To Forge a Queen
By
William J. Carty Jr.
Copyright 2015
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Other titles by the author:
Every Last Mother’s Child
To Forge a Queen
By
William J. Carty Jr.
Prologue
The cadets filed into the class room. They quickly took their seats. The time for horse play and chatter was over. All of the cadets were first year cadets or freshmen of the Queen’s Own Royal Corps of Cadets. The academy that trained young people to become officers of the Home Guard, the Home Patrol, the Crown Maritime Rescue Service, and the Home Emergency Response Team for the Kingdom of Home. They would be officers of the militia, planetary police, the ocean rescue service, and the special extra planetary and system group that the crown used to help others off the planet of Home and in the conglomeration of star systems that was the Kingdom of Home. This class was one of several required classes for all first year cadets, and to fail this class was to be dismissed from the corps. Many of the cadets had over the course of their prior education; before being appointed to the academy; had sat through parts of this class. Every year of their elementary education, and their secondary schooling they had been exposed to parts of this required class, but not as a whole complete class on this one subject.
Most of the first year history classes at the academy dealt with the evacuation of Trena and the founding of Home. Throughout their career at the academy they would be exposed to the history of the evacuation. This course discussed how their corps of cadets came about. The lecturer would lecture on the evacuation of Trena that had brought about the creation of the Queens Own Royal Corps of Cadets.
Sitting near the front of the class was Princess Lisa. The princess would be the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Home. She was anxious to hear the story of her great, great, great grandmother who helped to establish the corps. Sitting with her were her cousins, T’harla Atomi, Delores Green, Valerie Morgan, and her Aunt Lamile Mitchum who was all of 19 standard years old and the oldest of them all. They could all trace their linage back to the very first young people to be a cadet in this academy. All of them had heard the stories of the evacuation and the early academy years, but these were second and third hand narratives from their parents who had gotten it from their grandparents. None of them had heard it from one person who had been there.
General Jones, today’s lecturer had been there. She was the oldest sentient being from that time two hundred years ago. The General who was commander of one the action teams of the Home Emergency Respond Team spent a lot of her time deployed with her Team helping to resolve some of the catastrophes affecting the citizens of the Home Star Nation. She only got to Home occasionally; but always for the Landing Day Celebrations.
It was that day, two hundred years ago, when the very first Queen had landed on the planet Home and became the first monarch of Home. This year would be the two hundred and sixth anniversary of that day when Home became a nation. She never missed the celebration.
All of the cadets waited for the general to arrive. The Princess along with her cousins and aunt had listened to the general tell various stories of the evacuation but only as she talked with her parents and grandparents. From what the older cadets had said, this lecture was something special and the General didn’t do it for every class, but when she did do it; it was only the freshmen class that received the privilege of hearing the General’s lecture about the founding of their academy and corps.
“Room Atten-hut!” a cadet called from the back of the room as the general entered the class. The cadets came to their feet while the general walked to the podium. It was hard to believe that the five eight, one hundred and forty pound thirty something appearing general officer was over two hundred years old. The cadets waited for the general to speak before they took their seats.
“Be seated,” the general’s soft voice was heard clearly in the class room.
As the general waited for the cadets to take their seats again, she observed the newest class of Home’s future leaders. There were many faces she knew and many she did not; but even then she knew most of their family members. They had either sat in her lecture, or like her aid the son or granddaughter of an officer or person who had served with her through the years. She saw the Princess, and the cadets sitting around her. She had known every one of their grandparents. She had been witness to their triumphs and failures; first as cadets, then as officers. One or two of their grandparents, like Lieutenant Anderson, her aide, who was sitting in the back of the class room, the great grandson of her sergeant had become her aides over the preceding two centuries.
Finally with the cadets in their seats again, the human looking sentient being known as a humbot, gathered herself together and began to speak.
“Good day cadets,” the general began, “I am General Alice Jones, Commander of Team One, of the Home Emergency Response Team. Over the next few weeks I will be lecturing about the evacuation that brought us all here to Home and the formation of your corps. As many of you know, I was part of the evacuation security team. As part of a future lecture, I will discuss how I came about, and the security issues concerning the evacuation.
“Let’s start off with why the evacuation occurred then we’ll move in what direction seems appropriate.” The general started her lecture in earnest.
###
“It was the 418th year after landing.” The general began, “And we were in trouble. We were not a sleepy little back water rinky dink independent star nation. Nor was Trena a quant tourist world. No we were at the crossroads of the galaxy. We were the one place in this part of the galaxy that many star nations, and their shippers used to get their wares and goods to other star nations such as the Republic of the Stars, and the Theocracy, and of course the Terrestrial Empire, and the Thonian Realm. At one point we transshipped over seventy percent of the goods going between the Empire and the Realm.
