Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

  Chapter 9: The Queen’s Briefing

  “Your majesty,” Lord James the chief of Trenaport Mounted Patrol, “based on interrogations by the Trena Mounted Patrol, and Trenaport Emergency Mental Health Assessment the woman, whose real name is, Peace Homage, has been extensively programmed to be a tool of the Church of the One God. At this point she is not responsible for any of her actions and cannot be prosecuted. The best we can do at this point is to get her off world to a psychiatric facility. The Empire has a good one on Mars that handles just this type of problem.”

  “Lord James,” The Queen looked to the older man, “Are you telling me that the Theocracy did this? That they tried to kill me?”

  “Yes majesty, I am,” The police chief replied.

  The young monarch was quiet. Pondering what the police chief was saying. Never, in her young life had she ever been the target of a real assassination attempt. For most of her young life the Queen had never really believed that she was the target of assassins. She always thought that Mac and his people over reacted. That it was just the way they controlled her. Now she knew the awful truth, someone wanted her dead. Someone she didn’t know wanted her dead, simply because she was the Queen. “So what are my options?”

  “Not very many your majesty,” Wilson replied, “We definitely are not going to war over this. Even if we had the muscle to do it, now is not the time. We need to focus our energies on getting our people off world that should be our number one focus. We can order the church closed. I can have the Mounties raid the church like your grandfather did a few years ago, but I don’t think that will solve the problem. Not only are they a church, but they are a sovereign nation’s embassy. That would be an act of war on our part. That could cause us grief. What I am thinking we should do is to close the embassy. Since the Theocracy is not helping us out they will be asked to leave. Since they are accredited to your court we can ask that they leave the planet and make all of their citizens go with them.”

  “Let’s hold off on that,” The Queen said, “there is something to say about keeping an eye on them. We can at least keep the church under surveillance.

  “That does make sense.” Lord Kenworth said. “We don’t really have information to attach the suspect we have in custody with the Theocracy. We have only her word for it and no one else’s collaboration. I would rather wait until we have more information.”

  “He does make a bit of sense,” Lord James commented.

  “Okay I won’t close the embassy,” The Queen agreed. “But what I do want is to send him a message. I do want vengeance.”

  “Aggie...” Wilson started.

  “Don’t!” the Queen snapped holding up a hand, “I want to send a message to that oh so pious and honorable bishop so that he knows it’s from me and lets him know I know what he did.”

  “This is very dangerous,” Lord Mercer said, “It could back fire.”

  “Yes it could,” The Queen said, “but if we don’t send him a message we could have more problems.”

  “General,” Wilson looked to his longtime friend and former commander, “Can I borrow a team?”

  “What do you have in mind?” The Queen asked.

  “Why not keep them under surveillance?” Mike said, “There is a park in front of the church. I am going to turn it into a staging base for a militia transportation team. There will be enough traffic on the park that no one will go near the church. “

  “I like it,” Mercer said.

  “I want it obvious that we are taking pictures of the place. I also want one of your teams to infiltrate the church offices and bug it. The next time that mother pulls something I want to know about it,” Michael continued.

  The general took out her phone, “This is Alphine, and I say condition Ugly Dog. Send me the duty team.”

  She listened for second then signed off and turned to her old sergeant, “An hour or so Sarge!”

  There were several Imperial War Ships and a couple Interstellar Rescue Service ships in orbit about Trena assisting in the evacuation. The hospital ships had at least one platoon each of the Black Guard. The elite Special Forces unit was made up of all service people in the empire; but not just the military but others too. To be in the guard you had to have been in the marines, army, IRS or law enforcement as well as others in imperial service for at least four years, and had to be recommended by a Black Guardsmen before being accepted into the unit. The Alpha Teams were used by the hospital patrol ships to support their emergency response teams as they responded to emergencies, it didn’t matter if the emergency was medical or engineering, or the occasional anti-smuggling, or other law enforcement operation. There was always an Alpha team on “pad alert” ready for deployment on each of the ships. With as many ships in orbit the alert team rotated among the imperial ships. The heir knew that her request would be honored very quickly.

  “Well that takes care of that as far as we can. Until we know more information we can’t do much,” Wilson nodded then said, “Let’s move on.”

  “Pete,” The Queen turned to the young public relations officer. “What is the media saying about this?”

  “We may have gotten lucky,” the young man remarked looking at his notes, “The Just Say No group. That group that is saying no to the evacuation is claiming responsibility for the bombing. They called Don Least.”

  “Oh really,” General Qoum remarked, “that kind of works into his program.”

  “Yes it does,” Pete said still in awe over being in the room with the Queen and her staff. “But it also works to our advantage if you don’t want the Theocracy to know what we know.”

  “Okay, don’t confirm or deny what we know Pete,” Wilson remarked, “That may make them, careless. Chief, you need to raid that organization to back up that report.”

  “We have good cause to do that,” He turned to the Queen’s attorney, “I need a warrant.”

  The Queen’s attorney had been quietly working on a data pad he looked up, “I’ll have to get it past the Trenaport Bench but you’ll have it soon.”

  “Thank you,” The chief said.

  “What is the rest of the news media saying,” Mike asked.

  “Outrage mostly,” Pete replied, “the air waves have been filled with the news of the event and the reaction of the kingdom. Some of the calls to the call in shows have been brutal. Lord Rammer was on one and he beat up on you for not being able to protect the Queen any better!”

  “Sometimes,” Lord Mercer commented, “I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off without him.”

  Wilson was about to comment when there was a discrete knock on the door to the office and Liz entered the room. She handed him a note. Wilson read the note chuckled and spoke to his aid, “Tell the boss I’ll be home soon!”

  “Aye-aye sir,” Liz said and left.

  “Everything okay,” The Queen asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Michael said sheepishly, “Lisa is just a little concerned about us. She said that she was holding dinner for us.”

  “For us,” Lord Mercer asked.

  “Here I’ll read you the note,” Wilson said, “Michael, I know you and your friends are trying to save the world, but ya got to eat sometime! Dinner is about ready, when will you all be home?”

  “You know Sarge,” Mylea spoke into the stillness, “We have to do something special for that lady of yours.”

  “I second the motion!” The Queen said, more and more she looked to Lisa as a close confident. Mylea frightened her a little, and Lord Mercer she loved like an uncle, but Lisa was more like her long dead mother.

  “Then if no one has anything else we’re adjourned.” Mike said.

  With that the five of them filed out of the palace’s emergency operations center they were meeting in.