result in periodic famines. During the last famine, hundreds of thousands of people died. The state ration system broke down and the markets sprang up as a way for people to barter for food. The phenomenon of homelessness - homeless boys and girls, like your friend Brandon - also probably came into existence around the same time. Frankly I am a bit surprised to hear that the state was as concerned about the homeless children as it was. That is likely a remnant of socialist thinking.”

  “But why was your flag on our food rations?” Will asked.

  Lt. Norris sighed again, as though this was a particularly difficult question, but his answer was very straightforward.

  “We send you food,” he said. “The international community doesn’t believe that your population should have to starve to death because of the incompetence and greed of its leaders, so we sent you food. Your army patched its own logo over ours and distributed the sacks, which shored up support for the party.” He paused. “But there is more to it than this. International organizations sent enough food for everyone in your country, but most of it doesn’t end up in the hands of the people. Whether it’s due to the endemic corruption you’ve extensively described or the military prioritizing itself over the public at large, sufficient food isn’t distributed via the ration system.”

  “It probably goes to the capital,” Will said, thinking back to his own time in the capital. There had been stores, even restaurants, everywhere. Between the towering metal peaks of the skyscrapers and the great military parades, he doubted the idea of famine had ever even occurred to anyone there.

  “That is possible. But regardless, we send food but apparently it’s not enough to feed West Vermark even though the amounts add up on paper. Also, this issue is more political than I’ve made it out to be. Aid to West Vermark is often cut after a major military provocation and during this famine, aid levels were very low. The winter before last, when you say your village was on the brink of starving, the DPRV conducted another strategic missile test. These tests alarm the world, because the rockets they test-fire can carry nuclear warheads. We opened emergency negotiations and the DPRV agreed to cease its rocket tests in exchange for additional food aid, which we sent. You got your food. They haven’t conducted another rocket test since.”