The man staring intensely into the camera was clean-shaven, with thin brown hair, probably somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, but it was hard to tell. When he spoke, the English that came out of the speakers was not his own words directly, rather simultan-translated by simple DAI algorithms.
“Friends and compatriots, we face the direst moment in our proud nation’s history.”
The white background was blurred out by the camera pickup; the only thing visible was him and his wooden desk, where he sat with his hands folded. He wore a simple black band collar shirt, the type mass-produced by drone fabric-printers dirt cheap and sold for less than an Auroran pound in pop-up shops.
“We find ourselves on the precipice of the great disaster of our time, a Second Deluge.”
He spoke clearly and what seemed like with honest conviction, but the emotional blankness of his expression was unnerving.
“Like our forefathers and –mothers twelve hundred years ago, the proud Polish people are on the verge of being ripped asunder by warring superpowers that in their mad greed and lust for blood and dominance stand ready to tramp over our anointed soil. Even as I speak, the cowardly and utterly incapable Nowosejm scramble over themselves like vermin, feigning defiance and resoluteness in the face of the oncoming enemy. Which enemy? Take your pick. The Alliants, who our noble forebears fought alongside in heaving off the yoke of the Verge Federation, now march into our star and take for themselves control of it. Be under no illusion, the Alliance is here to take the sky from us, reduce us to a cowering vassal state, force us to be subservient to their economy and political system. And what is the response by our elected leaders? To ask for assistance from the Union. The same Union who have lusted for control of the Corridor since the worlds here were settled and the hyperlane was discovered.”
He stopped to take a breath before he continued.
“My friends, you might think that is a better option, that we will retain our independence at least, that we will still have the freedom of the stars. Be under no illusion. Like our ancestors knew all too well, life under a master is no life at all. Soon we will be forced to bow our knees and kiss the feet of foreign nobles and monarchs, the same kind of vile societal parasites our honourable ancestors fought time and time again to become free.”
His gaze into the camera intensified as he visibly prepared himself for the crux of his address.
“My fellow patriots, it is the duty of any true Pole to fight oppression forced upon them. Now that slavers with shackles in hand, dressed as foreign warships, embark towards our God-given planet, it is the right and noble obligation of the free citizens of Nova Polonia to resist the invaders and their lickspittles. Make your voices and feelings heard, my friends, take to the streets and plazas and parks and public places, and show your defiance to our so-called leaders. Make them understand what treason entails. Poland has not yet perished.”
The feed on the viewscreen shifted away from the non-descript man in the blurry room to show feeds from news streams from all over Nova Polonia. The man called himself Artur Czarniecki, the last name very specifically chosen to appeal to a certain demographic of the Polonian populace. He had until three days ago been a very vocal, but rather minor political activist with his own small stream production. But the sudden bombshell that the Alliance was preparing for a police action against Nova Polonia in order to curtail what they felt were extreme overreaches against their interstellar shipping, had skyrocketed Czarniecki’s popularity. Desperate people looking for answers flocked to his streams, and he basked in the newfound attention, being able overnight to command the attention of millions. And Czarniecki knew exactly in which direction to point the half-crazed mob.
“Oh my God,” Sir Patrice Overkirk breathed as the newsfeed showed what amounted to urban warfare in the Square of Victorious Liberty in central Lublin, the large cobblestone plaza not far from the Nowosejm. Groundcars, both civilian and police, were overturned and many were lit on fire. Heavily armed police and gendarmerie were firing live rounds against throngs of very agitated protestors, who had armed themselves with makeshift weapons of all types, and were throwing homemade explosives and incendiaries at the police. A concerning amount of people in the crowds were armed with military grade weapons, and hard-rounds and pulse bolts crisscrossed the debris-strewn plaza, which was completely in ruins. Rubble, burnt-out husks, and all sorts of detritus filled the large open space which in normal times was a famed tourist destination. Some of the debris had been humans once.
“I think we’ve seen enough, ladies and gentlemen,” a calm, but steely baritone voice said, and an aide-de-camp turned off the viewscreen with a tap on his ‘com. The ‘screen retracted into the large argentwood table, and nearly all eyes focused on the man who had spoken. The setting for the meeting was very grandiose, although it had worn out its sense of awe-inspiring ostentatiousness and severity for most of the people in the room a long time ago. Most, but not for Lady Nimue Hastings, who tried her best to become a chameleon as she stood at the back of the Royal Council Chamber of Rosecourt Palace. She tried very hard not to look directly at the man at the end of the long and broad argentwood table, seated on a very old-fashioned gilded and upholstered chair.
