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  “No reinforcements, I take it?”

  “No, sir. Looks like we’re going to be on our own for a while,” she said, speaking more formally now that crew were present.

  “We’re not dead yet,” he reminded them. “So long as we stay alive there’s still a chance of rescue.”

  8 hours later that rescue would come in the form of a Star Force SR and escorts, sent to respond to the distress call as well as search the battle debris for any survivors. By that time all 7 pods had grouped together and interconnected, with the hammerhead of the SR swallowing them up inside its forward bay and attaching them to the internal airlock as work skiffs nudged the entire assembly into place, after which the Americans were free to exit their pods and move inside the pressurized portion of the Star Force ship.

  The Admiral came out last, nearly catatonic, with Carolyn staying at his side the entire way to the med bay, grateful for gravity under her feet once again…which also made her overly full bladder all the more insistent. After seeing the Admiral into the hands of a proper medical staff, she excused herself and went with the rest of the rescued crew to get cleaned up and a hot meal to eat. By the time she got back to the med bay, well over an hour later, Dan was already awake and alert.

  “Thank you, Carolyn,” he said gratefully as she stepped to the side of his remarkably spartan bed, which was little more than a cushioned pad with no blankets or sheets, only a built in pillow bump. On his head was a small wireless monitoring device, with his vitals being displayed on a plate-sized screen positioned over his ‘bed.’

  “What was I going to do? Gramps would never have let me hear the end of it if I’d left you behind.”

  “Family connection aside, I owe you.”

  “Damn straight you do. Someone needs to teach you how to duck,” she said in jest, knowing that there was no way he or anyone else could have avoided that exploding wall. She’d been lucky not to be hit herself.

  “Figure he’s ok?”

  “I hope so,” she said, the spark gone from her voice. She looked her cousin in the eye and shook her head. “He’s not going to be happy when he hears about this.”

  “He hasn’t been happy since the war started,” Dan pointed out.

  “It’s worse when it’s personal,” Carolyn said, dropping her eyes. “He’ll be kicking himself for no reason, you know that.”

  “Have they let you send a message?”

  “Yes, they’re being very accommodating…as usual.”

  “What are they going to do with us?”

  Carolyn glanced at the handful of medics walking about, none within ear shot of her return whisper.

  “They’ll be sending us back to Earth, eventually,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “but first we’re being transferred to a Star Force facility in Lunar orbit.”

  “That’s rather out of the way,” he said, catching her tone.

  Carolyn nodded. “I have a feeling they’re going to lay down a blockade on the Moon.”

  Dan frowned, less from the persistent headache than from the strategy of the situation. Ever since Mars, the American military hadn’t been sure what to expect from Star Force at Earth, though a blockade of the Moon made perfect sense. Deescalate the ground war by denying supplies, much as they had at Mars, only this time they would have the bulk of all the major players’ navies to contend with.

  He certainly hoped Washington wouldn’t be so reckless as to try and confront Star Force directly, though a part of him hoped that the British and Japanese would be so bold and get their asses handed to them. At the same time though, that wasn’t entirely a pleasant thought, given that his grandfather was currently living on Luna…and serving as Governor of a British colony, no less.

  2

  March 20, 2109

  Duke Nevil Windsor slammed his fist onto his desktop, bouncing the items thereupon into the air in the low Lunar gravity. “I swear, this has gone too far!”

  He left the message from his granddaughter on his screen and hauled his 92 year old body out of his chair and began to pace to and fro across his office…an old habit he’d developed in times of deep reflection, and right now he definitely needed to think.

  To date his colony on Luna hadn’t been directly affected by the war, it was one of several city-states located in the UK’s various territorial zones, all scattered across the surface of the moon. His was the largest and sandwiched between Star Force, Australian, Brazilian, and Spanish territories, leaving the Americans and Germans with no direct overland access to his duchy, to which he’d been appointed Governor at the founding, some 32 years ago.

  He and many of the other colonists had grown old on Luna, so much so that they couldn’t return home to the isles without risking cardiac arrest, due to what now seemed like an excessive amount of gravity. Nevil’s body had adjusted to the low g’s, and thanks to his growing up on Earth his average lifespan had been greatly expanded, as had many others whose latent strength made them seemingly superhuman compared to those few colonists that had been born on the moon. They’d never known the higher gravity, and had learned to walk, run, jump, and otherwise live normally in what others had initially felt to be an alien environment.

  Nevil had a foot in both worlds now, having been on Luna for so long. Some days he felt like a native, others reminded him of his roots on Earth…but today was unique in that he held a pure hatred for his home country. A nation he had been fervently loyal to his entire life, which was one of the reasons he’d been entrusted with the leadership of Tranquility and mostly left to his own purposes with regards to the colony. He ruled here, for lack of a better term, but now he was truly ashamed of his British heritage, something that turned his stomach with all sorts of internal conflict.

  The Royal Navy had tried to kill his grandchildren…and almost succeeded. They’d attacked and then destroyed the defense station they’d both been posted to, with no attempts made at capturing the behemoth American station or offering the crew an honorable surrender. The Navy, along with the rest of the UK it seemed, was out for blood.

