Sovereign

“We carry through until the very end…”

- Wartime Propaganda Poster, Republic of Hebei.

+++

West Orland

November Palace

It wasn’t looking good.

“I suppose we’d have to act soon then,” Jacqueline said. The emergency meeting between the Queen and her inner circle had already been called early in the morning when their intelligence reports showed the preliminary crossings of the Federal Republic to the Orlish–Lieplatz Border.

Amelie already expected the attack to occur right exactly during the first day of February, as the Federal Republic, as far as she knew, wasn’t the most creative when it came to waging war. It seemed that President Rimpler and his lackeys loved launching operations on obvious dates. And the first day of February was just that. The same day when Lieplatz crowned Queen Wesley three decades ago. And conveniently the first day of February.

At least my forces are soon ready.

Amelie eyed the maps of OAF deployment. While the rebel President acted first than her, she shouldn’t be too late to the fight. Royalist Orland would have her piece of Lieplatz, that was all but assured.

Especially when the Lieplatzans are collapsing in the East.

She’d take Nordia, hopefully within days, and install the Princess of Lieplatz back into a reinstated monarchy. The pieces of the chessboard were now lining up to her favor, and while she wanted to weep for the Lieplatzan people’s plight of being used as mere pieces on a chessboard by both Federalist and Royalist Orland, Amelie still felt somewhat proud of herself for finally being able to be proactive in her response.

Had she not prepared for this, the OAF would not have been able to respond, and they could have been so badly late that there was a real chance that General Richstoff would fully capitulate on the Federal Republic. But her troops were already massed on the border, making final preparations for an incursion that she expected to come, again, within days.

“Our forces are still doing the final preparations though,” Amelie said, still somewhat frustrated by the news that the Federalists somehow got to the party first. That’d mean she would lose out on the “good girl” brownie points from their planned propaganda campaigns. Simply put, both Royalist Orland and Federalist Orland were justifying war against Lieplatz due to their alleged crimes against humanity. Since Federalist Orland got to it first, they’d now look prettier than her, who would look almost like she merely joined in to look good.

To be fair, it’s not that far off from the truth. There was almost a vein that popped in Ameie’s frustrated noggin due to that. Say whatever she wanted, she definitely was still pissed by this development.

“We’ll get through this one, Your Majesty,” Nia calmly said with a sip of her tea. “I’m sure General Albrecht here can figure out a response rather quickly to these…unfortunate developments.”

General Albrecht, who had been sitting stone-cold silent since the meeting began, sighed. Most of the people in the room had been looking at the head of the Armed Forces for any answers. Truth be told, General Albrecht had nothing much to say, as he couldn’t exactly simply rush the deployment orders for his troops.

“If it was just that easy,” General Albrecht scoffed. “Give me six more days, and we’ll commence the operation. I can't offer much more than that. Only the Air Force’s squadrons are ready for an assault in the next twenty hours. Our ground forces are still scrambling on the ground.”

Both Amelie and the Prime Minister nodded at that. It seemed to be a reasonable, but not exactly ideal timeframe. The Defense Minister however had differing opinions, as Pristina was clearly annoyed.

“Six days and we’re beyond just late,” she said. “By that point, the Lieplatzan capital and government would have long fallen to those rebel scum. We’d have a hostile puppet state in the north.”

“Spare me of your belly-aching, Defense Minister,” the General shot back. “Unless the Royal Guard has any plans of being useful in this operation, then I want to hear nothing of it.”

Amelie sighed. She couldn’t believe how efficient the Archduchess was at pissing off every male member of the military. First Heindhöff, now, even General Albrecht. Quite frankly, Amelie was now amazed by the sheer insufferableness of the Archduchess. She wondered where her limits of being such a juicy target of a good electrical zap would be.

“Alright, can we please not have this nonsense right now?” Jacqueline said. “This isn’t General Albrecht’s fault, nor should the Military discount the Royal Guard’s contributions.”

Amelie laughed. “Thank Goddess someone sane is leading the government. Ever the appeaser, huh, Prime Minister?”

“I’m merely stating the truth, Your Majesty.”

“Reformers…” Pristina muttered, slightly annoyed at being the sole conservative member in the room. Quite frankly, Amelie’s gang of reformers had already completed their takeover of the high positions outside of the Royal Guard in the upper echelons of the Orlish state.

“Indeed,” Amelie however relished in the tears of the Archduchess. She had outmaneuvered, outflanked, and outmatched the conservatives of Orland since the Civil War started. A satisfying victory, it was one of the few things Amelie had going for herself. Of course, that would be completely discounted by the fact that the radicals tore her country into a burning trash bin, but hey, she got something.

Pristina’s tears of defeat.

How sweet…

“Let’s not exactly divide the house again, people,” Jacqueline said. “Again, we’re united in this endeavor of saving Orland. Let not petty disputes disrupt that project. We’ll find a way to liberate the rest of Lieplatz, and then we proceed to the next issue we’ll surely face. Is that good, everyone?”

