Prologue

In the war against the Sontarans, there are three diligent, but equally important groups, the Princess, First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Doctor; this is their story. The year is 3126, and Earth is at war. The Sontarans have resumed their military operations against Earth and plan to take the planet from the humans. To combat this, the International Alliance elected 18 year old Emma Reed, friend of the Doctor, as princess of Earth. Her best friend is her regent in her absence, and her long time friend, James, was given the position of Commander of Earth Space Forces.

Chapter One

James

The shuttle descended easily through the atmosphere. I sat in the VIP cabin, reading even more reports as Earth raced to construct a fighting force. To make matters worse, I was in command of all of it. When my long time friend, Emma, had been elected princess of Earth, she had asked me to take over command of Earth's Admiralty.

Since the Royal Space Navy was the only Earth military force at the time, that meant I was also Earth's military commander at the grand age of 18! I had been bestowed the Earldom of South Haven, and all of the responsibilities that entailed.

I wish the Doctor had been able to give us teleportation abilities, because this shuttling back and forth between the main command base for the RSN, on the moon, was becoming taxing. I had so much to do, even after I had finished organizing my staff.

I had 500 ships, with over four million crew members to organize. Even though Vice Admiral Ericsson, my admiral in charge of personnel, was handling most of it, I had to approve every promotion to captain or above, and their assignments. That alone included about 500-600 people.

"My lord, we're arriving at Ashford Castle," the pilot said over the intercom. I looked up from the report of the Fifth Fleet. I had been so engrossed in work that I had missed the entire trip to the surface. Two F-99 space fighters escorted the shuttle to the grounds of Earth's new capitol.

The shuttle landed gently on the ground and I picked up my briefcase. It had several E-pads in it, all classified military operations that needed approval. Emma had made it VERY clear that I was not allowed to conduct any major offensive without her permission. So, I had brought all seven plans my staff and I had concocted.

The Sontarans couldn't be allowed to be on the offensive. My plan was to use blitzkrieg runs on their main fleet bases that we had discovered over the last few months. With their navy in chaos, and no way to repair damaged ships, they'd have to stop attacking long enough for us to finish constructing our ships.

A Queen's Own guard walked up to the ramp and saluted. I returned the salute and shook her hand. She was a younger member of the guard, so she was usually sent out to the shuttle pad to receive guests. In the dozens of trips to Ashford, she and I had become relatively good friends. Rank and age made a real friendship impossible, but we were as close as we could be.

"Morning my lord," she said.

"Morning Danielle. How's her majesty this morning?" I asked. In public, I still used Emma's formal title. It seemed the right thing to do. In private, we dropped the titles, but if there was so much as one guard in the room, we resumed our use of formal titles.

"Pretty good sir. She's stressed understandably. There's a lot of pressure from the alliance to get the offensive ball rolling, but she's holding her own in there. She has a lot of good support, so her plan to give you a month should hold up," she replied. The response was longer than needed, but that was because she was secretly telling me how the emergency alliance meeting had gone last night.

"That's good news. I assume she's in her office," I said as we entered the castle.

"Yes my lord. Regent Meggie is with her," she said as we approached the office doors. The two guards standing watch stiffened and looked sharp as they saw me approach. I had to admit that I was warming up to the attention. My uniform was a little more conspicuous than I'd like, with all the medals and insignia, but otherwise that, I was enjoying being so highly ranked.

One of the guards knocked on the door three times. A voice yelled out for the guard to open the door. He turned the aging knob and opened the door and walked in. The door was closed behind, but thankfully, there were no guards or attendants in the room. Emma was in sweat pants and a t-shirt. I checked my ancient pocket-watch, a gift from the Doctor.

"Morning James. Have a seat," she said. The Doctor walked in and smiled when he saw me. Meggie was throwing darts at a picture of General Zhan, Commander Sontaran Fleet. "I assume you have the plans for me," she said. I sat down in my usual armchair.

"Yeah. I have seven for you to choose from. I hope you don't have any other appointments. They're gonna take a while."

"Oh, I thought that might be the case, so I cleared my morning. Well, Michael cleared my morning," she said. I smiled and shook my head. Michael had been chosen to be Emma's slave basically. He was always running errands for her.

"Good. Now plan 1 includes several fleets," I said, beginning the hours long presentation.