  The same could be said of the Americans, though the British/Japanese alliance had them playing more defense than offense these days, with the major exception being the ground war. When the UK had launched a combined offensive against the American Lunar territories they’d encountered more resistance than they’d expected and quickly found themselves losing territory once the new ground war kicked off. If it wasn’t for the help of the Japanese and Indian armies, the Americans would have overrun them entirely instead of the perpetual stalemate that had ensued.

  Nevil was glad that there hadn’t been a rout, because Tranquility could have come under attack with the backlash. As it was they were in a stable portion of Luna, but no territory was truly safe from a dropship launched attacked, so Nevil’s own security forces had been instructed to stay alert at all times. The small military base within the city had long since been evacuated. Its troops redeployed to the front where they had been deemed ‘necessary.’ Nevil had still been fuming about that call on the part of Admiral Popplewell, leaving him with little more than a police force should Tranquility come under attack, when the message from Carolyn had come through.

  Truth be told, Nevil had been on edge ever since the war started, with four of his six grandchildren in service to the American military. Pauli was stationed on Earth and presumably safe, while Martin had been serving in the American Mars fleet and captured by Star Force when they took control of the planet and booted all the warring nations out. The Duke had been utterly distraught until he learned that Martin and the rest of the troops had been returned to Earth unharmed, feeling like he’d dodged the proverbial bullet there.

  But now he had come within a hair of losing his other two grandchildren, with his own people to blame and Star Force to thank for their rescue. How could the Royal Navy refuse to pick up enemy escape pods? Where was their honor? Nevil’s blood was boiling so much that he didn’t even notice his personal a
ssistant enter his office.

  “Duke,” the thin man said politely, drawing his attention with a wave of his hand. “We have received a message from Star Force.”

  Nevil came to a standstill in the center of his office, his back to the thick transparent windows looking out over the Lunar surface from the 34th floor of the royal tower. “To whom was it addressed?”

  “It’s a general announcement to the moon, announcing their implementation of a blockade.”

  “A blockade?” Nevil said, rubbing the thin white goatee on his thick jaw thoughtfully. “Same as they did on Mars?”

  “It appears so. Only the factions involved in the war are affected. All other transit will be allowed to proceed normally. The message has been uploaded to your terminal if you would like to review it in detail. There were a number of stipulations regarding the interaction between involved and uninvolved parties.”

  “Thank you, I will,” the Duke said distractedly. “Tell the quartermaster to begin tightening his stores. We may have to enact rationing at some point, and I’d rather that be later than sooner.”

  The man nodded respectfully then backtracked out of the office to relay Nevil’s orders, leaving the Governor to his pacing, which resumed as soon as the door closed. His circular loop swung by his desk where he picked up a datapad and linked in to his office’s computer system, finding and pulling up the Star Force communiqué.

  As he expected, the message was both proper and thorough. They were locking down all orbital traffic, including short range hops from territory to territory via dropship. Overland transit hadn’t been banned, as of yet, but one condition of allowing the non-involved parties to continue with orbital shipping was a mandatory restriction against trade between nation zones involved in the war…which meant his duchy was completely isolated. He couldn’t receive supplies or troops from other allied territories, nor could he supply them via air traffic, and there were no overland routes available that didn’t pass through nonaligned territories.

  That meant for the duration of this blockade Tranquility was on its own with no way to resupply or evacuate…though he imagined that Star Force would allow a surrender if he allowed them to confiscate the facilities and territory. It would either be that or wait for London to decide to abandon the war…and he knew deep down in the pit of his churning gut that they’d let Tranquility rot before doing so, just like they did with their colonies on Mars.

  Nevil had kept in close contact with Duke Chamberlain, Governor of the Sunrise colony on Mars during the ordeal and he knew that they’d suffered through severe rationing up until the time came when Star Force landed troops and relieved him of his duchy, evacuating all of the colonists and tending to the sick and injured as they were shipped off planet. Privately the Duke had confided in Nevil that he had been grateful for the end of the ordeal, noting that it seemed that Star Force cared more about the British citizenry than London did.

  His contemporary had recently arrived back on Earth, unsure what his future assignments, if any, would be. Like Nevil he had relished the position of Governor, both for the opportunity and responsibility of expanding British holdings across the star system. Both men had done well to grow their upstart colonies into something truly grand, second only to Star Force in terms of structural and economic largess, making the handful of large British colonies the envy of their neighbors.

  Not everyone was so keen on building civilian populations, to be sure. Many simply sought natural resources or other economic/military ventures, but the British colonization push had been civilization based, intent on spreading its people outward. Nevil had wholeheartedly agreed with this approach, and was pleased with the gentlemen’s rivalry with the Americans when the colonization rush began…it was the more recent years during which that rivalry had turned into an economic feud when his mood had soured, but he had always supported his grandchildren, even if they weren’t British.