“So there really is no backing off from this war?” Foreign Minister Adelaide asked. Everyone else in the room merely gave her a nod. Even Amelie did. The days of pacifism were long over for her. Now was the days of aggressive defense.

If they don’t want peace, we’ll force them to do it ourselves.

The Amelie of the past would never be able to fathom how she could ever speak that way. Almost so callously. Almost so uncaringly. Much like a Warhawk. Yet, Amelie today understood the nature of geopolitics better. Peace was a fickle facade, and that was the truth in the context of the Orlish–Lieplatzan diplomatic relations since the Junta took over.

And Adelaide, still the last reformist pacifist still holding on to her delusions of a peaceful solution, sighed in defeat. There really was no way out of this. All they could do now was prepare, which they already did.

“Alright then…” Adelaide weakly nodded.

Amelie didn’t smile, however. Now that everyone was on board to execute their planned response, all that was left was the implementation. Now, she was left to ponder one last question.

How many would pay for her decision?

She supposed she would find the answer in due time.

“Then our response is clear. Declare war once all OAF forces are ready. We’ll cross the border before the Lieplatzan Government capitulates. We’ll capture Nordia before the Federalists triumph in the east. We’ll wage war…even if we find it distasteful.”

The Queen gave a final nod.

“Meeting adjourned.”

+++

Amelie nearly collapsed in her office, before she took a long drink of her cup. The last meeting certainly drained her. Naturally, William was on the side, deep in thought about the situation.

“These defense lines…” he muttered, looking at the satellite photos of the Lieplatzan border presence. “They’re even more dug in compared to last week.”

“I wonder what it feels like,” Amelie said.

“What?”

Amelie paused, looking up at him. “To be in command? Of an actual assault?”

William seemed to understand her question well. The Queen indeed was now taking a fully active role in the upcoming operation. William, for the last few weeks, watched as Amelie turned fully into a Queen who ordered war. She had been actively speaking in favor of it in public, with other politicians, and it could be said that she herself was more involved in military planning than the Minister of Defense herself in regard to their planned Lieplatzan invasion.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” William said. “We have to liberate West Lieplatz. No other choice as you put it.”

“I still…” she looked down. “I don’t know, William. What if we’re merely deluding ourselves? What if we don’t really need to go to war and I’m just…”

“You’re what?”

She fell almost silent. “Lying to myself. And to the people.”

There was a long silence between the two. They were already fighting one war on their own soil, did they really need another one? Amelie tried to convince herself many times that it was necessary, especially since every report from Marie’s agency showed that General Richstoff was being excessively brutal.

It showed that someone needed to act, eventually. Someone had to step in and stop it. To end it for the Lieplatzan people. Amelie decided it would be her role. But still…

The calculus didn’t line up sometimes. He’d kill a few hundred dissidents. What then was the response from both Orlands? Declare war on him that would kill tens of thousands in just the span of a few days? Yet, if she did not act, it would almost be nothing but a heartless decision born out of mathematics.

So what if more people died to topple a brutal tyrant? There were still people who unfairly died and people being targeted who may also unfairly perish to a regime that believed in neither justice, decency, nor morality. To let such crimes go unpunished would be disgusting.

But still, to let more people die for justice? Amelie questioned her decision even more. In fact, why did she even present herself as the face of righteous justice? She had already looked at how men of the soldiery would sometimes act during wars, especially during foreign expeditions.

Orland was always the world standard when it came to foreign military interventions, a policy her mother and grandmother excelled at. Almost every year, Orland was unofficially at war with smaller countries on the other side of the globe before the Great War. All to deny the Order Pact of its new members. And thus, endless wars. Her Orland had a history of sending its young men to die in foreign lands during proxy wars for “justice, democracy, and the goddess”.

She looked back at the Kranh Campaign, a nation just south of Hebei. Three decades ago, they deposed their pro-Ivory Alliance Queen in favor of a less corrupt high noblewoman. Naturally, Orland sanctioned the new monarch, which forced her to seek refuge in the Order Pact. Her mother said to her that she had no choice but to save Kranh from the evils of the Order Pact. Especially when their new monarch began jailing the allies of the former Queen.

And so, for seven years, Orlishmen fought and died in the jungles of Kranh. For justice, she said. For democracy, she said. For their national security, she said. Amelie laughed at herself. Didn’t she practically sound like her mother once did?

To Lieplatz, for justice, democracy, and equality…Queen Amelie said.

Just hearing her own mocking voice made Amelie’s more hawkish side crack if just for a little.

“I’ll say you’ll probably be humbled,” William finally said. “It’s good that you’re finally acting as a proactive Queen ready to defend what you think is right. But I should say, the costs would probably make you question yourself.”

“Heh…I think I already am, and it hasn’t even happened yet.”

Yet somehow, William smiled in response to that.

“That’s good. Awful leaders don’t question themselves, even after millions died. At least you’re questioning yourself already when zero died.”

“That doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Detached to your troops and the realities of war, yes,” William said. “But to say that you don’t care for the men on the ground would be inaccurate. You’re doing your best as a leader of a nation at war. I think that's nice…at least.”