King Nicholas Charles Alexander de Roze was tall, albeit somewhat stocky, with broad shoulders and a sturdy physique, but he sat ramrod straight in his chair, a very serious mien on his broad face, and his green-grey eyes was without the usual warmth which the Auroran public was so used to seeing. His strong jaw was hidden underneath a carefully maintained full, black beard and long moustache, and his lips were pursed in thought. A hand ran absentmindedly through his combed back ebony black hair.
The Royal Council Chamber was a large room in the upper part of the central wing in Rosecourt Palace. The interior of Rosecourt was divided into the official parts and private parts of the palace, with the official parts being uniformly decorated with dark blood-oak floor tiles, much paler argentwood panelling with gilded rocaille decorations, interspersed periodically with painted Baroque reliefs in stucco in the corners of the vaulted corridors and hallways. The main rooms were all large, all of them with tall, arched windows that faced either into the inner courtyard, the Guards Yard, the Royal Arch, or towards West Wing Park or East Wing Swan Pond. Each main room also had a major theme, like the Princess Royal’s Presence Chamber which had large Realism motifs of the four seasons on each of the walls. The Royal Council Chamber was more oriented towards statecraft, and the various paintings hung on the walls showed a collection of different historic events, like the signing of the Auroran Constitution, the redrafting of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the regal coronation portrait of Queen Victoria. The rest of the room was decorated more for function than for pure style, with the large argentwood table having the retractable viewscreen, slots for mem’disks, computers or ‘coms, and seating for, as the name of the room suggested, the full Royal Council, plus several upholstered stools for aides, assistants, secretaries, and five desks for the exercising regent’s personal equerries and secretaries.
King Nicholas I was dressed formally in a black suit, white shirt and purple tie, the only physical reminder of his royal status as King of Aurora and all Her Dominions, was the large star medal of the Order of St George on the left side of his blazer chest. The rest of the people in the room were all dressed formally as well, the equerries and royal aide-de-camps in the No.1C dress uniforms of their respective branches, plus gold-corded aiguillettes denoting their status as attached to the royal household, but despite the seeming formality of it all, this was not a special occasion. In fact, it was simply a regular Friday occurrence, the end of the political week for the Royal Council, which in every other setting was simply known as “the Cabinet”. But during the whole process of the King-in-Council, they were referred to both out loud and in the minutes as “the Royal Council”.
The King-in-Council was the process of the Monarch (capital ‘M’, the political aspect of the Regnant Royal) being informed of the major debates of Parliament, the matters of importance pertaining to questions of state, and other important topics. It was also the process through which laws were given royal assent, and particular decisions could through these meetings be created as royal decrees. The Monarch was constitutionally the champion of the common people against the aristocracy, and as such was the only one who could elevate people into the aristocracy, and had the power to revoke noble status. And it went without saying that the Monarch was not allowed to step foot unto Parliament without express permission, such as the Opening of a new Parliament, or to deliver the Speech of the Intent of the Cabinet. Though millennia ago, the causes and results of the Civil Wars of the British Isles in the 17th century on Old Earth were still remembered. But due to the wording of the Auroran Constitution, no law could be passed before being granted assent by the Commons, the Lords and the Monarch, although only Parliament were allowed to present bills, and required majority or functional minority (i.e. the tacit support of backbenchers to a minority in favour of a bill) in both Houses before being presented the Monarch to be granted royal assent, and legally folded into the lex canon of Aurora. The Monarch did not have the right of veto on laws seeking royal assent, but they could issue the “Monarch’s Displeasure”, which would send a suggested bill back to Parliament for major revision. This was exercised so rarely as to be almost a technicality, but the loss of face for the Cabinet was so extreme that is almost always triggered votes of no confidence in Parliament when it happened. And the monarchy was staunchly supported by the vast majority of the commoners of the Auroran worlds, and also among large parts of its erstwhile "enemies", the aristocracy. But this particular Friday’s parliamentary discussion had been perfunctory, with the topic very quickly moving on to the developing crisis in the Corridor.