“We were quite prosperous,” the general continued, “Although we experienced the turmoil that a crossroads could be; for the most part we were a peaceful star nation. Preferring to trade with even our most cantankerous neighbors, like the Republic or the Theocracy, instead of going to war them. When our neighbors tried to invade us … well we made sure with our friends that their attack was beaten back. They never did learn that an unruly Trena as an occupied colony was not as good as a trading partner. Even at the end they hadn’t learned that lesson. But that wasn’t the cause of our trouble.
“No our trouble wasn’t from our neighbors,” the general continued, “but a combination of natural and man made events caused us to take refuge on Home.”
Suddenly the room became a three dimensional theatre. The holo plunged the class into a space battle. It was a contest between two ships. The cadets couldn’t determine who they belonged to. The general narrated what they were observing, “Although this battle occurred a full two centuries before Trena was inhabited, no one was aware that it had happened. The thonian Battleship the Peace Keeper’s Challenge was involved in a running battle with a pirate, it was believed to be a pirate from what would become the Republic of the Stars, for several days. As you can see the Thonians won the day; but at great cost. They dumped their magazines. They dumped all of their weapons including a now outlawed planet buster bomb. The bomb had been made useless or so the Challenger’s weapons people thought.”
The holo chan
ged to the now very familiar imagery of how Trena had died. All of the young people had seen this imagery time and time again. This time General Jones narrated what they were seeing.
“I had not been created yet, so I did not witness these events.” The humbot said softly. “Everyone had watched in awe as the comet invaded the asteroid belt. It didn’t have a jazzy name just a number. Trena-10. They had been knocking about the Trena Solar System for millions of years.” The imagery showed two of them traveling together. “The Astros guys believed there had been two of them. That is until the larger of the two was destroyed when it had collided with a small airless world about 2 Astronomical Units out from the Trena primary creating Trena’s second asteroid field.” The imagery showed the creation of second asteroid field.
“The smaller of the two comets had survived the destruction of the larger.” The general’s soft voice filled the classroom, “Even though a chunk of the larger comet had hit it, it survived.” The holo showed the smaller comet being bounced above the asteroid field that the larger comet had created, and would ensure its survival for millions of years.
“Our families watched in awe as the comet’s successful navigation of the Cheryl Asteroid Field ended in a spectacular collision with an asteroid of modest size.” The general’s voice highlighted the collision of the comet with an asteroid of several hundred miles in diameter. It was halved by the collision. The bigger of the two rocks tumbled into another asteroid. It was like someone had set up a classic dominoes demonstration where one stared to fall and soon they all began tumbling into each other. One asteroid colliding with another and another until several large asteroids had had their orbits changed. What was left of the comet and one large asteroid were now traveling together away from Trena, and appeared to be headed out of the system.
“The authorities on Trena had been aware for months that this was going to happen.” The General continued, “They had taken steps in the asteroid belt to make sure none of the mining interests that provided our late world with the metals both precious, and those needed to support our nation would be harmed. The Crown had studied several of the possible outcomes of the impact. There were a couple far out ones where the domino effect would happen. The crown authorities had taken what precautions they thought prudent for a cosmic incident. It was really a cosmic event; one that had never been recorded in any inhabited star system ever. It was widely believed that the one or two of the worse scenarios wouldn’t happen. The collision itself had been highly improbable; the odds of it happening were nearly incalculable.”
“The authorities felt the one or two serious events would be nearly impossible. The Queen’s advisors had thought of every conceivable thing that could happen; they hadn’t a glimmer of what would actually happen.”
“This is one of the scenarios that the crown thought scientists might happen,” The holo displayed an asteroid destroying one of the smelters. The smelters were used to reduce the asteroids to their base components. The simulation showed a fiery explosion as the smelter was destroyed. Then it morphed back into a normal unharmed state. The general continued, “Which as you know didn’t happened”
“With the cosmic drama seemingly over the people of Trena went about their everyday affairs,” Alice Jones voice was heard over the holos showing the resumption of the mining of the asteroids, and the loading of the large interstellar capable cargo ships their holds being filled with thousands of cargo containers in orbit about Trena. “Life went on. For many months we had no idea that a disaster was about to befall us that would impact our people and this region of the galaxy for all time. All because of the remains of the space battle and this piece of sky junk. Miraculously the pair managed to not collide with any other objects natural or manmade.”
The class continued to watch as the comet and now a small asteroid, traveled through the Trena solar system. A trajectory appeared on the holo showing the forecasted path through the system. On the forecasted track it wouldn’t come close to any other object. Suddenly the trajectory ended in a brilliant flash of light.
“That explosion caught the authorities by surprise,” the General’s voice broke into the silent class room as the holo faithfully recreated the explosion. As everyone knew sound couldn’t travel in the vacuum of space, so the explosion had been eerily quiet. “Remember this little bad boy?”
