ARCHIVED: Absconding to Alunya

INTELLIGENTSIA STATION

0300​

In the early hours of a Wednesday morning, an elderly woman and a young child stood at the end of Intelligentsia Station. The next train bound for Cobblers Bay was due to arrive at any moment. The station was slowly growing full, with many refugees from the dilapidated Intelligentsia preparing to make the long journey by train in the hope of finding the warm embrace of peace and safety far away from the chaos of the capital.

The woman pulled her veil close to her face, so that nobody would be able to see its features. She was wearing traditional McMasterdonian attire for a woman in mourning, which was sadly becoming an all the more common sight with the war going on. A small boy, no older than 9 years of age, held tightly to the old woman's hand. Three out-of-uniform security guards were stood at various places around the train station keeping a watchful eye on the pair. Unbeknownst to the various refugees piling into the train station, the old woman was none other than the Queen Mother, Queen Meghan, and the little boy was none other than the heir apparent, Prince Richard, the only child of the Matilda II, Queen Regnant of McMasterdonia.

Queen Matilda II had secured a guarantee from King Guglielmo of the Kingdom of Alunya that he would guarantee their protection and security in the Kingdom’s capital of Ronronne. The Queen had become increasingly paranoid about the safety of her family given the current political climate and was desperate to have them out of the country before it got any worse. Members of the Royal Family had been the target of violent demonstrations and the death threats from the rebel extremists were coming in daily. Meghan had initially insisted that she would go to Malvad, her former home, but the poisonous rhetoric put forward by the Malvadian Ambassador to the Democratic Union had quickly turned her daughter strongly against passage to Malvad. Despite her best efforts, Meghan could not reasonably argue against her daughters wishes. The Royal Family of Malvad, who were also the family of the Queen Mother had been missing for a number of months and the Malvadian Government was becoming increasingly anti-monarchist at almost frightening levels. It would not be prudent for the Queen Mother to take her Grandson out of the frying pan and into the fire, she had to guarantee the continuity of the McMasterdonian line, and above all else, ensure that her grandson was able to live his life to the full, without fear of violence or reprisal.

The plan was to travel as refugees from Intelligentsia to Cobblers Bay, a port city that rested upon the McMasterdonian Canal. Here they would be greeted by naval officers of the Royal Alunyan Naval Ship Sea Lion which would grant them safe passage to the Alunyan capital of Ronronne. The Queen Mother knew from her experiences both as a young Princess in Malvad and as the Queen-Consort in McMasterdonia, that events of such intrigue as this will rarely go completely to plan. The security guards were there for that purpose. It was vitally important that the Prince make it to Alunya and that the rebels do not become aware of the hasty flight that senior members of the Royal Family such as the Queen Mother and the Crown Prince were making from the country.

The price for a royal hostage in McMasterdonia had always been steep, just as the chance of success was low and the cost of failure high. In this divisive time however, many cities in the nation would be unwilling to enforce the law of the Royal Family and would strongly support the kidnap or murder of a member of the royal family. The rebels had everything to gain, and the House of McMaster, everything to lose. This effort to flee McMasterdonia for Alunya was no small undertaking and the idea of failure could not be entertained.

The sound of the train pulling into the station interrupted Meghan’s thoughts. She pulled young Richard towards her and whispered “Come now dear, walk with purpose and do not be afraid”. Fortunately for the young Prince, it has long been illegal to photograph royal children and his appearance was not well known to members outside of the royal family. The pair stepped onto the second carriage and made their way to the front, finding a small booth with only three others in it - a frail Mother and her small three children. The Queen Mother offered nothing more than a nod before directing Richard to sit near the window and taking a seat herself.

She knew that she would not sleep. The journey to Cobblers Bay would take most of the next day and they would arrive at around 8PM. While the thought of the security detail sitting in the cabin opposite their own offered some comfort, Meghan knew that she would need to keep her eyes and ears open, if she was to make sure her grandson survived this attempt to flee the country.

The Sea Lion lay at anchor in the small cove of Mrew maiuw maoyew mirao miyau, or Nondescript Cove, an inlet east of McMasterdonia and the northern approaches to that nation's canal. Her commander had been recharging the satphone by solar power for two days, awaiting further orders. The last had come directly from His Royal Majesty.

