Sovereign

“Chancellor Pokryshkin steps down from the Confederation leadership, alongside half of his administration after the disastrous Confederate offensive that Princess Anastasia’s remnant Imperial holdings defeated. The new Chancellor, Pyotr Kerensky, already vowed ‘greater cooperation with the Armed Forces’ and ‘increased security measures’ to root out ‘dissident elements that funneled sensitive information to the enemy’. Restrictions on women in the Confederacy, already hardened by the Martial Law declared since the Confederacy was formed have been intensified, all while Chancellor Kerensky orders the formation of a ‘female strategic employment corps’ to support the war effort. The Mandate of Nation’s Human Rights Council has now decried, warning that the Confederacy is planning to ‘enact force labor against women’. Defeat or not, the Confederacy’s aggressive and increasingly violent acts seem to remain unsatiated, as the war in Central Vaeyox intensifies.”

- Geopol Press

+++

West Vaeyox

November Palace

0600 Hours

It was time for the announcement. Amelie faced the microphones in front of her, alongside the endless deluge of the press and their cameras aimed at her. The war had begun. And there was no going back.

She calmly placed her files on the ready on the podium, all while steeling herself for the speech and the question-and-answer phase after that. Beside her, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Archduchess, and other high-profile faces of the Royalist Government stood beside her, as they presented a unified front for the Orlish people.

The Generals and Admirals of the OAF however remained absent. Naturally, the military would conduct its job of fighting the war, while she and her ministers of the civilian government faced the impending questions of the Orlish people.

“People of Orland, it is me again, Your Queen. I stand before you today to deliver another grim news. It is with great shame that I shall announce that the two-day deadline for our ultimatum to the Lieplatzan Junta expired just an hour ago, at five on the morning of this day, February six. We know that the rebels to our east had already declared war on our Lieplatzan neighbors. A war that already stretched on for days with thousands of dead on both sides.

“To liberate them, as they say. As ‘President’ Rimpler said. Liberate. People of Orland. Liberate. I have doubts about his words, yes. Of whether these traitors would treat our Lieplatzan brothers and sisters any better than the madness of the Junta. But I must agree that someone must liberate Lieplatz.

“Princess Celeste, alongside the Lieplatzan government-in-exile, has been in talks with us for months now. It is clear that the humanitarian situation in our neighbor’s realm has deteriorated since General Richstoff took power through violent means. And much like a leader who snatched the wheels of the state through violence, General Richstoff and his Junta kept that power through violence.”

Amelie breathed in. “It cannot continue. The Lieplatzan people are our brothers and sisters. We share nearly the same blood that flows in our veins. I know many of us share families on those borders. Our businesses and livelihoods even intertwine with them. Even House Ludendorf, my family, has great ties to the Lieplatzan people. My cousins. Aunts and uncles. So many of my kin, and your kin, live under the brutality of the mad Junta.

“As such, under the advice of the Ministry of Defense and the Prime Minister, alongside our other policymakers, and our ever vigilant Generals and intelligence agencies, I have decided that enough is enough. Especially after the many provocations that the Junta committed on our borders, which had led to countless deaths of Orlish servicemembers. To continue this facade of peace is simply untenable. Impossible even.

“Yesterday, the Parliament passed the vote for the possibility of war. The vote, as I dreaded, passed. Yet I held hope through the grueling final hours of last night that General Rickstoff and his leadership would find reason to lower their arms, and allow the return of the legitimate Lieplatzan government without a fight. Yet our ultimatum remained unanswered. Ignored. And even mocked by many of their leaders.

“I regret to tell you then that right now, a state of war exists between Orland and Lieplatz. Three centuries of sisterly alliance were broken by a crisis that has swept this world into darkness. Right now, the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy are conducting their preliminary operations to cross the border and liberate Nordia. From it, the Orlish Armed Forces is planning to liberate much of West Lieplatz, in order to stop the Federal Republic from capturing more and placing more people into their new but no less unkind management.

“Let it be known that our Kingdom will not stop from this. They may have destroyed the Lieplazan Kingdom, but the soul of the alliance between our sisterly Kingdoms will not cease. We will liberate all of Lieplatz. Just as we will liberate all of Orland.”

Just as the cameras flashed after Amelie spoke, the raging questions in the room exploded. Each question challenged her own decision. Each question that she would have to answer in front of the Orlish people.

Yet instead of meekly backing off in fear, a small confident grin appeared on Amelie’s face.

She’d answer everything…until they were all convinced that peace was over.

And that war was the only solution.

The same thought her mind believed in now.

+++

“You just started a war?!” Amelie was surprised at the young woman who barged into her office. It was Alice. Alice herself, with a frown that nearly bore through her soul. “Amelie, people are going to die? I thought peace is what we both believed in?”

