A Future Caskett
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You know this by now, right? Rating: K Time: See below.
"Will you two let me talk?" Castle yelled, quieting them down. "To begin with, I did not rent this house. I bought it. I had to sell the house in the capitol, our country house and the beach house, but I got a pretty good price for them in spite of the rushed sale." He pulled out his phone and pulled up an app. "As of right now, seventy three percent of my finances have been transferred to Imperial financial institutions and are denominated in Imperial crowns and not in Protectorate sovereigns. A lot of Elites have homes and money stashed in the Empire, so no one in the Protectorate will be surprised or even interested. Also, I've hired an Imperial moving company to move everything from our houses and Kate's place to here. The furniture here is rented so don't be too hard on it, Alexis."
"Me be hard on it? Who broke the end table and a lamp demonstrating how Derrick Storm escaped from prison? What about the sofa when you…."
"Just kidding, Pumpkin. And one more thing, we now have these." He took three laminated ID cards from his pocket and passed them out. "We are now legal residents of the Empire. And if you're interested, the Empire has no extradition treaty with the Protectorate."
"We're safe?" Kate asked. "Alexis isn't going to prison?"
"No. We're all safe."
"Dad, what are you going do here? The Ministry of Culture will never publish another of your books."
"We do have a lot of money. And it's a little known fact that I'm a successful author of children's books in the Empire under the name of Miss Periwinkle Plum."
That cracked both Kate and Alexis up.
"And I hope my Imperial publisher will be interested in the further adventures of Nikki Heat in the Empire."
"I guess you'll still need to follow me around." Kate teased.
"Which reminds me of something." Rick said. "Kate, I'm not an Elite here in the Empire, just a writer of children's books who's fled from the Protectorate. And you're not a former resident of Junktown. Most of the people here don't know what that is and they don't care. So," Rick dropped to one knee, "Katherine Houghton Beckett, will you marry me?" He held out a ring to her.
Kate was so surprised she couldn't say a word.
Alexis, fearing a no, spoke. "Kate, say yes. We're a family now. You have to say yes."
Finally Kate managed to nod her head and then managed to squeak out a yes.
Rick slid the ring on her finger and kissed her. Alexis rushed around the table to hug both of them. They hugged until there was a knock on the door.
"Don't answer it." Kate said.
"I'm afraid it's the moving company. We need to get our furniture in."
They spent the rest of the afternoon arranging some of the furniture. Kate made sure the master bedroom was exactly like the bedroom they had shared, while Alexis arranged her own room and Rick did the kitchen. Admittedly, Kate did take time off to look at her engagement ring and to kiss Rick, who, obligingly, kissed her back.
By dinnertime they were starved.
"I suggest we order out for pizza with everything on it." Rick said.
"It won't be as good as what you cook." Said Kate.
"True, but it'll give me more time with my fiancé."
"More time with your fiancé? I like that."
The next morning Alexis and Kate got up ready to arrange more furniture.
Rick put a stop to that. "We're here for a vacation and that's what we're going to do. I've made up a list for the movers as to what goes in what rooms. The rest of the furniture will go into storage, so if we're unhappy with anything, we can do some rearranging."
"What are we going to do today, then?" Alexis asked.
Rick stopped and looked puzzled. "I don't know, really. I suppose we could go out on that big white yacht that just pulled up to our dock."
Rick told them to dress appropriately and reminded Kate that he had bought her a yachting outfit the day before. Then they went to the dock were the captain and the crew met them. Then they went off just lazing on deck and watching the world go by.
But by late afternoon they started to hear the sound of police and fire sirens from the Protectorate.
"What could that be?" Alexis asked.
Kate explained. "Some of the serious drinkers save their money so they can have a real drunk on the weekend. Since the liquor will be free this weekend, they started early with their own money. A lot of them are getting to the stage where they're looking for trouble. The police will give them all they want."
Seeing that what was happening upset Kate, Rick asked the captain to take them closer to the Ocean, which settled Kate down. By sunset they were back at their new home, happy and tired.
They did nothing on Saturday, and did nothing with great pleasure and did it very well indeed. At late afternoon, Rick announced that he would be making his usual Birthday dinner of chili cheeseburgers and garlic fries.
Once dinner was over, he surprised Alexis by bringing her tripod mounted telescope out to the patio and hooking it up to a big screen TV.
"What's that for, dad?" Alexis asked.
"You're not turning into a peeping Tom are you?" Kate teased.
"Tonight there will be fireworks in the Protectorate. From here we can easily see the fireworks at Aquatic Park and the Meadowlands, but with this we can see fireworks as far away as Memorial Park and the Rowdy's fastball stadium. We might even be able to see some from Halliday Amusement Park. Now, may I offer you some wine and lemonade?"
Once he sun was fully down, Rick and Kate cuddled on a chaise longue while Alexis relaxed at the far end of the patio.
After many "oohs" and "aahs" the fireworks were all done. Alexis went to put her telescope away.
"No, leave it out. I think there'll be more fireworks."
Alexis shook her head. "Dad, the fireworks are all over. Look, you can see the crowds are leaving from Aquatic Park. They're over."
"Just leave the telescope, please?"