When it finally did ring, Commodore Castiglione was surprised. The call was brief and to the point. He put the phone in his pea jacket.

"Bosun, sound the call to 'Make Way,'" Castiglione ordered. "Mr. Pirenelli, come with me to my cabin. We shall need to plot a course to Cobblers Bay."

"Aye, Captain," the navigator answered.

The pipes blew and the drummer beat the tattoos. Sailors scrambled up the stays as a gang manned the capstan and hoisted the anchor. Radar the cat hissed from his perch in the crow's nest while the leadman shimmied to the end of the bowsprit to plumb the depths.

The fifty-four gun frigate, flagship of the Royal Alunyan Navy, was now under sail.

General Albert’s Encampment
“General! The train is about to pass through the Portcullis across the River Sophia and will arrive in Cobblers Bay within the next couple of hours.”
“We must stop them immediately after they have passed through the Portcullis. There is no time for us to delay, this is our only opportunity to pull this war back onto course and to prevent the Queen from taking our nation into the abyss for good.”
“We must make an example of them General, only then will the Queen agree to impose martial law over the Southern provinces.”

---

The Train
She could hear the gentle tapping of the rain on the train window and the grinding of the wheels on the train floor as the Hostess went about her business. She knew that she should not fall asleep, potential enemies were everywhere and she could not risk her Grandson coming to harm. Her thoughts were interrupted as a familiar voice called out to her

"Meghan!? Where are you my darling?"
"Over here Mother!"

Her Mother, the Czarina of Malvad, was walking around the central fountain at the Royal Palace in the capital of Mavis. She was a tall and loud woman, she was not from Malvad, and displayed a deep public affection for her family, which was highly unusual for a woman of her station. Her Mother’s voice carried far across the courtyard and the great lake as she called out to her

“Oh Darling, I have been looking for you everywhere, It is important that we speak before you meet with your Father this afternoon.”
“Do you know why he called for me Mother? Am I in trouble?”
“No my dear, you are simply being called upon to do your duty. Your duty as the eldest daughter of the Czarina.”
“My duty Mother? Am I to be betrothed?” she asked
“Yes Meghan, You will go to McMasterdonia. Your father intends for you to marry Crown Prince Louis, the heir to the throne of McMasterdonia. He is only a few years older than you and you will be his wife and his Queen someday”
“Will I meet him first? What if I do not like him?”
“Come now, you will meet him when you visit McMasterdonia with your father. You shall marry him if the Emperor of McMasterdonia agrees to your father’s proposed betrothal.
“But..”
“I will hear no more about it. Your betrothal to the Crown Prince will cement Malvadian relations with the influential Kingdom for many years to come. Marriage is about more than your own happiness, it is about the happiness of your people and the peace of nation and region.”

She was so frustrated with her Mother and Father and their complete disregard for her wishes. The ground begin to move beneath her and she lurched forward to the sounds of the train screeching to a halt.

“Grandmother! Wake up!!” Richard yelled as she felt him shake her awake
“What is it? Why have we stopped?” she said, as she got up to look outside the window. The River Sophia was flowing out to the rear of the train and it was clear to her that they couldn't be far from Cobblers Bay. But why had they stopped here? It didn’t make any sense, the last station should have been the city of Castello.
“Wait here. I shall go and take a look.” The guards in the cabin opposite were already waiting for her. She pulled her veil further down her face and stepped out of the carriage into the hall. Confused people were beginning to line up in the corridor of the train, nobody had any idea why the train had stopped at this point. As she made her way down the corridor she felt Richard lightly tug on her leg
"Go back to the cabin. George, take Richard back to the cabin. This is not a routine stop. We must be prepared for anything".

Aboard the RANS Sea Tigress

Giorgio Pinafarina was feeling very queasy. It was one thing to be conducting a test of the new sonar equipment off the calm coastal waters of the Constitutional Monarchy of Alunya; it was quite another to be sailing in a beam sea, the ship heaving and rolling, in a passage to McMasterdonia. What had been a sea trial of the refurbished three-masted frigate now had the aura of a combat expedition. Although a civilian, he and his fellow technicians had been immediately conscripted and were now considered part of the naval crew.