  Why his two daughters had chosen to marry foreigners he’d never understand, but in the end they both turned out to be good men, which he was fortunate for. His family had long since been the foundation of his existence, bolstered by the fact that they were distant relatives of the royal family, but primarily rooted in the solidarity the family structure provided. He not only had close ties with his immediate family, but those of his two deceased brothers as well. The Windsor family stuck together, supported each other in times of distress and honored each other with each individual’s accomplishments adding to the family name.

  Even the American branch of the family was as much an integrated part as the British components…as well as one small New Zealand offshoot. Never before had the family known division, but now Nevil’s loyalties to his British roots came into direct contrast with those of his family…and it was eating him up.

  Not only that, but he, as Governor, had a responsibility to the 67,854 colonists under his care…and thanks to London they were going to be disregarded in favor of national pride. How could the common bloke back home be so ignorant? Was it because they felt themselves safe on Earth that they had no concern for those of us up here? Are we just pawns in some massive game of chess?

  Nevil sighed, tossing his datapad back on the desk as he continued to pace. His metaphor was more apt than he’d intended. London was treating the colonists as pawns…and in chess, the pawns were the first ones sacrificed in order to protect the King.

  But they weren’t pawns, damn it. They were people. London had a responsibility to them as much as to those British citizens on Earth and they were completely abandoning that duty! The Duke wondered if there was any shred of honor left in the politics of parliament these days.

  One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to abandon these people…not that he could leave either, but that wasn’t the point. He did have a code of honor, and as Governor he had more responsibilities than perks, and he’d be damned if he was going to let his people suffer for the sake of London’s war.

  His arms locked behind his back as he paced, signaling a trend of thought. An idea was in the makings, and a bold one at that. He’d been bordering on dishonor ever since the war had begun by taking sides against his own family, but since he wasn’t involved in the military side of things he’d convinced himself that he was neutral in the conflict and posed no threat to his American kin, but his heart had still been torn in two, unable to fully support his fellow Brits when their victory could mean the death of his family members.

  Now he had an opportunity to right that wrong, even if it wasn’t of his own making. His honor would be restored and his duty to his subjects acquitted at the same time…all thanks to Star Force. Their blockade gave him the separation he needed, and if there were to be tough times ahead he was going to turn Star Force’s crippling strategy into a game changer, if they would allow him to, and he figured they just might.

  The Duke stopped in front of the east window and stared out over the barren Lunar surface, then tilted his chin down a bit to look out over the city-state that seemed to be creeping further and further out from the tower each day as more buildings slowly assimilated the moon’s surface, civilizing it into a proper home, one that both he and his family could be proud of.

  Or so he hoped, because if he was able to pull this off, it would be the only home he had left.

  Turning about he walked over to his desk and stabbed the comm button. “Mr. Sandsbury, I need all my senior staff members in my office in one hour. No excuses for not attending. We have an urgent matter to discuss.”

  3

  March 29, 2109

  “First you seized our facilities and ships in the asteroid belt,” the German Ambassador complained to Davis, “then you went and kicked everyone off Mars, but now a blockade of the Moon! This is totally unacceptable! We are a sovereign nation and have the right to go to war if we so choose. It is not for you to decide if and when there is to be any fighting. You’ve already laid down your economic penalties, which are damning enough, but you’re not the UN. You have no
right to dictate to us over matters that do not concern you.”

  “Be wary, Ambassador,” Davis said evenly, seated behind his desk in a practiced pose of calm with the busy backdrop of the sun-soaked Atlantis cityscape behind him with regular dropship and aircraft flights coming to and fro, making the ocean city the busiest commerce port on the planet. “If you claim to have the right to make war, then Star Force likewise has that right. And if we should choose to blockade rather than fight, then that’s our prerogative.”

  The Ambassador’s face scrunched up in disgust. “You are a business, not a nation.”

  “We are the guardians,” Davis said more pointedly, “and your war serves no purpose. If there was legitimate cause for fighting we’d be the first to jump in, fists swinging.”

  “And you don’t consider Japan’s nuking of the American shipyards a legitimate cause?”

  “If that were truly your motivation it would be a different matter entirely, but we both know it is not. It was an excuse to join in the powergrab, and we will continue to reduce the war’s scope up until Germany either surrenders or has nothing left to fight with. You still have time to save face and your Lunar territories…some of them anyway. If we have to land troops to stop the surface campaigns you’ll lose all of them.”

  “So…you mean to pick us clean to the bone?”

  “I hope it won’t come to that,” Davis said, steepling his fingers in front of his chest, “but we’re prepared to do so if Germany and the others nations don’t stop fighting of their own accord.”

  The German Ambassador shook his head in disgust. “You have no right.”

  “As of now, Germany is being stricken with a military ban on Luna. If you remove your troops immediately you will be allowed to conduct civilian projects in your current territories…though not those you took from the South Africans. You’ll have to relinquish those, but the others will come under Star Force protection when you withdraw your troops. If the British or the Japanese wish to try and add them to their holdings, they’ll have our military to deal with. If you persist in waging a ground war for territories that you know I’m not going to let you keep, then you’ll be expelled from Luna entirely.”