“Alice?” Amelie was now shocked. Why was her sister…Alice herself was so furious. Almost red. “Look, I understand why you would think of it as a bad thing, but—”

“But what? I thought, unlike Mother, we would stop wars from happening,” the young girl pointed her finger at Amelie, almost accusatory. “Fighting because they hit us first is normal. But Amelie, you’re hitting them first now!”

“Alice…” Amelie frowned. “Look, I understand you have been hard on studying politics, and everything—”

“As I am supposed to do so,” she said. “I’m the Princess. The second in line to the throne. If they somehow removed you, I’d have to be ready to replace you. I hope it does not happen, but I will prepare for it. I have seen enough.”

Amelie’s heart almost broke. Alice, such a young girl…already preparing herself for the worst. While her days in the Queen’s bunker tortured Amelie and changed her into who she is today, she noticed the same in Alice. And this only further proved it. The kid…she really was starting to take her role more seriously.

Amelie sighed. “Look, I understand you. But the truth is, this conflict is already on, Alice.”

“Then end it! Not start a new one!”

Amelie smiled. “If it was that easy, do you think I wouldn’t have chosen to do it first?”

Alice stopped in her tracks. Of course, why wouldn’t her older sister not do that first? She knew her older sister well. The same Queen who cried because of the war starting a year ago. But then why? Why would her older sister turn so callous now, to send so many of the young men that she promised to save into another adventure of death?

“You…you would have done it first,” Alice said, but now, tears started pooling in her eyes again. “But, but it’s untrue. It can’t be that way. We already sent enough of them to death…”

“Them?”

“The boys! Adam, Albert…who’s going to be next, would it be the boys of my age? How much more…”

“Alice?”

She looked up at Amelie. “I hate it! We don’t want to be like you adults. All hating each other. Because, because boys or men have no magic. It’s stupid. I watched my older brother die. I don’t…want my classmates to lose their brothers…or…or for us to see boys of our age get sent to be wiped out like you adults did…”

She was crying. “I hate it. I hate it. Everyone hates it. I remember my friends, they kept asking…if…if the Queen would do it again. Send our younger brothers to wars. Just like how mom sent our older brothers into wars…”

“Your classmates had been asking that?”

She nodded weakly. Unfortunately, children were definitely more aware of what was happening. And she supposed the situation to Alice’s generation was now different. Unlike her generation, which could easily be complicit in sending men of their age into wars without care due to years of animosity, Alice’s generation was too young for that.

For them, their fellow boys were…well, fellow children. She remembered that the divide between girls and boys never really started until her later teen years. When men of her age found themselves losing steam as the realities of life crashed around them, which left them ever more resentful.

Resent, which fueled the terrorism they witnessed before they all accepted that men were barbaric scum that should be sent to wars where their supposed natural propensity to violence and lust for blood would be better utilized. Looking back on it, Amelie almost wanted to vomit about it.

Her generation of women was perhaps a special breed of evil. To look at young people of the same age as lower that they could overlook having their classes wiped by half just months after the draft… was surreal.

But that hasn’t happened to Alice and her generation yet. And most of all, they also watched their older brothers return in caskets without much explanation. Amelie could imagine that many of them naturally looked up to their older brothers and sisters. Alice looked up to both Adam and Albert.

And she lost Adam. Unable to even see his body after his death because his body was never recovered. And Albert…Alice’s favorite sibling turned into an almost cold, absent, broken man who now rarely interacted with her and Amelie.

Amelie could imagine that young Alice could clearly see what to blame for those losses. War.

“No,” Amelie said. “No. The Dead Generation…the men from the same generation I belong to, is going to be the last that this Kingdom sends into an apocalyptic conflict.”

“Then…why start another war?”

Amelie smiled bitterly. “The reality is…we have to end it here now. The pain would be burdened by these men, so your fellow boys wouldn’t ever face it…” Amelie stood from her seat and lowered herself to Alice’s level. She wiped off some of her tears. “After this, the burden might even be shared by us, women of my generation. But what’s sure is, this has to be done. I can’t end the war by lying down. I have to end this war by acting with initiative.”

“Is that really the case?” Alice asked. “So you…you would invade countries from now on?”

“If it’s the only way to end this second Great War quicker…then I shall,” Amelie said. “I’ll make sure that my generation will be the last to live in this cruel existence. If there will be a price to be paid for that…” Amelie almost laughed internally for herself. The cost…the cost, it wasn’t exactly her entire generation who would bear it.

Only the young men.

Even if she wanted to change it, and change it she would, she had no power left to speed up the process. The Dead Generation would pay for a better world. For her designs. For her vision. And Amelie hated how she would have no other options for that.

Perhaps, in a twisted sense…Albert’s and Adam’s generation would play the ultimate martyr. Amelie hated it. I hope I succeed and that their sacrifices won’t be in vain.

“Then I’ll do it anyway, even if I’m not the one who will pay for it. Because even if I’m a two-faced hypocrite…I’ll make sure that the world after this, for you Alice…”

She paused.

“Would be a better one.”