He now found himself trying to adjust to six Ratta-Toccas on duty, and six Ratta-Toccas off. The four-hour shifts were exhausting. And it didn't help that the new sonar room sweep was in the belly of the two-century old vessel; the space still smelt of llamas, an odor that, along with sea salt and herring, seemed to ooze out of the woodwork. On the gundeck above, he could hear the gun crews thrashing with the cannons, preparing to fight an imaginary foe in seas that were far to rough. It was a miracle that no one had been killed yet.

At least, he mused, they hadn't fired up that diesel. It was loud and poorly ventilated, and provided little power to the old warship. And, as a sonar technician, he knew its vibrations would give away the position to any halfway capable submarine crew. Indeed, the very reason for his being here was to test out a novel concept -- employing a modern toweed passive sonar that sensed the refraction of sound waves through deep convergence zones. His company's new Pinna towed array sonar was sensitive enough to pick up most motorized vessels within thirty nautical miles. But its real utility was in picking up such vessels in annuli of a few miles in width at ranges of thirty, sixty and ninety nautical miles regularly, and sometimes at 120 nautical miles. All this on a sailing vessel that, noisy as it seemed topside, was often as quiet as a ghost when heard from beneath the waves.

It was an ingenious concept, the blending of old and new. But now he and his fellows were tasked with manning the new sonar around the clock as the Sea Tigress made slow but steady progress for the southern approaches to the McMasterdonian Canal.

---

Aboard the RANS Sea Lion:

The sailors aboard the Alunyan flagship were drenched to the bone. It was hazardous enough to go topside in the sails in the dry, but with a storm just short of a gale, it was brutal. Aside from being wet, it was also cold, and that required extra attention to safety. Everyone aloft had been ordered to clip in -- except, of course, Radar the cat, who long ago had decided that the wood stove in Captain Castiglione's cabin was a far more comfortable spot than the crow's nest. The watch that had displaced him in his previous outpost were miserable, and not seeing much of anything due to the rain, but orders were orders, and so they stayed in that cat's stead.

The Royal Marines below were either preparing their weapons or cloistered around Tenente Khovinishipura who was highlighting features of the McMasterdonian coast, its Canal and inland waterways. Word had been received that the Sea Lion was making for Cobblers Bay, a port city on the man-made canal just south of the entrance. While the Tenente did not anticipate action, he always made it a point with the Marine detachment to go over any nearby terrain. After all he would often say, shaking his head from side-to-side, you never know when action will come upon you, whether it be a band of pirates or the necessity to abandon ship. At the moment we was meticulously going over every landmark on the inland sea that they would encounter on their passage south.

It would be a matter of hours, or at most a day, before the ship would make a few points further south. Everyone aboard hoped the rain would let up. It would be no fun to fire a damp squib by way of salute, or dip a soaked rag of an ensign, while trying to stand smartly at attention on a slippery deck. God's weather had a way of humbling the proudest of crews.

---

In the Royal Privy, Liverfool, Alunya:

Queen Junia would have found it laughable if she wasn't earnestly speaking with her father, King Guglielmo. When she was a teenager, she had occasionally sneaked in the Royal Bathroom to speak on the phone with a teenage boy she wasn't supposed to flirt with. But now in middle age, she was talking to her co-monarch in hushed tones, each of them in the privy.

It wasn't a matter of untrustworthy palace ears, he had explained, the scrambler clipping his voice. Rather, laser microphones had become so sensitive of late. One infrared beam would bounce off the center of a window, picking up vibrations at the point of greatest deflection. Another would bounce off a corner, or better yet, another pane altogether, and be used to cancel out the exterior sounds. What emerged from the combined signals, and the changes in the coherent laser light, could be converted to an audio signal that rivaled any permanent electronic bug. The signal processing now was so sophisticated that random vibration generators meant to disrupt such remote national technical means were themselves cancelled out of the signal. Any window could now serve as a sounding board to an interested foreign government at a distance of up to twenty miles.

And while the riad design of Alunyan palaces meant that a clear line of sight was difficult, it was not impossible for a determined intelligence service. Thus Queen and King were talking in their respective royal water closets.

