The regent turns off and the humans have a chance to talk. I think this helps my potential human readers engage more with the story. But then again, when demis get playful, it is a joy to write.

Some of Aurie’s statements surprised me. I love being surprised by them.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer! 

Much smaller than she had thought, Eloise looked at the tapered nose of the lead train car and the single passenger car attached to it.  They got in the former with a few legionaries with the rest in the latter.

“The power comes from the rail line itself,” Aurelia said, answering her unspoken question.  “Once a precious resource, the Empress worked tirelessly to get all the old fission reactors she could back on line as well as building several new, but smaller, ones.”

“Nuclear power has been forbidden in Canada for years.  And yes, Aurelia,” Eloise raised her hand, “I know that’s one of many reasons we’ll lose to you.  I did have a question, though.”

“Please.”

“Why isn’t your husband coming with us?”

“He’s busy.  Learning about reactionless motors and interplanetary travel.”

“He’s Canadian, right?”

“He was.  Now he’s my husband.”

“And if he takes his new knowledge back home while you’re away?”

The tiny smile fell off Aurelia’s face.

“Then he’s dead.” Eloise shook at her tone.  “I have killed tens of thousands of men, women, and children.  Because they opposed us; opposed me.  That’s a statistic.  The loss of Jimmy would be a tragedy.”

They settled in their seats.  Colour by the window, Aurelia next to her.  I’m across the aisle.  Separate.  The Regent closed her eyes, gave a great sigh, and seemed to fall asleep.  At once, as there was a warning the train was about to move, Colour stood and motioned for Eloise to move to the window.  The older woman sat next to her.

“When she sleeps, it’s more like ‘turning off,’” she said quietly.  “She can kinda hear, but will ignore us as she thinks she’s safe with us.”

“As an officer, should I be insulted by that?” Eloise asked.

“You should be honored, as I am,” Colour said with a shake to her head.  “Recall:  I, too, am a foreign national, trying to walk a narrow line of loyalty to my homeland and my friend.”

Colour sighed, too.

“It’s a very narrow line, sometimes.  I want to rest.  While it’s still light, do what I did:  look out the window and see the agricultural and industrial power that’s here.  The shear human potential, led by this family, is something I think she wants you to see.”

Colour reclined her seat and lay her head back.  Eloise did as she was bade and looked out and north.  When the train accelerated, she was pressed back into the seat at what she estimated was four Gs.  It let up about a minute later.

“Their trains are faster than some of our jets,” she muttered to the window, recalling her team’s flight to Grand Forks.

An army officer, with a potential adversary to the south, Eloise had looked at plenty of regional maps.  That was the Tennessee River which just blurred under us.  Oh, we’re turning southwest to follow it.  The next city is… Huntsville.  I know I’ve heard that name in the last few days, but I’ve heard so much, to keep it all straight…

They didn’t stop and their train turned due south, re-crossing the same river.  Colour was right.  The factories outside of Huntsville look new.  Even late in the day, there are tractors and combines all over the farms.

“If the others in their Polar Alliance have the same population pressures, that might explain their fascination with Mars,” she breathed onto the window.

It was only some minutes later, as they tore through the gleaming industrial complex of Birmingham, that she allow her eyes to grow moist.  The raw power of what she beheld overwhelming her.

What was happening down here was either spoken of in hushed tones in the back of a bar or laughed at during briefings.  I tried to listen to both, steering a way between to the truth.  Dammit, the guys and girls in the bars were right.  And I’ve seen nothing of their reactors.  She shuddered.  Or where they make fusion weapons.  It would take no more than four or five, assuming the exchange between the Regent and my General was true that Quebec is leaving, to obliterate the last of my country.

“Since the Russians hold everything to the west.  And will never give it up.” This time, the water broke out of her eyes as she thought about her torture by the Spetsnaz and the kindness of Konev and his men.  Dammit, Bob!  Please rescue your mother and come back!  I don’t know what to do!

It was getting darker.  She closed her eyes and leaned back to rest.

It seemed a second later that the Regent was ordering them both up and out.  Eloise looked west at the great river, illuminated by the lights of the rail bridge.  A bridge to the Texans; now closed.  A light meal of mussels and flounder.  Aurelia drank water while Colour and Eloise split a bottle of white wine.  The Regent led them to a small bluff overlooking the Mississippi.

“I’ve only those three cohorts here, that about a regiment, El, so I was kidding about starting a land war,” she began.  “A land war.  Ryland is very, very angry about her daughter’s detention and is already shooing off incoming freighters to Houston.  That, legally, is an act of war.  I’m just pretending to know nothing about it.”

“Is this how the imperium goes about its business?  Brushfire wars?” Eloise asked with a tone.

“Not at all.” Aurelia was the least put out.  “My aunt is very direct.  Kill everyone; God will know his own.”

She turned away from the river to stare at the Canadian.

“They deliberately provoked me.  Me.  My family.  I could lob a nuke into Austin and there is nothing they could do to stop me.” Two golden flashes in the dark.  “I want the faction who did this to Livia to suffer at the hands of the rest of Texas.  That’s how this game is played, El.”

“Consider,” she went on, taking Colour’s hand into hers, “the internal politics.  Liv’s dad is a brigadier general in their Special Forces and also attached to their Foreign Ministry as their back-channel to the Imperial Danubian Federation, one of the four spokes of the Polar Alliance.  I’m sure he’s doing very well in pointing out that a war with me means a war with them.”

“Kah, kah!” The Regent barked a laugh.  “Humans learn, but so slow!  And never at the expense of mine!”

“Little girl,” the older, Colour, raised their clasped hands, “behave yourself.”

I’m surprised she gets away with that behavior…

Eloise saw the tilt left of Aurelia’s head, back to the river.  Her mouth moving but saying nothing.

“I think I am winning.” She directed them to the nearby Hummer, surrounded by legionaries.  “We’ll sleep in the fort on the hill tonight.  Us three girls together.  Will that keep me in line, Colour?”

“It’s a start,” the woman in her fifties smiled at the dangerous twenty-five-year-old creature.  “I’m guessing you’ve heard something?”

“Yes.  The blockade continues but the Texas Secretary of State will be here at day brake.  With Livia.” Her smile was brighter than her eyes.  “Like my aunt, I shall never get tired of winning!  Let’s go to bed, friends.  And, no, with that look, Eloise!  Different beds, same room.  We’re girls and girls need to gossip!  Like what you and my cousin are up to!”

“But, we’ve…”

“Shhh!” One of the most dangerous people on the planet pushed her index finger against Eloise’s lips.  “Girl gossip!”