the_imperium | Recent Entries

This journal shall be the main repository of

nebris work regarding The Anglo-American Imperium, an alternate timeline where the American Revolution never took place and there was a steady progression of power from the old Royal capital of London to the new Imperial capital of New York City. It shall include full and partial works of fiction as well as various research posts and discussions of this universe.

“What I do does not fully come from compassion and understanding. My basic instincts are purely selfish. I am fighting for my heritage, not my 'race'. If in a thousand years all the peoples of the earth are as black as the ace of spades, yet speak and live as Englishmen, then my efforts will have succeeded.” ~HRH Alexandra, Queen of Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, Regnant Lord Protector of The Grand Dominion of America, Empress of India, Africa, Asia, and Oceania etc

Our journey begins with the tale of “Tea Time in Panjim” and proceeds on from there...

*The date of this header entry is Alexandra's two hundredth birthday.

NOTE: Everything in this journal is copyrighted by Michael Varian Daly and may not be reproduced without his express written permission.

In 1871 a noted French writer lamented on the nature of Alexandra. “We face a truly formidable monarch in her. She is brilliant and devious in her affairs and in the management of her Empire. That I knew by simply observing her political progress. But it was not until I saw her in the Royal Box in the [name required] Opera House in New York that I realized how dangerous she really is.

There is an obsequious habit of labeling Nobel Ladies of even a modest attractiveness as 'beautiful'. The Queen of The British is in fact a Great Beauty and would be so if she were a plowman's daughter. And even across the width of the [name required] Opera House one can see clearly the intelligence and liveliness that sparkles her bright blue eyes. As a man, I felt desire. As a Frenchman, I felt dread.”

The piece caused both scandal in The Foreign Office and the press...and amusement in the Queen, something she made widely known by having a pastoral painting of herself done as a barefoot English 'country maid' bringing lunch to an older man plowing a field. It was called “The Plowman's Daughter.” It became a very popular reproduction and a number of pubs called themselves “The Plowman's Daughter,” depicting said image on their shingles. It was a classic English 'two fingers' and it endeared her to her people even more.

The French writer laughed at this as well, though he said, “She proves my point. The British Queen took what was little more than a throw-away turn of phrase and turned it into a potent emotional weapon.”

Current Mood: creative

..first posted Dec. 13th, 2008 in my Live Journal..

~First, a bit of backstory...

Queen Alexandra's mother, Sophia, Countess Stenbock, comes from a family of very minor Swedish nobility. The Countess' aunt was a mistress of one of the last Vasa kings who was ennobled by her royal lover and managed to pass the title on to her close relatives. As the Stenbock's were an attractive and intelligent lot, they parlayed that title into a decent living, not rich, but certainly comfortable.

All the Stenbock children received the best education possible, boys and girls. After all, it was the combination of beauty and wit that had landed the first Countess Stenbock her royal lover.

And so it was that Sophia caught the eye of a bookish English Royal Duke when they crossed paths in a dusty Stockholm library in 1821.

Octavius, Duke of Cleveland, was the youngest living brother of Fredrick II, King of Great Britain, etc and seventh in line for the throne, which no one expected he would ever sit upon, something that suited the Duke just fine. He preferred the task that had brought him to Stockholm in that summer; collecting rare volumes for the great Royal Library at Haarlem Palace in New York City.

The Duke was forty one and most, himself included, expected he'd die a bachelor. Quiet and painfully shy, he was thought weak. That is until one pushed him on any subject for which he had a passion. Then those large soulful eyes would flash with fire and the famous Hanoverian temper would explode.

And Octavius' greatest passion was books and the learning they contained. He was sneered at as 'The Duke of Dustbins' for his love of rummaging through old library shelves. But it was in one of those dusty old libraries that he met another dusty bookworm, a young and beautiful bookworm.

Sophia Stenbock was just fifteen at the time, but nearly as tall as the gangling Duke. She was truly what she called a 'stack rat', as she loved books too. She did later confess to her then husband that she had 'stalked him like a game animal' in those book stacks. “Happy then is the prey,” he replied.

Of course, finding this well dressed yet dust covered young beauty seemed almost too good to be true for the shy duke. Many women had pursued him, but all of them had been uniformly shallow, vain, and rapaciously ambitious. Here was a fellow book fiend.

After a brief exchange of of letters with his brother the King, he was given permission to marry Sophia.

The marriage took place on August 31st, 1822 – little more than a year after they met - in the private quarters of Charles XIV, King of Sweden. This was an important event, however small the duke and his bride wished it to be.

After a two week honeymoon, the couple traveled first to London for the new Duchess of Cleveland's introduction to the King, and then on to New York City, where mountains of books awaited them. Their daughter, Alexandra Charlotte Willamina Frederica, was born on April 21st, 1823 in The Annex at Haarlem Palace. /end

~Well, I had not planed to go on like that, but there you have it. The original purpose of this entry when I first opened the file and began to type was to share an interesting bit of research.

