AN: And here's the next chapter! A few revelations, some character building, but still no action! It'll come soon, though, so don't worry! - MB
The Confederacy was, for lack of a better word, a surprise to the Imperials.
Used to being the foremost country of Technomancy, with only two other rivals for that title, they were thus incredibly shocked when, upon reaching Confederate airspace, they were met with a tight security cordon made up of Assault Ships.
Harry was gaping at the ships from the cockpit when the first transmission came through.
"Unidentified vessel," came the female voice. "Identify yourself and purpose of visit."
The pilot nervously looked up to Harry, who nodded back, before punching the active transmission button. "Confederate Assault Ship," replied the pilot. "This is Diplomatic Imperial Shuttle Messenger, we are transporting the British Sovereign on a diplomatic mission to the Confederacy."
"Stand by for confirmation. Do not attempt to land or you will be shot down."
The pilots nervously watched either side of their glass window as they passed between two Assault Ships, their sides covered with cannons aimed at them. Five minutes passed with none of the three men feeling very sure anymore about the visit before they saw the cannons shift to another target.
"DIS Messenger," came the voice soon after. "You have been cleared for landing at Capital Airfield, Landing Pad Four. We are sending you the trajectory now."
"Copy that, Confederate Assault Ship," replied the pilot as all three men let out a sigh of relief. Harry nodded to the pilots briefly before heading back into the passenger cabin. Elizabeth had been reading a book during the whole affair.
Glancing up from her reading, she gave her Field Marshall a bright smile. "Anything interesting going on?"
Harry shrugged. "Nothing serious, Your Majesty," he assured her, while he was truthfully reeling on the inside about the Confederates having Assault Ship technology. Obviously, the balance of power wasn't calibrated the way he'd thought.
Harry's mind raced with the massive ramifications of this discovery. With the Imperials, Death Eaters, Americans, and now the Confederacy holding the Archangel technology, this meant that the Archangel development team had been dispersed more widely than the projected guesses made by the Empire. However, what was more terrifying was the issue that with the Confederacy in the arms race now, there now was another player in the war, potentially joining either the Death Eaters or the Imperial cause.
Truth be told, the idea of fighting another opponent was one that unnerved Harry a great deal, as the Imperial forces were almost stretched to the breaking point with the amount of territory they had to cover. If the Confederacy ever declared war on the Empire...
Harry shuddered at the thought. It would be disastrous; perhaps even spell the end of the Empire.
Sighing, he realized that all he could do was hope for the best, and call up Staples and Sulu once they touched ground.
Capital Airport, Diplomatic Lounge
After having landed at LP-4, the Imperial delegation had been ushered to the Diplomatic Lounge, where a protocol welcoming committee was waiting. All of them seemed nearly euphoric at meeting both the new Queen and the famous Iron Duke. Eventually, however, Harry was able to extricate himself from the conversations and found a nice, quiet corner, where he took out his personal communicator, tuning it to Staples and Sulu's frequencies.
"Ty, John, come in," he mumbled into the communicator.
"We hear you, Harry, what is it?" came Sulu's voice eventually.
Harry glanced around him to make sure no one was listening before mumbling once more into his communicator. "Turns out we were wrong about the balance of power."
Both Staples and Sulu knew what this meant. It meant that the Assault Ship technology had leaked outside of the British-Death Eater War participants.
"The Japanese?" asked Sulu.
"Improbable," came Staples' gruff reply. "They would have deployed some on patrol by now, and I've not seen an Assault Ship that wasn't ours or our enemies' in those waters."
"It's the Confederacy," Harry told them softly.
"The Confederacy?" Harry didn't think he'd ever heard Staples sound so sceptically outraged before. Truthfully, though, none of them had ever even considered the Confederacy as a potential threat.
Harry forced himself not to nod. "Aye. I counted about seven in just one sector as the Messenger was entering Confederate Airspace."
"…and if we extrapolate that to the remaining known sectors of Confederate Airspace," Sulu added, "that makes about…seventy Assault Ships of varying classes, minimum."
"We still have supremacy," concluded Staples gruffly. "Our fleet counts with a little less than triple that amount and rising. Our losses in Utah included."
"Numbers isn't everything, Staples," Sulu noted softly.
Harry unconsciously nodded, though neither Sulu nor Staples would be able to see this. "I agree," he added shortly. "And let us remember that this is all they have that we can see. Didn't your spies tell you that there was a potential conflict going on down south, John?"
"Indeed," came the soft-spoken reply. "We'd noticed increased activity on the Brazil-Confederate border. It seems the Dark Wizards in Brazil are starting to turn towards the Death Eaters' camp."
"We can't interfere," Staples growled. "The Imperial military is, at is stands, way too spread out. With O'Connor and McDonald acting shifty, Sydney under siege, and numerous other skirmishes occurring over Africa and Asia, our ships are barely able to keep up with patrol routes. And even then, we still have blind spots!"
"Perhaps it would be for the best if you were to return, Harry," suggested Sulu
"Agreed," agreed Harry, followed shortly by Staples' agreeing grunt, before noticing someone coming over to him by the window's reflection. "Alright, I have to go. Protocol man is coming."
Harry heard brief acknowledgements as he clicked off the communicator and subtly stashed it away inside his coat. He then turned smilingly at the liaison.
"Your Grace, we were wondering where you were!" greeted the man.
Harry allowed a polite chuckle to escape his lips. "I just needed some time alone. My apologies if I've worried anyone."
