And here we have it, the sequel to my most successful fanfiction ever, one which attracted some of the best people I've met in a long time. :)
I dedicate this story to all the loyal readers who followed the last one, to the readers to come, and to my friend who helped me with this story. :)
You're all awesome.
Amelia spread marmite on her toast and took a bite, enjoying the salty taste as it swept across her tongue. This was possibly even more enjoyable than the sun of the early morn. She finished off the toast, licking her fingers and then standing. She downed the rest of her coffee, picked at her prim uniform jacket, and walked inside. She set her things in the sink to be washed later and brushed her teeth, coming back downstairs in time to catch Sunny, in a most heroic form of toddler bravery, attempting to steal a cookie from the cookie jar, his hair sticking up like he'd put his finger in a light socket.
"Oh, no, no, no," she scooped him up, getting a squeal from the little boy. She tickled his belly to drawl out more squeals before blowing a raspberry on it and holding him close. Though hyped up, he snuggled up to her immediately and remained still as he pet her head. "Surprised your awake this early little one...makes me won-" She stopped, letting out a soft giggle when she felt Delbert kissing her neck and wrap his arms around her waist.
"Daddy!" Chirped Sunny, reaching his chubby little hands to Delbert. Delbert smiles and leaned over Amelia, taking and kissing his hands, making Sunny giggle. He then kissed Amelia on the lips, resting his hands on her hips. "Good morning darling."
"Good morning." She nuzzled him. "Usually you aren't up this early, sleepyhead."
"Well usually someone doesn't accidently leave her perfume bottle wide open on my side of the bed." He mumbled into her neck. She smirked and turned around, handing him Sunny and then making a new pot of coffee, pouring him a cup and adding far too little sugar and far too much cream. She always mixed them up, but Delbert never had the heart to tell her. He took it and put Sunny down, allowing the toddler to roam as he followed Amelia to the front door, where she slipped on her provocative uniform boots and kissed his cheek.
"Where are you off too?" He asked, following her to the steps. A few hundred yards away was Aurora, who was managing a carriage pulled by some sort of creature that sported two heads.
"Meeting. No bloody idea what about, but it was called by the Queen."
"Wait, what happened to-"
"The king stepped down Delbert, where have you been, under a rock?"
"In a book." He responded kissing her again. Amelia chuckled. "Either way, she's called a meeting. She's been in power for nearly a year, you know."
"Shit."
She patted his head. "You'll catch up eventually Delby."
"O'tay." He said in a voice much higher in his own before laughing with Amelia and kissing her. She waved and then walked down, climbing into the carriage and being carried off to the meeting by a unusually quiet Aurora.
"Why aren't you talking?" She asked as they pulled up to the ferry and got on. Aurora remained silent, staring at her ticket stub. Her dusty violet eyes were laden with sorrow as she slowly crumpled it in her fist, attracting more attention of the curious Amelia. "This meeting is going to end badly." She said quietly.
"It surely can't be that bad. I wasn't notified of anything." Amelia shrugged it off. By now if anything was going to end up bad, she would know. She was in near constant contact with both the former king and the current Queen, who ruled alone despite the regular customs of marriage before ruling.
"No one has been notified." She said in a dark voice; one that nearly wasn't her own. The one reserved for when it wasn't just herself making these predictions. Amelia glanced at her and caught sight of some gauze wrapped around her wrist and understood. She'd been summoning animals again, more than likely for the purpose of figuring out the strange-goings-on that Amelia admitted she'd been fussing over the past few months. Talk of battle-rumors of a peace treaty with some neighboring kingdom . It was all fuzzy and uncertain. Now the knot forming in Amelia's stomach that made her feel ill was, she felt, a bad omen. They both were silent now, from the ferry to the cab and all the way to the palace, located by the Royal Observatory in the upper left of the spaceport. They showed their ID to the guards and then entered, being greeted with bows from two other guards at the palace doors, who then escorted them to a meeting room.
"Everyone else has already arrived. You're nearly late, actually." Said one guard, rather smugly. Aurora looked at him, flipped him off, and then walked in. Amelia just kicked his shin before carefully following. Around the table were either the highest ranked, most respected, or most promise filled officers and cadets of the Royal Navy, Coast Guard, and Army. Jim and Onyx Arrow were two of the attendees, sitting on either side of Aurora. Besides Amelia, there was General Fredrick Abernathy of the Army, and then General Jeffery Arrow, who was Onyx's father. Queen Illysa stood at one end of the table, while Jeffery and Fredrick sat on either side of the other end. Amelia took the remaining head seat . In order of power, it was Navy, Coast Guard, then Army. Amelia was the closest any military official was going to come to Royalty.
Illysa, dressed in white silk, golden tattoos down her arms, adjusted her elaborate crown and surveyed the crowd, her sharp blue eyes full of both youth and wisdom. She was only twenty three as of her latest birthday two months ago. The curls framing her face bounced as she turned her head to Amelia.
"Madam, how nice of you to join us." You could tell she was young by the tone of sarcasm. Amelia glanced around the table, noting Jim couldn't take his eyes off the young woman. Ah, young infatuation.
"Excuse my less than acceptable attendance, please." She gave no explanation, but none was requested.
Illysa held herself high and breathed deeply. "None of you have been informed of the dire situation our empire finds itself in. Since my father stepped down, I have noticed the tense situation between ourselves and the Procyon Empire. For the last fifty years, we have been on the verge of war."
"Again." Amelia added. They'd been in several major wars over the last few years. Illysa glared. "On the verge of war with Procyon, which, Madam, is-"
"The biggest empire we've faced in centuries over the years we've been battling. We all know this, Your Highness."
"I do not appreciate being interrupted." She growled. Amelia would be dead right now for speaking to royalty like this, if it wasn't for her position.