A three dimensional engineering drawing of a thonian planet buster bomb was displayed in the class room. It wasn’t large just six feet long and a foot in diameter.
“Although technically illegal,” the general’s voice continued to fill the class room, “so called planet buster bombs are owned by many star nations. This one was owned by the thonians.”
The imagery changed to show a re-enactment of the comet colliding with the bomb.
“Normally,” General Jones’ voice still softly filled the class room as she narrated what was being shown, “Once a PB is made in operable, it can be dropped into star and still not detonate. In this case the self-destruct circuitry had failed. It had worked partially. The bomb was rendered harmless. It couldn’t detonate. Or so the Peace Keeper’s Challenge crew thought. But when several million tons of comet collided with the ancient bomb it was too much for its safeties to prevent its arming sequence from completing its program. It wasn’t a big bomb for such a device but it was big enough.
“It was a gravity bomb, designed to alter the gravity of the planet it hit. It was designed to rip a planet out of its orbit and causing catastrophic damage. Having no planet to interact with, it vented its micro short lived black hole in such a way that its gravitational field caused the orbits of thousands of nearby asteroids of all sizes to be ripped from what had been stable orbits.”
The presentation now showed the effects on the nearby asteroids, many as close as a thousand miles away. Only a small portion of the field was affected. It was enough though. The asteroids, whose orbits had been stable for millions years were no longer stable. Now thousands of once stable asteroids were in motion. A new trajectory was superimposed in the holo. It ended at Trena. Although not many, not even a tenth of the entire field would fall on the capital world, it would be enough to destroy the planet of Trena.
“If Trena had been as much as four days further along in its orbit.” The general began to wind up the lecture. “It would have been impacted a thousand years later, one day the other way and most of the fragments would have missed it. However, Fate or the Gods conspired against our small independent free world of Trena. When DefConnie put it together we found out or beloved Trena would come to a spectacular end in less than a standard year.
“This is how the great diaspora from Trena to Home was caused.” The general finished the meat of her lecture as the holo presentation ended and the classroom’s lights came back on.
“General,” one of the cadets raised his hand when the general paused, “Why didn’t they try to clear the asteroids?”
“They did,” the general replied, “The Thonian’s feeling responsible for what happened tried to detonate a smaller planet buster in the hopes they could destroy or possibly change the course of the asteroids. The thinking being that if they could be slowed down they would miss Trena altogether. The bomb went off prematurely because one of AIs at the Mountain, Trena Defense Headquarters, had somehow gotten into its program and caused it to go off in the wrong place. The bomb, when it went off seemed to consolidate the asteroids into a tighter pattern and pushed them towards Trena. Before the bomb went off, many of the asteroids would have missed Trena. Even so the ones that the Crown knew were going to hit would cause catastrophic damage to the planet. After the bomb went off most if not all would now hit Trena.”
“General,” Princess Lisa asked, “Why didn’t our ancestors build a refuge in orbit? Why come here? We had the resources of the entire Trena solar system. We could have built habitats on McKay, in the asteroids. We could have built habitats in and about Trena’s off world territories. Why didn’t we?”
“There were seventy million souls on Trena perhaps another million or so AIs planet wide. It was thought at the time that there was no way we could build enough space habitats to hold that many people that quickly. Also we were a planet based society and culture. We go to space, work in space and some of our people lived in space; but loads more didn’t and we didn’t know if our people could all adapt to living in space.”
Lieutenant Anderson cleared his throat a bit getting his general’s attention. General Jones nodded and said, “We don’t have much time left today, so I best get on to your assignment. By the end of this session you are required to turn in a paper on how the Queen’s Own Corps of Cadets and this academy came about and who the important players were and what events transpired to bring your corps about. Read chapter one of your texts.
I plan to lecture on one chapter of the text every time we meet.”
The class bell rang and the ranking cadet spoke, “Class Atten-hut!”
The cadets came to attention, and General Jones ordered, “Class dismissed.”
The cadets filed out of the class room, leaving the general and her aide alone. As Alice packed up her things a startling black cat jumped up onto the desk. Alice petted the animal and asked, “What have you been up to Bugs?”
The cat purred a bit as his owner picked him up. The semi intelligent robotic cat looked and acted like a cat, only other cats knew he was a robot. They avoided him as they couldn’t figure him out.
“Was I that young General,” Lieutenant Anderson took his general’s briefcase for her.
“Yes,” Alice said, “But you turned out.” He chuckled as they left the class room.
Chapter 1: That’s Where You Went.
The cadets began to file into the class room for the next week’s class. While they waited for the general to arrive they talked among themselves.
“What I don’t understand,” Georgia Hawthorne commented, “Is why Queen Jill was on Mars and not with Lord Wilson. That isn’t discussed much in the reading from last night.”