Alexis shrugged and went back to her place at the end of the patio.
Nothing happened for over two hours and Kate was about to insist that they go back inside and prepare for bed when there was a flash of light across the river, followed by the roar of an explosion. Kate jumped to her feet.
"There's been an explosion in Capitol City." The words were no sooner out of her mouth when a dozen or more explosions occurred almost simultaneously.
"Dad!" Alexis cried. "There's something headed to the city. It looks like a swarm of fireflies."
Some of the fireflies nosed over and exploded in the city and others kept going until they were out of sight.
"What's happening?" Alexis cried.
"I believe we're at war with the Union." Castle said sadly.
"You knew this was going to happen." Alexis said accusingly.
Castle shook his head. "I didn't know it would happen. I suspected it would happen someday and I thought it just might happen on Birthday when too many people would be drunk over there."
"How did you suspect?" Kate demanded.
"Do you remember Storm's Crisis?"
"What does one of your books have to do with this?"
"Before that book, Storm's enemies were mercenaries, mad scientists, and cabals of billionaires plotting world domination. It was kind of hinted that the Union was behind them, but nothing definite. Then the Ministry of Culture asked me to openly identify the Union as our enemy. I was just starting the book when I realized I knew, well more than a layman's knowledge, about the Protectorate's armed forces, police and intelligence services, but nothing all about the Union's. So, I asked the Ministry of Culture if they could have someone send me some literature about the Union's military, police, and intelligence services. A couple of days later I got a call from some bored officer at the Ministry of National defense asking how much I wanted. I told him to send me everything they had and to keep it coming."
"Oh! I remember that." Alexis said.
"A couple of days later I got packages totaling a hundred and seventy pounds of books, magazines, newspapers, and what not. Oddly, most of it was unclassified stuff from the Union itself, or from the Empire or other countries and almost nothing from the Protectorate or the Commonwealth. And the stuff kept coming. I got enough to do a pretty good job on the book if I do say so myself, but since the MND kept sending me stuff, I kept reading it."
"I remember that too. Sometimes I'd come down and be getting ready for school and I'd find you asleep at your desk with your head on some magazine or newspaper."
"After a while, I began to see a pattern. We had provided the To-AAn with anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles and other military equipment and the Union had to adapt to deal with them. They developed what they called low observable aircraft, that is planes that reflected so little of radar emissions that they were pretty much invisible to radar. They also modified fighter-bombers as electronic warfare aircraft. They'd jam radar emissions and radio transmissions. They also built air to ground missiles that would home in on and destroy radar stations. And, they built guided missiles. Relatively slow ones that used very precise maps they had created with their spy satellites to fly to their targets, hypersonic missiles and even ballistic missiles. A lot of these could be fired from their warships or aircraft from their carriers. I eventually decided that they were putting together forces that could defeat the Protectorate."
"But they'd still have to invade from Pirenna d'Cor, wouldn't they?" Kate asked. "What about the Protectorate forces there?"
"The Union has changed their army as well. Fewer tanks in their divisions and more infantry, and lots and lots more artillery. They also have raised a large division of paratroops. The Union has had observers on the crests of the Tocono Mountains for forty years watching every move we make. And their aircraft will be able to operate over the eastern part of the Protectorate as easily as they have over the Capitol City. After their artillery and aircraft pound the Protectorate's positions, I think they'll send in foot mobile infantry. Fire an anti-tank missile at a group of dispersed soldiers, taking cover, and you might kill one or two for each missile. They'll run out of missiles way before the Union runs out of troops."
"Dad, why didn't you tell anyone this?"
"I tried. They laughed at me, told me I was letting my imagination run away with me. They said the defenses were impregnable and I was totally wrong."
"Do you think the Protectorate will lose?" Kate asked.
"I think so. I'm not sure that would be a bad thing."
"Me either."
Both adults looked at Alexis.
"I wanted change, but not a war. I just don't know." Alexis suddenly said goodnight and went to bed.
Both Rick and Kate went to bed although they had trouble sleeping through the bombing across the river.
The next morning there were fewer missile strikes, but there were more Union aircraft over the Protectorate. Some attacked targets in Capital City others flew on to targets further east.
"They seem to be bombing from quite high up." Kate said as they ate breakfast. "Can they hit anything from that height?"
"They use laser guided bombs." Castle told her.
"What?"
"A laser is a very focused beam of light." Alexis said. "They point a laser at a target and it's only a few inches wide at the target, unlike a regular beam of light. There's a seeker in the nose of the bomb that guides the bomb to the target."
"The Protectorate doesn't seem to be fighting back much."
Rick sighed. "You know the police are corrupt. You know the upper ranks of the government are corrupt. I'm afraid the military is just as corrupt. Conscription is supposed to keep units one hundred percent manned. But unit commanders will allow as much as thirty percent of their troops to unofficially buy their way out of the military. The troops are still on the rolls, so the unit commanders collect their pay. They also sell thirty percent of the food they get on the black market, as well as medicines, shoes, boots, plus gas and, well, anything the missing thirty percent would have consumed. Seeing their officers get rich, how willing to fight do you think the remaining soldiers are?"
"The Protectorate is going to lose, aren't they?"
"Yes, Kate, they are."