A while back I did a Google search on the name 'Stenbock' just to see what I came up with. I found a Natasha Stenbock who works for KFMB News 8, the CBS affiliate down in San Diego as a weather broadcaster and 'light news' reporter. It seems she sky dives, scuba dives, and can fly a plane.

When I checked 'images', I found these....

....and that, my friends, is very much how I have envisioned Alexandra. We were most pleased.

Current Mood: calm

~I'm at the point with “See Luanda and Die” where I have to solidify some details of the back story, specifically the Royal family tree. While I have been referring to this alternate universe as “Snapperland” in my entries here [my Live Journal], that is not really an accurate title.

The central person of this world is HRH Alexandra, Queen of Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, Regnant Lord Protector of The Grand Dominion of America, Empress of India, Africa, Asia, and Oceania etc. This is truly her world.

But that she was even born is the result of one man's life and 'later' death, HRH Frederick I, King of Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, and France etc. In our time line, he died in 1751 of a respiratory ailment, never became king, and his son became the ever so lovely George III and we all know how well that worked out.

However, the author's conceit in this case is that Frederick lived to the ripe old age of 83 and died in 1790. Because of this not only was there no American Revolution, but the Thirteen American colonies were granted 'everything but their Independence', and also given possession of all of the territories of French and Spanish Empires in the Americas in the aftermath of the Great War of 1756/65. [see The Seven Years War in our time line]

The details of how all that came to pass will be related as I write these various tales. But there is one bit of information that I just discovered in a new expanded version of Frederick's Wikapidia entry:

“A permanent result of Frederick's patronage of the arts is "Rule Britannia", one of the best-known British patriotic songs. It was written by the Scottish poet and playwright James Thomson as part of the masque Alfred which was first performed in 1745 at Cliveden, the country home of the Prince and Princess of Wales...

...Later the words, set to music by Thomas Arne - another of Frederick's favorite artists - got a permanent life of their own regardless of the masque. Thomson, who supported the Prince of Wales politically, also dedicated to him an earlier major work, Liberty (1734).”

This gives me one of those little, but crucial, details that adds verisimilitude to a story. I did a little web surfing and found exactly the version that I was looking for. I believe it to be perfect because, unlike “God Save The King [or Queen]”, it is about the nation, not the monarch.

And, so ladies and gentlemen, I give you the National Anthem of The Anglo-American Imperium as it would be performed throughout Alexandra's time line...

When Britain First at Heaven's Command
Arose from out the azure main
Arose, Arose, Arose from out the azure main
This was the charter, the charter of the land
And guardian angels sang the strain

Rule Britannia, Britannia Rule the waves
Britons never never never, shall be slaves.

Rule Britannia, Britannia Rule the waves
Britons never never never, shall be slaves.

And at about two minutes it's just right for all occasions.

The Makassar Maru slipped out of Panjim's harbor a little after one in the morning. That was very much her style, coming and going in the dead of night.

She was a disreputable looking vessel, faded paint and rust streaks on her hull and decking. But inside she was as spit and polish as the flagship of the Royal Navy. She had a good turn of speed and a pair of 3.5 inch guns wrapped under tarpaulins, one each, fore and aft. There were numerous other weapons on board, as well.

Though she was registered to a Dai Bo Shipping of Hiroshima, the Makassar Maru had never been within five hundred miles of Japan. She plied Indian Ocean route almost exclusively, where overly suspicious harbor masters could be told unofficially to “mind their own business” by very official Imperial officials.

On another registry in the files of a 'non-existent' government bureau in New York City she was simply listed as C-23.

At five thousand dead weight tons, the Makassar Maru was small enough to to blend in, yet large enough to be flexible. Powerful engines and over sized fuel tanks cut her cargo capacity by nearly half, but since it was usually some type of contraband, that was a non-issue.

She did have passenger accommodations: a high security brig forward that could hold twenty 'special prisoners' for long voyages or up to fifty for a short run. Topside were six small but comfortable cabins grandly called 'staterooms'.

There was only one passenger on this run however, William Frederick Dudley “Snapper” Pennington, Commander, Royal Navy Reserve, and he slept soundly in Stateroom C, the door locked and a Fosbery .488 revolver tucked under his pillow.

Once out of harbor, the Mak, as her crew called her, picked up speed, her bow hissing through the dark ocean, its surface slightly illumined by the slim crescent of a very new moon.

The sound of the engine's increased throbbing caused Snapper to turn over, snuggle in his covers, and then fall into a deeper sleep. He knew that India was being left behind, at least physically.

In all his dozen plus years with the aforementioned 'non-existent' government bureau he had never been this tired before and his sleep was blessedly without dreams.

He vaguely remembered turning over, looking at dawn's pink glow coming in the porthole, snorting derisively, and going back to sleep. Next time he woke up, the sun's light was flooding brightly into the cabin.

“Coffee time,” he muttered and hauled himself upright.

