Sovereign

“Unknown armed men conducted an assassination attempt against Her Highness, Princess Yumi Kawasaki. The Keibitai suffered severe casualties, and the unknown hostile operatives weren’t apprehended. The Imperial Government is now issuing security measures for a nationwide manhunt to track these vagrants.”

- Midori Imperial Herald

+++

West Orland

Three Days since the start of the Battle of Nordia

“So they’re finally collapsing?” Amelie asked, and the group of OAF officers in front of her nodded almost collectively. Amelie sighed and looked at the map of Lieplatz on the side of her office. Nordia, that damned coastal city, already cost the lives of a few thousand OAF and RGO soldiers in a few days.

She expected worse since Nordia was still a major city with an urban terrain that would make it difficult to assault. But it turned out that the garrison inside was already less than enthusiastic at continued resistance. The reports she’d been having since they started the assault into the interior of the city had been less than stellar, but not as bad as it could be.

Constant skirmishes and high-intensity battles for each important site resulted in casualties for her men and women on the ground until the Lieplatzans raised their white flags to surrender. Rinse and repeat as her troops advanced deeper and deeper through the city.

It seemed to her that the Lieplatzan Army in Nordia was more interested in the idea of at least fighting back for their nation, or for some unknown ideals. At least, until they would inevitably surrender. It sickened her how they wanted to still fight anyway when they could have just lowered their arms in the start (which they would anyway) and lessened the bloodshed.

Maybe they just want to send a message to me. Fight back against the Orlish Queen for a while, just to stick it to her. She’d seen that a lot of times already, and she wouldn’t be surprised if these Lieplatzan soldiers were doing much the same. Not really fighting for General Richstoff or for the Lieplatzan Junta, as these men seemed to have already apprehended the Protection Corps unit inside the city, but just…

Well, a sickening way for them to send a message to her: that they would bite back before lowering their arms.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” General Albrecht started. “But there has been…a complication, of sorts. It just arrived right now.”

“What?”

“An unknown gas leak occurred in the center of the city. We do not know who did it, but the surrendering Lieplatzan Army Personnel and the Protection Corps that we interrogated for the past eight hours came with nothing.”

“Gas leak? What even is happening down there?” Amelie seemed bewildered. A new problem? Damn it, and she thought she already won the city of Nordia.

“The gas leak seemed to have been carrying strains of a mutated version of RS-12 Viruses. Known to be stockpiled bioweapons in some of our laboratories…”

“Bioweapons?” Amelie pulled out a handbook of hers and quickly flipped through it. She swore she had read something about that back then when she was sifting through chemical weapons. “Wait, we had weaponized diseases?”

“Of course we do, Your Majesty, but it’s never meant to be used. It’s more…experimental. Which is why we’re confused as to how this gas leak occurred. Thankfully, only around a hundred civilians and soldiers were exposed before our CBRM units arrived on site. It’s…well, we contained it, for now.”

“What does it do?”

“It spreads in the air. Airborne. The ones infected on the ground are still not exhibiting symptoms, but they’re expected to do so within a few days. RS-12 is known to have a death rate of around thirty percent, as it presents itself as a brutal rash coupled with hemorrhagic fever…but this one is a mutated strain, so we’re not entirely sure.”

“Goddess, why would someone even modify a disease that way?” Amelie asked. “And why do we even have it? This…this just sounds horrifying.”

“Well, it’s just another part the string of secret military projects done by the OAF in the shadows for the past decades, Your Majesty. It’s…yes, we agree. We would never willingly use something like this.”

“But our enemies? Could the Federalists perhaps be responsible for this? The Junta? Someone, surely, the men down there are already investigating this?”

“That’s the thing,” General Albrecht paused. “This is most likely not done by the Federalists. Or the Junta. There’s just no way. It’s not in the interests of the Federalists to do something as needless as this. And the Junta should not have access to it.”

“Then who the hell did it?”

“A third party perhaps?” One of the Generals behind Albrecht proposed. “Your Majesty, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. We have already been dealing with unknown terror groups for a while, after all.”

“General Mackensen, I’m afraid that’s…a tall accusation.” General Albrecht said. “Not to mention, these groups are unknown to us.”

“Or it could be an accident,” one of them proposed as well. “Those damned Lieplatzans aren’t exactly the brightest at handling things.”

“Possible,” General Albrecht said, before turning to Amelie. “But whatever we say, we can point our fingers at many things, but we cannot back it at the moment. Much like how our friends across the pond can’t figure out who did the deed to Princess Kawasaki.”

Amelie gulped. “Could the two attacks be connected?”

“The AFI and NID turned out empty,” General Albrecht said. “We also communicated with our contacts in the Empire. The Keibeitai is reporting nothing on our secret channels. Hell, they’re even refusing to send us anything we could work on. Wounded pride perhaps?”

