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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/TheCurserHasntMoved on 2025-06-30 12:21:34+00:00.
Queen Victoria XIV was unamused. Before her stood an array of her various prime ministers summoned to Old London on Terra herself. She sat on a throne older than the Republic, older than the Coalition of Independent Planets, older than most of the regional polities on Terra herself. If one only counted continuous governance, England beat them all. True, the little land of shires and villages had nearly been destroyed in the conflagration that birthed the Republic of Terra and Her Aligned Planets, as well as the Coalition, but almost destroyed is another way of saying survived. England had a special dispensation from the Republic to keep their monarchy and Independence for that reason. However, she was more than Queen of England. She was also Princess of the Canadian Planets, Empress of the Indian Worlds, Queen of the Scot Expanse, and of course Queen of the Albian League. Each of these alliances had many planets, with many parliaments, and a multiplicity of ministers, but they were Her Majesty's governments, and Her Majesty's ministers, and they had wasted years squabbling.
Even here, they were jostling, sneering, boasting, making snide passes at one another. As if her summons was a mere formality before they got on with the real business at hand, selecting ambassadors to sit on the CIP's war committee. Queen Victoria XIV had other plans. “We are not amused,” she snapped coldly. They had all forgotten just how commanding a presence that she had. They fell silent, one and all. “The British Interstellar Empire has been ineffective at combating the pirate menace for years on end, and now we learn that the children stolen from their homes were subjected to the most horrific experimentation. In all the Coalition the Royal Navy ought to be the finest of all, but where are they when pirates raid planets? Where are they when children are sold like cattle to the grubs? Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?”
This was, obviously, not an invitation to speak. However, there seemed to always be at least one fool who didn't know better. A Human woman wearing a sari opened her mouth to say something, but a withering glare from the queen shut her mouth with the clicking of teeth. “We have learned, that one of our own subjects played a role in bringing us this vital news. One Vincent Frimas. That, or somebody sailing the ship registered to him at New Montreal. We wish to believe the man alive, and active in this deed, and thus we shall not squander such labors. You shall invest your interests in a single ambassador to the war committee by Wednesday afternoon when I expect the Republic to declare total war on the grub controllers. Should you fail to do this, we shall dissolve our parliaments, our governments, and our ministries, and we shall institute an Imperial government until such time as the war is concluded. Are we understood?”
There was a muted mummer of ascent, and Queen Victoria XIV continued, “In either case we shall direct our ambassador to quicken the inevitable. We know better than our ministers that our Royal Navy and our Royal Army have most competent commanders, and it is from such men that we have heard that there are none finer in this kind of business than those found in the Republic. The integration of CIP forces into Republican forces as auxiliaries as soon as possible shall be our ultimate goal, as every time the Pluto Compact has been invoked in this way, this has been the result. It is useless to resist to preserve pride when our children are at stake. You are dismissed.”
The collection of prime ministers was indeed chastened, and after they had all murmured their assurances in turn, they hurried to scurry out from under her coldly disapproving gaze.
Terra Nova, Imperial Rome reborn in space. Terra Nova, a meticulous recreation of Terra herself, and it had special attention paid to the Mediterranean, and to Italy, and most of all to Rome. Nobody could blame them, since the whole point of the project was supposed to be an amusement planet. However, some eight hundred years ago, the actors had gotten a little too into character, and from there... well, now Roma Nova is a small but influential nation in Terran Space. None of that was on Centurio Aurelius Justinian's mind, however.
What was on his mind was the fact that a member of the Imperial Family had been kidnapped! True, not a single member of the family had once sat on the throne in the Imperial Palace, nor worn the Golden Laurel, unless one counted the Solar Laurel of the Republic of Terra, and no good Roman did, but that was beside the point. Emperor Gregory George the First had restored Roman Liberty with his own hand, and slain the despot with the very thunderbolt of Jupiter, and a kinsman of that line had been kidnapped!
True, the boy seemed to have gotten himself free, or had some help. Details were far from clear. The despot, Augustus Renatus, forever cursed be his name, had committed the terrible sin of attempting to use the hell-grubs as weapons in his unholy war to wrest Terra herself from the Republic, which the fool, may Roma Nova never run out of tears for his sins, had fought even while the Republic and CIP had united against the spreading grubs in the Extermination War. It had been thought that nobody else had ever attempted such a thing. Now Roma Nova learns that the beasts that spawned them are bearing down upon those xenos whom Terrans had at long last befriended. The re-re-re-re conquest of the Agean League had been halted at once, and Centurio Aurelius Justinian recalled to Rome with his century for refit and redeployment into an extermination legion. They'd be fighting alongside the hoplites instead against them, and like any good Roman Centurio Aurelius Justinian was both pleased and disappointed at that fact.
He stood before the altar to Mars, the bronze brazier smoldering with lit charcoal, statues of Mars looming to the left and right, frescoes of battles from Rome on Terra herself, to those fought among the very stars. He had stood in the queue for nearly a day to perform this rite, and the fact that he commanded was the only reason it was not a longer wait. He thrust his arm over the brazier, and a priest clad in nothing but a loincloth. Hard slabs of muscle riddled with scars from battles long past showed that the priest too was once a warrior. The priest took a bronze knife in hand and put its blade along the back of Centurio Aurelius Justinian's forearm. “I swear by the blood of my heart that I shall spill the blood of the foes of Roma Nova and get vengeance for this insult to the Imperial Family.” he said, and the priest nodded, and drew the knife along his forearm. Centurio Aurelius Justinian did not flinch, and he watched drops of his blood fall onto the burning charcoal. Roma Nova would have vengeance.
The Dominion War had taught Pacificia just how fragile their dream was. It had taught them that their entire way of life was at the sufferance of the Republic, and to a lesser extent, the CIP. It didn't stop the people of dreaming about a galaxy at peace, without even the small wars fought by small Terran nations trying to carve chunks out of the Republic rather than go through the expense of terraforming or finding habitable planets themselves. This, this however was different. The grubs weren't an enemy, they were an abomination.
The Dominion War had taught them that even if they couldn't bring themselves to kill people that didn't mean they couldn't help in the fight for survival. Ten inhabited star systems, only ten, each with two habitable worlds, and dozens of orbital habitats brimming with people. Well, maybe not brimming exactly, but they all had a highly efficient population density for industry and agriculture. Winston Cleverly was a member of just such a population of an orbital habitat that supported the shipyards at Saphire Prime, his system's largest and most resource rich gas giant.
He, a Chimpmando man, was more well suited than the other kinds of Terrans to his work in those shipyards, and his Human coworkers often teased him about how it was unfair that he got an extra set of hands. He chided them back for evolving wrong. Jokes had fallen by the wayside, however. He spent long hours and donated his overtime pay to a fund for the inevitable relief efforts. He was building warships for the Republic, and he had absolutely no reservations about the fact that his work would kill. The grubs had to be wiped out. They just had to be.
Pip shut off the news. He'd had a bellyfull of rotten clams already. It looked a lot like the Star Council would be caught between the Terrans and something evil again, but this time, this time, the Star Council wouldn't be caught in a riptide in the fog. No, the Lutrae worlds at the very least were raising a fleet. Pip had brushed with some Republican Navy men once or twice in his own service in the Star Council's anti-piracy actions. Pirates seemed to always pop up. Even the Republic can't completely stamp them out in their own territory, and Pip knew that the Republic could be... harsh with prates.
He looked out of the window of his little seaside cottage and into the bay. Woatanue had come a long way since the very first visit ...
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