And that was because the bathrooms had no windows at all.

"So, now I'm to understand that you unilaterally have decided to rescue the McMasterdonian Royal family?" Queen Junia interjected. "Did you have any consideration for the political ramifications your daughter might face?"

She listened patiently, then sighed. "Yes, I know. I would rescue the child as well. And you have my assurances that the crew of the Sea Tigress will indeed aid Captain Castiglione. But as this becomes public knowledge, and it will, I expect you to take the brunt of the approbation."

The conversation continued a bit from the other end of the phone. "That's fine," Junia added. "But when that happens, I expect you personally to deliver a verbal apology, on air, live to the Alunyan people, for deceiving them and for unilaterally ordering the mission." She was annoyed that he hadn't considered how the people might react; the Alunyan civil war should have amply demonstrated that they weren't too found of any royalty, and especially his. She listened to him prattle on.

If it hadn't been for the possibility of the cats in the Royal Clowder coming to harm, Alunyans might well have swept the Royal Family aside altogether. Instead, to save the cats, the people had settled for two governments ruling on alternate days over the nation. His the absolute monarchy it had always been; hers, a Constitutional Monarchy yielding power to the people through a parliament. An unusual, seemingly half-baked yet effective compromise, but that seemed to be the Alunyan way of things.

"Yes, Dad, I love you too. Say hello to Mom for me." And with that, Queen Junia hung up the hard-wired phone and stood up from her porcelain "throne."

The Train

1730​

The sounds of shouting were clearly heard from outside the train, she knew that the voices were not from a friendly source, but had to advance further to be completely sure about what was going on. With her grandson safely with their loyal protectors, Meghan knew that they would keep him safe and that she must confront this matter on her own. The Queen Mother moved silently down the corridor of the train and with a loud bang the rear door of the carriage was blasted open and armed men burst into the train.

"What is the meaning of this?" the conductor demanded of the large man at the forefront of the armed crowd, the man responded with a swift blow to the face with the stock of the gun. He slid down the side of the train, his face clearly bloodied and sore by the blow.

The leader of the mob shouted down the corridor:

"My name is Sebastian, I am here representing Rosemary Whent, the Duchess of Capricornia and the Rightful Chancellor of the Kingdom of McMasterdonia. Ladies and Gentleman, we have no quarrel with you good people. We will make only one demand of you and then be on our way. We have received reports that two senior members of the Royal Family, the Queen Mother and the Crown Prince are aboard this train."

The mans words were met with gasps and looks of disbelief from the passengers.

"We only ask that you hand over the Royals to us, and you shall be left to go on your way. If you do not, we will kill a passenger every fifteen minutes, until you hand them over or they come forward voluntarily."

Meghan remained silent. She knew that the people of McMasterdonia had suffered enough bloodshed already, but she needed to delay this mad man to allow her Grandson time to make some distance between himself and the train.

Meghan saw a Mother and her small son sitting on the floor at the front of the carriage. Her arms were wound tightly around her son, who let out a quiet whimper and caught the attention of the rebel Sebastian who leaned down and snatched him from his Mother's arms.
"Nooo! Please! Not my son! Not my boy!"
"Shut up woman" Sebastian screamed as another man belted her with his gun.
"This shall be the first lesson in today's class Ladies and Gentleman" Sebastian said; "A revolution such that is occurring now in McMasterdonia is not without sacrifice, we must all be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in the quest for reform of our great country. The Duchess of Capricornia wishes to remind you all of the need for this sacrifice, we will not rest until we achieve the ultimate form of glory and drag the corpse of the pretender Matilda through the streets of Intelligentsia."

As he concluded his tirade he pointed his gun at the child and asked "Does nobody wish to come forward to prevent another sacrifice in our journey towards freedom from monarchism?"

Meghan had underestimated Sebastian, it was clear that he was willing to murder every person on this train until her true identity was revealed. She could not allow him to take the life of this innocent child. She stepped forward outside of the cabin and approached Sebastian

"I will not allow you to take the life of that child"

"Finally. Someone has the courage to speak, what do you want hag?"