“I thought they already agreed to at least share intelligence,” Amelie said, a little bit frustrated. “That’s practically the least they could do.”

“The Empire is still not in this conflict whatsoever, so we shouldn’t expect much,” General Albrecht said. “I bet even if Director Wittfield asked the Keibeitai she would also get nothing. So far, everyone in the MN Intelligence Network is still scrambling to work out what the hell happened to the Princess or who did this. Telling them that a possible biological attack by unknown perpetrators happened at nearly the same time would just throw another loose screw at the panicking machine.”

Amelie bit her teeth subtly, as her chair turned away from the Generals gathered before her. Her eyes looked at the Orlish tricolor beside her workstation, and Amelie sighed.

“Damn it, this entire thing…” She shook her head. “Alright then, I’ll try to ask Marie about this.”

“I think she’s already working on it.”

“Yeah, but I need to know who did this,” Amelie said. “Please remain vigilant on this one. Damned…this is just reminding me of what happened to my mother.”

All of them stiffened at the mention of that. Until now, the question of who really killed the former Queen had remained unanswered. Many fingers were pointed, yet none were definitive. Amelie herself wanted to blame the Federalists for it, but that wasn’t really too convincing. Even they were genuinely surprised about the whole event. She remembered that when she first met them about the entire thing.

Prime suspects, yes, but to Amelie, that wasn’t ever going to be enough. She wouldn’t work on something based on nothing but her emotions. She needed something concrete to target whoever the hell was acting behind the shadows.

Something…something so elusive that neither she nor her fellow matriarchs could track. And neither someone like Alfonso nor Heindhöff seemed to know as well.

I really need to strengthen the RIU for this. It was their main goal after all. To investigate what had happened to her mother. Now, Amelie was starting to want to double down on that mission.

Something…something told her that perhaps, the answer for both questions last year and today would be no different.

And if she could find it out…perhaps, there would be answers to what was happening today. After all, so many things wouldn't have reached this level of a crisis had that pivotal moment not happened. What if…they were now trying the same to the Asanaian Empire? To destabilize them and drag them to the ground.

Amelie’s hands slightly shook as they reached for her teacup.

“Gentlemen, thanks for this briefing. You are all free to leave,” she said.

“We’ll be off then. Thanks, Your Majesty.” All of them gave her a brief salute before leaving her office. Amelie tried her best to calm herself when all of them left and closed the door. Her gloved hand still slightly shaking, she took a sip of her tea.

Whoever you people are. She placed the teacup down. I’ll find and crush you all.

+++

Amelie walked out through the gardens of the November Palace, as she tried her best to clear her mind. Just a few hours ago, the OHC reported to her that the Orlish Tricolor had finally been planted on top of the ruins of the Nordia City Hall.

It was cold, damned cold. The damned war, these, all these shadows that eluded her rule. Each time she made progress, she felt paralyzed. Was it simply really a whack-a-mole? Was that how it meant to rule? That each time she whacked a problem and eliminated it, a new one would appear out of nowhere?

Biological weapons. Amelie sighed deeply. That’s…horrifying. To use diseases just to terrorize your enemies…

She didn’t want another damned crisis to appear out of nowhere. Not now when there was a massive war being fought. A war expanding rapidly through all corners of Pollos. Soon, the MN would finally resume its sessions, just in time for the end of the Lieplatzan Campaign. All of them, the remaining countries opposed to the revolutionaries, would finally meet formally in a conference to decide the future Pollos.

If they would face this threat head-on as a united front, or if they would wither one by one against their unifying tide. Amelie was naturally on the side of a united front. Unlike them, she and Royalist Orland knew how far these radicals would escalate the scale of violence should they win.

But they…most of them, outside those directly facing the threat of the revolution, like the Empire of Asanai, were ignorant of the problem ahead of them. Ignorant of what happened in Norida.

For now, I’m keeping it there. If she’d have to quarantine that entire province, then damn it she would. No information would leave. No souls would leave. She would not allow a damned biological weapon to spread should it break the quarantine set up by the OAF in that district.

But that was what worried her. What if it happened in a place outside her control? What if it had happened in a nation that wasn’t on high alert? It would spread like wildfire.

Thus, I really have to take control of the Mandate of Nations. Amelie concluded. There has to be a unified response to every threat that threatens the world.

She looked up at the moon, its pinkish glow reminding Amelie of her old days. How innocent…how naive, to think that the world wouldn’t be this foolish, stupid, shortsighted…and…vile.

Why? She asked herself. Why do I have to deal with all of this?

Sometimes…she wondered if Royal blood was a curse instead of a blessing.

Sometimes.