The liaison merely smiled good-naturedly and started rambling his predetermined speech while Harry nodded every so often, smiling all the time. The Duke was used to the procedure. He would step off a shuttle, get greeted by some suspiciously cheerful men and women, who would then proceed to tell him how wonderful it was that he was visiting their country, to then offer him anything he wanted to drink or eat, then telling him where he was staying, before finally escorting him to the car. Only this time, Harry wasn't the guest of honour, but rather the assistant. Thus, instead of a large group of people welcoming him and all, he was stuck with his personal liaison.
Harry indulged the man's rambling all the way to the car, where he could see that Elizabeth was quickly getting frustrated with the protocol team, who were smothering her. If the young Duke had learned anything in his tenure at the Queen's side, it was that Elizabeth hated being smothered.
Thus, when Elizabeth shot him a pleading look, Harry did the only thing he could in such a situation.
He grinned and waved.
Elizabeth was bored.
It had been no more than an hour after they had disembarked and Harry had left back to the Imperial Capital (quickly replaced by Prime Minister Allen Lee), and yet here she was, being fawned upon by nearly an entire corps of the Confederacy's legions of diplomatic attachés. She was sitting in a wooden, throne-like replica of her chair in the Imperial Palace, watching as diplomat after diplomat bent over backwards in order to impress her or try to influence her one way or another. After dealing with the Emperor of Japan's concubines, Elizabeth found most of the diplomats int he Confederacy to be woefully inept in the art of manipulation. Even now, one of them was at the foot of her pre-made dais, trying to convince her of the advantages of hiring Confederate shipyards for building up the Imperial fleet. Not that she had the power to immediately sanction any such thing.
She felt less ill-will, however, towards the Loyalists who had attended her welcome ceremony in the renovated party-hall. Many ex-Britons had arrived to offer obeisance, kneeling before her and asking her to bless them (Anglicans, she imagined); of course, she tried to get out of doing any such thing, disregarding herself as a saint of any sort, and yet always ended up being coaxed into performing the act. She had once even been asked to hold a woman's child and bless him with a kiss to the forehead, which she had reluctantly then done.
Through her boredom, however, she noticed that humans weren't the only species attending her welcoming. At the back of the room, in seemingly secret discussions with either other humanoid beings or humans were goblins. The small, green-skinned beings seemed to relish the opportunity to do business, and their leader had even once come forth to welcome her in a most polite fashion that even made most human attempts at the same pale in comparison.
Elizabeth now nodded as her current speaker finished his (allegedly) subtle offers at huge deals if he were offered a contract. After bowing and kissing her hand, the man was then escorted to a safe distance from her by Elizabeth's Imperial Guard, who took their jobs enormously seriously. The red-decked elite soldiers had a safe perimeter established around her dais, and not-so-subtly forced people away from their Queen if they got too close without requesting an audience formally. Only the Prime Minister and the Confederate Prime Minister had any right to pass by unhindered.
Turning to her Prime Minister, who was standing by her left side, Elizabeth whispered. "Surely this is not all that is going to happen here, Prime Minister?" she nearly hissed. Frankly, the boredom was driving her out of her mind.
Lee looked at her apologetically for a split second before adopting his typical cheery-like disposition. "Thousand pardons, Your Majesty, but I'm afraid so. The more lively events were planned for later during your visit," he told her as he smiled to a passing diplomat and nodded his head in greeting. "I'm afraid the doldrums must come first, though."
Elizabeth sighed as she tapped a finger on her armrest repeatedly. "What is the point of being Queen if all there is to do is look pretty and smile, Lee?" she asked rhetorically. "I was under the impression that my ancestors were far more active during their reign."
"Not your immediate ancestors, I'm afraid, Majesty," corrected Lee as he gave a small, cheery wave to two female assistants who passed by and were giggling at his act. "
Your namesake was unfortunately barred from active participation in the affairs of state. You, in fact, perhaps possess twice the power she did during her reign."
Elizabeth nodded silently. A moment of silence passed between the two as they kept greeting diplomats and other well-wishers. Elizabeth then broke the silence again. "I understand that I am expected to wed soon, Lee?" she mentioned. With some interest, she noticed that Lee had frozen up.
"Yes...well..." stuttered Lee before clearing his throat as quietly as possible. "Majesty, we're worried that the line may end with you, you understand," he explained. "After all, you are the last of a thousand year old line of monarchs; Since even before the days of William the Conqueror," he reminded her. "We just wish to safeguard the throne."
"And my happiness, Prime Minister?" asked Elizabeth icily. So much so that even her guards were getting restless with discomfort. "Am I not to wed the man I love when and if I find him?"
Lee fidgeted again. "Ideally, yes, Majesty," he conceded. "However, unless you have found this man, we must really insist that you find the most suitable suitor and simply marry him. Parliament is most emphatic on this point, Majesty," he told her.
"The pox with Parliament and their wishes!" hissed Elizabeth. "I will marry in due time, and have children when I am ready, Minister. Not at the whim of a group of desperate men, and certainly not at the word of self-serving politicians!"
Lee seemed taken aback by the Queen's virulent condemnation, but his eyes showed a certain measure of respect, too. Like the military brass, he had felt some scepticism at the Queen's ability due to her age, but her stubborn refusal to be bullied around by Parliament elicited in him a deep feeling of respect for the 15-year old girl, for whom his heart went out to, as his own little girl was the Queen's age.
"Of course, Majesty," he accepted obediently.