"You should watch your tone, boy. I am Meghan, formerly Princess of Malvad, and the current Queen Mother of the Kingdom of McMasterdonia. Formerly the Queen Consort of the Kingdom of McMasterdonia after my marriage to the late King Louis the VII. I am sworn to protect the people of McMasterdonia and I shall not allow you to harm them."

Sebastian chuckled, "I'm surprised you gave in so easily. It appears that we overestimated your disdain for the ordinary people of McMasterdonia"

"I am the Queen Mother, the McMasterdonians are my people and I am sworn to serve them until my last breath. You're nothing more than a brute, who has committed the ultimate crime in rebelling against the state and against your Queen and rightful ruler. I pray that you will meet your maker, and that you shall meet the only appropriate end for your crimes against our people"

Sebastian smiled intently at her and promptly shot the child held in his arms, his Mother launched at the child and began to cry and shout "murderer".

"Insulting your captor is hardly wise, your majesty. This child has paid the ultimate sacrifice, and it gives me great pleasure in bringing a war criminal such as yourself to justice. Men: Let the people in this carriage go to remind others of what happens when you attempt to protect members of the Royal Family. Kill the rest"

*gasps and shouts "No, please! Spare us!"*

"You said you had no quarrel with these people" Meghan shouted

"I lied. Take her, fill the train with explosives and lets get out of here before the Intelligence Service Catches up with us".

The Royal Palace, Intelligentsia

1800​

The Queen was pacing back and forth in front of the throne of McMasterdonia. The Golden throne, emblazoned with rubies and sapphires glowed magnificently as the moonlight shined through the sun towers along the eastern corridor. The Train had not arrived in Cobblers Bay as scheduled, and the members of the McMasterdonian Intelligence Service had failed to make the rendezvous point with the Queen Mother and Crown Prince Richard. Furthermore, there were rumours of explosions being heard as far as Cobblers Bay and there were fears that he train had been taken by Rebel Forces or fallen victim to a suicide bombing attack. This was proving to be an incomprehensible disaster.

"Still no word from King Guglielmo?" the Queen asked, clearly panicking about the safety of her loved ones
"No your majesty. There is still no word, and our intelligence service has not heard anything from the Queen Mother or her bodyguards."

What was she to think? This was supposed to be a straightforward task. Her Mother and son were travelling as refugees bound for the port city of Cobblers Bay. This was an all too common site these days with many McMasterdonian Refugees attempting to flee the fighting for safer pastures in Alunya and Plembobria. She should have listened to her Mother. She had advised strongly against train travel, the disappearance of her extended family in Malvad, of whom she was convinced had been brutally murdered by the new Malvadian Government had made the former Princess of Malvad extremely paranoid for her safety.

"Why on earth didn't I allow them to fly with an air-force escort" she shouted at her Lord Chamberlain, Lord Peter, who she knew was not responsible for this disaster, but nonetheless needed him to remind her that she had made the right decision
"You had little choice your Majesty, train travel was the best option of ensuring the safe passage of your Mother and son without alerting the rebels to their absence" he cautiously replied

She knew that he was right. If it were to get out that senior members of the Royal Family were leaving McMasterdonia, their cause would only be strengthened. It would appear that we were simply abandoning a sinking ship in light of the escalating pressure from the Democratic Union and Malvad.

"WHERE IS MY SON?? Order the Intelligence Service to send more agents out to Cobblers Bay, we must find them and make sure that they make the Rendezvous Point. We need confirmation about the status of the train."

"Yes your majesty"

"We must have our envoy meet with Captain Castiglione and inform him that the train is missing. Further we must send a notice to Count Gregor and ask him to immediately inform the King of Alunya that the Prince and Queen Mother are missing. We can absolutely trust in their discretion to handle this matter appropriately"

My oldest friend Gregor,

I am tearfully writing to you to inform you that my son, Crown Prince Richard and my Mother have gone missing. They never arrived in Cobblers Bay and the train has stopped somewhere north of the Portcullis. Please inform King Guglielmo to keep his forces on standby and that I expressly grant his officers permission to take to the shore to search for the my Mother and son.

~ Matilda

Click to expand...