“How long ago was this?” King Nicholas asked no one in particular, continuing to look straight ahead where the viewscreen had been. Sir Edward Ranganekary, the Foreign Secretary consulted his ‘com with thin, practiced fingers.
“Two days and some hours ago, so Tuesday 09th May Relative, Your Grace.”
“’Sir’ is quite formal enough, Sir Edward,” the king replied with an accompanying waving motion with one hand, “and that timespan is sufficiently long for the situation to have gotten even more out of hand. Who do we have on the ground on Nova Polonia from the Diplomatic Service?”
“Regina Taunton, sir,” Ranganekary replied, having memorised it before the meeting had started.
All twenty of the cabinet ministers present at the meeting, along with their staffs, a few select department heads with their own staffs (Nimue amongst them) had after lunch on this particularly rainy Friday been driven by a collection of skycars belonging to the Royal Household from Parliament in Goldbrook Palace, to Rosecourt Palace, the official residence of the royal family in Cordelia. Nimue had been picked by Sir Samuel de Croye-Muir to tag along, considering that only an hour into her first day on the job at the Corridor Department, she’d burst into his office and warned about the possibility that something exactly like this would happen. The entire menagerie of politicians, secretaries, analysts and others numbering some one hundred in total, had waited in the large and magnificent Reception Hall, the great vestibule to the Crown Chamber, before being led up a double set of stairs that reminded Nimue a lot of the main stairway in the entrance hall of the Foreign Office, by liveried footmen in scarlet and gold and through sets of white double doors. Now she was standing at the very back of the room, trying to hide behind two aide-de-camps wearing Royal Air Corps uniforms, listening to what was being said all, the while trying to stay out of sight.
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“Is she capable of dragging the proverbial chestnuts out of the proverbial fire, Sir Edward?” the king asked again, and the Foreign Secretary nodded to Sir Samuel de Croye-Muir who straightened his own purple tie and cleared his throat.
“Sir Samuel de Croye-Muir, Your Majesty,” the public servant said in a slightly nervous voice, “Director-General of Derpar- I mean Department of Corridor Affairs, Your Majesty.”
“Dispense with the formality and take a breath, Sir Samuel,” King Nicholas interjected and gave Sir Samuel a small smile to remove any edge to his command, and Nimue’s superior’s superior seemed to calm down.
“Yes sir, my apologies sir. Regina Taunton is a capable diplomat, but she is in the unenviable position of being the mission head of a very small diplomatic detachment. Nova Polin- Nova Polonia is a very small polity with only sixty million inhabitants who have not expanded much beyond the first continent they settled down on. That we have a diplomatic mission at all is due to the very fortunate astrogational position the planet is located in. Nova Polonia, along with Ilion and Concord, are natural stops for the shipping lanes that go through the stable hyperband Light Way lane through the Corridor…”
Sir Samuel looked around and saw that the assembled ministers were quickly losing patience, seeing as he was doing the equivalent of explaining why Gibraltar back on Earth was in a good location. He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his trouser legs.
“Ms Taunton is very capable, as I’ve said, but she is frightfully junior. There is a tendency in the Foreign Office to test the mettle of those in the Diplomatic Service we feel have the potential to take on larger roles by sending them to small, but crucial stations, like Arcturus, or one of the major port planets of the Neuhansa Bund. But she is probably engaging right now in an attempt to get any Kingdom and Union citizens out of harm’s way.”
“What do we know of the threat the Alliants have made towards the Polonians, Sir Edward?” the king readdressed the Foreign Secretary, who half-shrugged.
“We know what has been communicated down to us by the grapevine, through second-hand reports and observations like the one we just witnessed. There is no doubt in the Foreign Office’s mind that a very palpable sense of impending military action has been impressed on the Polonians, which has regrettably prompted such drastic actions among parts of the their populace.”
“Barbarity,” Sir Patrice Overkirk muttered, the Secretary of the Union not being able to stop the horrified outburst in time.
“Quite,” Ranganekary said in his usual academic way of understatement, “but that opens a Pandora’s Box in regards to control over the Corridor. If the Alliants acquire a major port at the ‘western’ entrance of the Corridor, what’s stopping them from laying claim to the whole thing?”