"I do not appreciate sitting through senseless rambling." Amelia said calmly, standing. "I think you best get to the point. The less time we spend here, the more time we spend fixing whatever problem is arising, and the less has to be known of the whole ordeal."
Illysa paused for a moment before sighing, waving for her to sit. "I see your point, Madam. Thank you for your input."
Amelia, satisfied, sat down. Illysa, shoulders slumped, her posture slightly off, looked at the table of now anxious officers and cadets. "Gentlemen, ladies, in order to avoid a war that would be disastrous for both parties, Proceyon has agreed to sign a peace treaty with the Terran Empire."
There were some light cheers, but most remained silent. It was common that things like this never worked out like they should. Illysa cleared her throat. "But," she said, quieting the crowd, "we have just entered a entirely different war."
"Oh bloody-"
"Fuck cheese." Said Aurora, who so kindly improperly finished Amelia's sentence. Illysa slowly blinked while looking at her. "I do suppose that is an...appropriate statement?" She glanced to Amelia, who nodded slightly. Anything Aurora said was appropriate, unless you wanted to get punched in the face.
"Well then...as I was saying, we've gone to war. Again. But this time it is much...much different."
She looked tired as she continued, walking to a chart that was rolled in, which showed the Terran Empire and all of the planets and islands under its reign. Amelia noted the red X's beside or over islands.
"Unlike before, we do not know our enemy. We have no idea who is attempting to take over. They drive ships we have dubbed "Iron Clads". They are completely made of iron. Swift, maneuverable, and heavily armed. We haven't been able to capture one, let alone beat one. They have either been completely destroying colonies or severely injured. This is what they look like."
A servant came over and rolled down a large picture of a ship that had no deck, with a tank-like middle connecting two sides of an all metal war machine, mounted with three different powerful solar cannons, and several other normal and laser cannons on the sides. Light chatter began and ended quickly as it begun.
"As you can see, they are remarkable. Well armed, and the steel of their bodies is practically invincible. We are aware some of you have not had contact or even heard of these mysterious cretan. All we advise when you see one is run...run as fast and as far as you possibly can. If you possess a quick little boat or perhaps a war hammer, call in reinforcements. We hope with a big enough armada we can take and capture one of these blasted machines." She sighed. Jeffery stood.
"Your Highness, my ships have run into these lily livered bastards, and we have our suspicions that it might be the Procyeons, and that perhaps the signing of this treaty is a way of distracting our military units from the source of the problem so they may fuck us over."
"I'd prefer more proffesional language, Mister Arrow." Illysa warned before sighing and nodding. "It might be, but we have to try something." She turned to Amelia, who felt an atrocious unease working itself up from the pit of her stomach. "Madam, you will ship out with your fleet by June. Until then you will be training cadets for the trials of war, understood?"
Amelia swallowed, knowing she could not refuse. "Yes, Your Majesty."
Each step echoed in Amelia's head, feeling like the blow of a bullet racketing through her cranium. Why her? Why now? She felt like throwing up. She couldn't. She wouldn't. But she had to. They all had to, for the sake of the Empire.
She opened the grand doors of the Doppler mansion, hanging up her coat and hat, the very action feeling weighted by all the sorrow to come. In toddled Matey, her bright auburn hair in a mess around her face, paint on her chubby little hands. Amelia refrained from crying, putting on a tight smile.
"Mama!" She yelled happily, hugging her leg. Amelia swooped her up and threw her in the air, her squeals of joy the only thing keeping her fake smile from faltering. "How's my Matey, eh?"
"Good!" Matey smiled and then began to babble in her own little 2 year old language. Amelia pretended to listen while her thoughts were still clouded with the impending doom upon her and her family. Everyone she loved...she could loose it all again. She padded to Delbert's observatory, where the rest of her children where finger painting on a mass of paper in the corner of the room-and on the curtains as well, it seemed. Amelia set Matey down with her siblings, getting hugs and sloppy kisses from all of them, and then went over to Delbert, who seemed totally absorbed in his work with the telescope.
"Delbert?"
He perked his ears and adjusted the focus of the telescope. "Hello darling. How was the meeting?"
"I...Delbert we need to talk."
Delbert stopped for a moment, glancing at her, then back to the telescope. "I...Is it urgent?"
She sighed. "Oh bloody hell, continue with your work. I'll talk with you later." Not giving him room to say a thing, she went to their bedroom.
She removed her clothing and took a shower, then sat on the bed and stared at the floor. It wasn't long before she heard the maid, Edna, calling out that dinner was ready. Between their sometimes haywire schedules, the overly large mansion, and raising the children, they'd had to get some help. She slowly wandered down, sitting at the table that had a lovely dinner of pasta and salad, which she thanked Edna for. Edna only nodded and left to eat her own dinner. Amelia went about the routine: Eat, talk a bit with Delbert, eat, clean up one of the children's faces, eat, clean up a spill, and repeat until dinner was over. Then she picked up two of the stuffed toddlers and carried them up to the room they all shared, Delbert taking the other two. Though it was her turn, Amelia couldn't summon the voice for a fabulous story of space pirates being defeated by a rather dashing captain, or even read a storybook. Tonight she left that to Delbert, who did his best to hide the uncertain curiosity he was harboring as he flipped to the next page of Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes.
At the end of the Three Little Pigs, the children were dead asleep. Amelia put her two in bed and then just went upstairs, pursued by a worried Delbert. Once in their bedroom, Amelia stripped butt naked and got in bed. Delbert got in his pajamas, used to his wife's preference to sleep naked in the dead of winter. Why? He never had figured it out. He got in next to her and put his arm around her waist, turning her towards him and pulling her close.
"Amelia, what the hell happened?" He asked. Amelia read the worry on his face and sighed. "Delbert...we've gone to war."
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