Aboard the RANS Sea Lion:

It had been an hour since the Sea Lion had changed from starboard tack to port tack past Point Gaimsettmaache, and the frigate was now making good time in a broad reach to the southwest. The rain continued to hammer those aboard, and Commodore Castiglione kept a weather eye from the stern deck beside the helmsman as sailors trimmed and adjusted the top sails. He observed four sailors reef the royal sail on the mizzen-mast for a moment, then turned his gaze to the grey seas. Grey skies, grey rain, grey seas, a grey ship with grey sails, a grey ghost lost in a grey day. And grey grows my hair, the Commodore reflected.

"Mister Sabatini, summon the signalman to the stern deck, if you please," the captain commanded.

"Aye, sir," the Executive Officer replied. He passed the word to a communications rating, who used the voice pipes to pass the message below.

Within minutes. Signalman Tanguey arrived and saluted, her semaphore bags slung smartly over one shoulder, Aldis lamp clipped to the strap, and a couple of handheld radios in the bag's pockets.

Her arrival was fortuitous, for in the driving rain, the lookouts in the crow's nest on the mainmast above the skysail called out with a megaphone. "Fort Pride two points off the port bow!" came the words whipped on the wind.

"Mister Sabatini, make the port guns ready for passing honors," Castiglione ordered, then added, "And make the starboard guns ready for action, fifteen Massa, if you please." It was better to have one battery ready for salute, and the other ready for action -- the situation in McMasterdonia was too uncertain these days -- though it would be difficult to put the starboard guns on target if it came to that.

The XO imperceptibly raised an eyebrow, but issued the orders, and on the gun deck below the gun crews struggled to load the cannons. Squibs went to port, but live charges and heavy cannonballs were loaded to starboard.

As the Sea Lion hove into view of Fort Pride, the captain ordered Tanguey to send a message by semaphore. Raising and lowering the red and white Oscar flags, she quickly spelled out, F-O-R-T P-R-I-D-E R-A-N-S S-E-A L-I-O-N R-E-Q-U-E-S-T-S P-I-L-O-T. Receiving no replay, Castiglione ordered her to send the message again, and again it was to no avail. She quietly surmised that any sentry on duty was likely cloistered in some spot out of the driving rain and was unable to see the Sea Lion at all.

Once more she was ordered to send the message, but this time employing the Aldis lamp. She flicked the morse code message across the narrowing waters, but once more there was only the stone grey hulk of the fort sitting silent and uninterested.

Castiglione swore. "Signalman Tanguay, raise those inattentive bastards on the radio," he ordered, then turned to Sabatini, "Render honors."

"Aye, Captain," Tanguay and Sabatini replied simultaneously. As she fished out her radios, she could hear the commands called out from the stern deck, and the quarterdeck below.

"Port guns, make ready for salute!"

"Man the yards!"

"Marines -- Attention to Port!"

"Make ready to dip the ensign!"

"Hand Salute!"

"One!"

The gun port lids raised on the below the port gunwales, and the muffled cry came from below decks.

"Fire!"

Twenty-seven guns roared in unison, the sound of the concussion echoing back eerily off the stone fort's bastions and the rocks of Point Pride a half minute later like thunder. The ensign dipped smartly from the royal mast atop the main mast before being hoisted back into place.

"Two!"

The hand salutes dropped.

"Carry on!"

At that the sailors aloft who had manned the yards clambered down the rigging, leaving only a few to handle the sails. The gun crews to starboard remained at the ready. All others returned to the routine of a tall ship under sail. And Tanguay, her radio now tuned and the noise somewhat abated, keyed in on Channel sixteen.

"Fort Pride, Fort Pride, Fort Pride, this is Royal Alunyan Naval Ship Sea Lion."

"Sea Lion, this is Fort Pride."

"Fort Pride, Sea Lion requests pilot services for transit."

A pause ensued, then "Sea Lion, you are not on our master schedule for transits. Set anchor south of Fort Pride and await instructions."

The captain spoke briefly with her, and she then radioed, "Sea Lion requests expedited pilot services in compliance with the McMasterdonian Canal Treaty. This is a Royal Alunyan Navy warship."

