Every Last Mother's Child Read online

  Chapter 3: The Queen’s Briefing

  The Queen was sitting quietly curled up in her chair as she read the report from General Qoum. She had read it and re read it and was having trouble coming to grips with its conclusions. She got up and walked to the window that overlooked her garden heartbroken about what was about to befall her kingdom.

  Her parent’s death ten years before had left her devastated and heartbroken. She had assumed the monarchy of her kingdom at the tender age of 15. For the last year or so she had been flying on her own. It had only been this last year, on her twenty-fifth birthday that her regents Lord Mercer and his wife Alice had stepped down. They had done so because Trena Crown law required them to. Because she had been so young when she came to the throne, the House of Lords had insisted that she have regents until she turned 25. She thought she wasn’t ready to deal with the running of a planet. So far there had been no crisis, no threats of war, nothing until now that would impact her people. She had learned that her government really ran the world, that all she did as head of state was to make sure that some of the more outrageous and crazy laws and rulings from the parliament and the ministries didn’t see the light of day. She had been blessed that her prime minister had been so level headed and could control the parliament. She had wished the ministers he had chosen to help him were as good as him.

  She picked up the resignation of the Minister of Emergency Management and wished she could get a hold of the woman and strangle her. She couldn’t believe that in this time of great need that the woman had resigned! There were a couple of other resignations on her desk also. The Militia’s chief of staff was another one that ticked her off. She would have never thought General McMillan would have deserted in this fashion. She was wondering how these people had been picked and what it said about her people’s morals. All of the people who had resigned were native born Trenans. None had been an immigrant. That bothered her more than anything. People who had lived their whole life on Trena had turned their backs on her people. But immigrants had not.

  She picked up the personnel file of General Qoum and read through it again. Trying to find out from the reports in the document what made this man tick. She saw that General McMillan had consentingly given him poor reviews, but that was only for the last three years. His other officers had given high marks on his professionalism, and his ability to get a job done. He been a lieutenant and in charge of a small patrol craft that had bloodied a republican war ship when they had tried to invade Trena thirty years before. His ship had been bloodied and beaten up but they had taken it to the larger ship with a tenacity that the republican captain latter admitted scared him in to surrendering.

  She reviewed some of the people he had hired and assigned to positions under him. He had picked people who had the same passion he did when it came to protecting the kingdom, but who were not rabid patriots. She read the candid and confidential evaluations of the man by his officers and found that all respected him and would follow him anywhere.

  She went back to the window and looked out to the sky wondering if she could see the disaster that was approaching her home world. She was afraid that she would let her people down. That she wouldn’t be able to do the job that she promised her father on his deathbed. She promised to serve and protect the people of Trena, to defend them against enemies foreign and domestic, to ensure their prosperity and safety. If the report that she was reading was true, (and she had no doubt it was after consulting with a couple of astronomers and astrophysicists), then she had failed her people. Not being able to put it off much longer she said aloud, “Page, will your summon General Qoum, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House of Lords, and the President of the House of Commons.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the computer replied. “Basil,” the young queen called for her secretary.

  “Yes your majesty,” the thirty year old came into her study.

  “Clear my calendar,” the Queen said, “Unless it is something that can’t be avoided like my annual checkup, I want it cleared for the next week.”

  “I’ll get on it.” The secretary said, and left. An hour or so later the general and the politicians arrived for her meeting.