“Which is about the worst thing that could happen for our interstellar trade westward,” Dame Niamh Walker-Dupont interjected, the Secretary of Trade leaning forward over the wooden table.
“That would mean the death of the only neutral tariff zone along the entire Union-Alliance border. Goods and shipping going from the Union through Alliance space would be subject to whatever customs and tariff hikes the Greens could dream up, and could in the most extreme consequence completely stymie our trade with United Sol and New Majapahit. It would slash into our profit margins conducting trade with a combined market of about forty billion people, a third of them on Earth alone. Need I remind you all that Earth is still the most populated planet in the galaxy, and the largest single market?”
Walker-Dupont collected herself, returned to sit properly in her wooden chair.
“I mean no disrespect, Your Grace, but the impact it will have on the Union, and especially the Auroran economy, is a thought almost too terrible to think about.”
“Point well made, Mrs Walker-Dupont, thank you,” King Nicholas said. He turned to look directly to his right, to a man who had so far said almost nothing.
“What are my first minister’s thoughts on this?”
Sir Alfred Carmichael was a short, portly man of one-seventy-two years of age, his sand-brown hair had receded to a crown around the lower part of his head, but he had a mighty moustache on his upper lip which had functioned as his visual trademark for all his years in the upper echelons of Auroran politics. He was dressed in a very formal black dress jacket and vest, and a small red bowtie, which he had been slowly fingering while the rest of the cabinet were discussing. Alfred Carmichael was the son of a captain of a hydrogen harvester, and among the ministers of the Cabinet, he was the one with the least prestigious education under his belt, having gone to nothing but public schools, and with ‘only’ a Master’s Degree in Business Management. That was not very impressive next to someone like Ranganekary, Dame Fiona Spyros, or the Marquess Howeland, but given his family background he had made a tremendous step in terms of socio-economic class. And his ‘club gentleman’-appearance, with his physical paunch, tendency to slightly overdress and bring a walking cane everywhere he went, meant he disarmed and wrong-footed nearly everyone who did not know him personally. Carmichael was a brilliant and keen-sighted politician, with an uncanny ability for political pragmatism. He had shot like a comet up through the ranks of the Social Liberal party after he retired from banking sixty years ago. Now the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Aurora and Her Dominions twirled his moustache with the hand not holding onto the brass knob of his cane.
“My thoughts,” he said in a heavy West-Avalonian accent, “are but a poor echo of what Dame Niamh just so effectually iterated. Nova Polonia is a steppingstone for the Alliance to gain the whole of the Corridor, which would mean the Union and the Kingdom lose –I won’t say free access, we still have to pay Polonian tariffs after all–, but at the very least cheap access to the large markets of the United Colonies of Sol and beyond. Dame Niamh or Sir Samuel here can probably describe the journey an average Indiaman better than I can, but from my days in shipping insurance, we used to be able to provide favourable premiums to a merchantman leaving Corinth, to make a stopover in Ilion, Ouroboros, or Nova Polonia, and then arrival in Gateway on the Sol side of the Alliance border. Any longer than that, and you ended up inside Alliance Charter territory, and that, even back in the day, would quickly run up the added customs costs of the journey.”
“So, there is complete agreement something must be done then?” Dame Fiona Spyros, Chancellor of the Exchequer opined, folding her hands on the table.
“We cannot allow this to stand, it would mean ruin and financial catastrophe for all major shipping lines, not to mention all the companies and firms reliant on interstellar export going through the Corridor.”
“Not to mention the humanitarian aspect of it all,” Sir Patrice Overkirk said from his side of the table, “who would we be if we allowed the Alliant jackboots to march over an independent and sovereign nation?”
Sir Edward Ranganekary pinched the bridge of his nose, and the Marquess Howeland shifted in his chair.
“You say that as if we are in a favourable position to do anything,” Ranganekary said just as Linton Sciacca was opening his mouth to protest as well.
“The Kingdom does not have a particular treaty or agreement with Nova Polonia that opens for Auroran involvement if anything like this were to happen. The Polonian independence for the past two-hundred and sixty-years have been guaranteed due to the tacit understanding that one of either power moving in and securing control over the Vistula gravity well, would be unacceptable to the other. Gods know that the Corinthians have been clamouring for any chance to semi-legitimately go in and grab the rest of the Corridor, but that would have sparked a confrontation with the Alliance, and if so happened Aurora would not have supported Corinth.”