A much longer pause this time, then came a resigned, "Very well. Report south of Fort Pride for pilot services. Say type of vessel."

"Sea Lion is a three-masted squared rigged heavy frigate with no propulsion -- repeat -- no propulsion."

"Understood, Sea Lion. Out."

The radioman in the pilots' shack looked to Pilot Corrado Specter and grinned. "Good luck with that one, Specter."

The Portcullis

Frank had served in the Royal Intelligence Service for more than 30 years. But he had never seen anything quite like this.
The train that had been used to escort refugees from the capital to the port city of Cobblers Bay was little more than a shell. It was clear that the train had been loaded with explosives well before it had left the capital, there is no way that the amount of explosives required for this type of vehicle had simply been bought here after the train had left. The train was filled with bodies, with more bodies hanging from the tower above the portcullis. This was by far the worst act of violence in the war, and he was not looking forward to sending his report home.

Frank walked alongside the third carriage, stepping over the bodies of burned children as he went. He couldn’t believe the sheer magnitude of the devastation that had occurred here. As he drew to the end of the third carriage, he saw the body of an old woman hanging from above the train. He gasped as he read the words emblazoned across the front of the carriage


He could not believe it, the death of the Queen Mother, who was the most popular member of the Royal Family, would rock the nation and it’s government. He immediately left the train to send a message back to Intelligentsia, to let Count Gregor know what was going on.

Unknown Location

The slow rumbling of the trucks engine as the vehicle made the steep ascent over the rocky mountain side, was not quite enough to muffle the sound of the men talking in the front of the vehicle. Meghan knew the country side well, despite the tight blindfold wrapped around her face, she was fairly sure where they were headed. Having served as Queen for more than thirty years and then as Queen Mother, she had travelled extensively throughout the country. They were taking her North, through the Northern Marshes. It was an odd place for them to be taking her, the Northern Marshes were strongly royalist and royal spies would be quick to send word to Intelligentsia if the rebels were not careful.

She did not like this Sebastian fellow. It was clear that he enjoyed the brutality of war, it surprised her that Rosemary Whent would have allied herself to this man. Her husband had always held the Whent Family in high regard and believed that they were honourable and decent people. Perhaps her lust for power had led her to side with the most brutal of people. There were unlikely to be any winners in this war if both sides were willing to murder and burn their way to a victory.

The truck came to a sudden stop and the men in the front of the vehicle jumped out and opened the rear door of the truck. She didn't say anything as the man grabbed her, not making it easy for them she deliberately dragged her feet, forcing them to drag her out of the truck.

"This is no way to treat the Queen Mother! Remove the blindfold at once" a strangely familiar voice said
As she opened her eyes, she couldn't believe it. It was none other than her eldest son, General Albert, the head of the McMasterdonian Armed Forces.

"Albert.. What is the meaning of this?"
"Come now Mother, didn't you like the show?"
"Who is that Sebastian, does he belong to you? He murdered children Albert! Children!"
"You've always been too sympathetic for those rebels Mother. I will never understand it – here is the issue. My sister who calls herself Queen, will not respond to the rebels appropriately. They have been allowed to gain strength for far too long, we need to declare Martial Law. We need the International community to condemn the rebels and to assist in their defeat. We cannot allow these distractions in the Democratic Union to prevent us from restoring order in the Kingdom”.

The Throne Room

The Queen sat silently on her throne, she could not believe what she has reading. Her beloved Mother had been found burned alive and hanging from the train. How could this happen? How could she have been so stupid? She was too afraid of the rebels thinking she was weak, and she had allowed her Mother and potentially her son to die a horrible death.
“I should have sent them out of the country by plane” she mumbled to Count Gregor, her Uncle and the Head of the Royal Intelligence Service.
“your Majesty, we all agreed that this was the best course of action”
“Albert didn’t.”
“Your brother… is a… different sort of man, your Majesty. If he had his way, he would have burned the city of Castello to the ground by now.”
“We must make finding my son our first priority, Uncle. Tell Albert that I wish to meet with him, if we do not respond appropriately to this supreme act of brutality, the war is already lost.”
“What do you intend to do your majesty?”
“What I should have done six months ago. I will declare martial law. I must address the nation as soon as possible”