“There is also the aspect of proportional power to consider,” Linton Sciacca, Marquess Howeland, said.
“From all the reports trickling back to us through backchannels, hearsay, and clandestine contacts, the Alliants are not marching in with a battle fleet and an expeditionary force. The words the Royal Intelligence Service keeps hearing over and over again is ‘police action’, meaning that unless President Kelley has sacked CNO Bradford, the response to… what was it your office called it again, Sir Samuel?”
“‘Perceived intolerable control and illegitimate customs duty efforts on behalf of the Nova Polonian authorities in face with Alliance interstellar shipping’, I believe was the choice of phrase by one of my junior analysts.”
He shot a glance in Nimue’s direction, not unfriendly so, but who subdued an uncomfortable eek, and hid further behind the two RAC adjutants regardless.
“Just so,” Howeland continued, switching between looking at Walker-Dupont, Spyros, Overkirk, and the King. He barely noticed that a Royal Navy lieutenant with an aide-de-camp’s aiguillette had silently entered the room by a side door, and strode up to the king’s First Equerry, a suave-looking Royal Army major in a bone-khaki uniform, wearing the badges of the Queen’s Nikosian Royal Dragoons (3rd Guards/Northumbrians), and the two exchanged hurried whispers.
“Regarding what we know of operational procedures during the last ten and change years of the Alliance Space Navy under Chief of Naval Operations Edwina Bradford, we know that she is a very meticulous commander. She knows the rules of the interstellar community; she’s not going to up and bowl at the batter, if you like your sporting metaphors, sirs and madams. And as Sir Edward here would tell you, a Polonian populace on the verge of civil conflict, that only makes a modest military intervention into the Vistula System appear to be out of concern for spiralling loss of human lives. This is as picked out from a history textbook what President Uriel Konstantin did ninety years ago, and the Lorelei SAR fell under Alliance hegemony as a consequence.”
The First Equerry reached down discreetly to whisper something into the king’s right ear, and he nodded. The choice of right ear was intentional, for Prime Minister Carmichael turned slightly as well. King Nicholas rose from his chair, the gilt wooden legs scraping on the blood-oak flooring. A moment later, all the minister and the seated aides and secretaries rose as well, a clear sign that Friday 12th May's King-in-Council had come to an end.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the king said and nodded slightly to both the left and right, “thank you for your time. I trust I will be kept updated on this situation as it develops further, and I expect to hear from the Foreign Secretary’s office on the regular, so I will bid you a good afternoon.”
Everyone not attached to the Royal Household bowed or curtsied, and the far doors were opened by unseen footmen, and slowly those aides and staffers closest to the doors started to file out; it was customary for the ministers of the monarch to be the very first to arrive and last to leave. As more junior secretaries like Dame Janice Stavrelli (Development & Infrastructure), Lukas Herzfeld (Culture & Sport), Angelique Perrault (Chancellor of the Court & Leader of the Commons) and Yashoda Mahindra (Education) had already departed, the king cleared his throat as Ranganekary and Howeland were about to walk out.
“I believe,” King Nicholas said while folding his hands behind his back, “that a select few gentlemen have been trying rather anxiously to organise a meeting with Sir Edward here whilst we were all detained on constitutional affairs.”
Ranganekary and Howeland exchanged surprised glances. The Royal Navy lieutenant stepped up and gave the Foreign Secretary an old-fashioned white paper note. Ranganekary’s dark eyebrows shot up and he turned around, forgetting in the moment that it was supremely bad manners to turn your back to the Monarch. More than a few equerries and adjutants bristled.
“Sir Samuel,” Sir Edward called, “belay that early afternoon off, grab all the staff you brought with you, especially that young woman who stumbled unto this in the first place, and meet us back at my office. Me and Howeland are taking a skycar directly there.”
“We are?” Howeland asked, completely perplexed, and Ranganekary handed him the note. The aristocrat rapidly read the few short lines and he frowned.
“Right,” he said and bowed to King Nicholas I again, “I think I need to make a few calls so we can start forming an idea why the ambassadors of the Alliance, Corinth, and Dionysia want to meet with the Foreign Secretary, all at once.”