At the edge of the bunk, a brand new pair of rubber flip-flops awaited his large callused feet. He'd bought them just before boarding and planned to wear nothing else for the duration of the voyage. Digging into his duffel bag, he pulled out a raw cotton shirt, short sleeves, v-neck. The red and white stripped shorts he'd slept in completed his ensemble.

After peeing in the cabin's small metal sink, he washed his face using a bar of the fragrant green soap he had come to favor during these last two years in India. He dried his face and then looked at the thing in the mirror.

It was still a handsome face, though certainly well lived in; tan and weathered, high brow, not too full lips, blue eyes, black hair with a bit of gray. He'd been a fine featured youth, almost pretty, which he had hated...except for the part where women swooned over him.

That boyishness had been well beaten out of him. Twice broken nose, once broken left cheek, and various small scars. Plenty more on his body, bullet holes and stab wounds. He was thirty pounds heaver than that slim ensign stepping out of the Royal Naval Academy sixteen years ago, yet he was as hard as jerky.

But there were dark circles under those blue eyes and he hadn't shaved in three days. He rubbed that blue-black bristle.

“Well, Snaps, old man, you look like a fucking dago,” he said in his best Pukka drawl.

He then looked past that face to the reflection of his cabin and it reminded him of another small room, a simple cubical really, off of a throne room in the abandoned palace of a dead maharajah.

Five by twelve, but with an over twenty foot ceiling, it had seemed the bottom of a pit, which was precisely the effect that Snapper had wanted.

It was now nearly a decade since Snapper had been recruited by his 'employers' and he would work for them for two years before he learned the name by which they went; Room 19. That was it, the entire title. He approved of its simplicity.

Back then his 'supervisor' was Mr. Greane, a 'naval type' who was a rather elderly gentleman, but sharp as a tack, make no mistake about it. It seemed that many of those who worked for Room 19 were 'naval types'. These days, Mr. Blaque ran things. He also had the smell of the sea about him.

It was a well known and high ranking Royal Navy officer who first approached Snapper about 'alternative service' as he put it. The transfer came with an automatic promotion and a shift to the Naval Reserve List. He thought the assignment would last a year or two. This was before the adrenaline hooked him.

His first assignment was a simple 'bean counting' op to see if the expenditures of 'certain persons' matched their income using both legal and extra legal means which took him through central and southern India. It was a boring and tedious operation meant to test his patience and diligence.

It was during that trip he came upon The Palace, seen in the distance from the window of a train.

It belonged to a maharajah who'd gone broke and moved to his house in the city, where he had died. His family still owned the place, but had no money to run it, so the place stood empty and abandoned for decades. As the local economy had depended upon serving The Palace, it was now effectively in the middle of nowhere.

“What a marvelous base of operations this would make,” Snapper had thought as he explored its dozens of large, empty rooms. He informed his employers of its potential and advised them to purchase it forthwith. To his surprise, they agreed.

He then went about his business and largely forget about the place. He would some times hear that The Palace was in use, but neither needed nor wanted to know the details of said use.

But when he realized it had become necessary to kidnap and interrogate Johannes Troutmann – and at length – right away he knew the perfect place to stage the operation.

Troutmann was an interesting character, in some ways quite representative of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy that ruled Her Majesty's Indian Empire and much of Her other Imperial possessions.

Troutmann's parents had moved to India when he was three years old. His father was a civil engineer from Brandenburg and his mother a teacher from Saxony. As they were both devout Roman Catholics, they were not welcome in the Grand Dominion of America, a circumstance that brought many non-English Europeans to India.

Troutmann's father found work right away even though his English was poor to begin with. India's cities were booming and his skills were in high demand. His mother stayed home and studied not only English, but also the major Indian languages, which she taught to her husband and son. The Troutmann's prospered and moved up in society.

Somewhere along the way his father lost his Catholicism, not an uncommon occurrence in the Ascendancy, and became a Tamist, a follower of the Nine Fold Tara, the faith inspired by the Queen-Empress. His son followed suit. Mrs. Troutmann however remained a staunch Catholic and, when Johannes turned seventeen, she returned to Saxony and became a Bride of Christ.

This had a profound effect upon both the Troutmann males. The father went completely native, married a Hindu woman half his age, and proceeded to have seven more children.

Johannes left home just before that marriage and never spoke directly with his father ever again. He joined the Merchant Marine and was absent from India for over a decade. It is believe it was during this time that he was recruited by the SIR, the Sluzhba Inostrannoi Razvedki, Czar Michael's Foreign Secret Service.....

...the story of the Troutmann Episode here...

III

.....He slipped sunglasses into the V of his shirt, tucked a ciggy behind his ear, but left the Fosbery under the pillow. He knew where all the small arms on board were kept.

The galley was empty at mid morning, but there was still hot coffee in the pot, bread, some crock cheese, and he knew how to use a bloody broiler grill.

No newspaper. They were at sea after all. He grunted at that and made a mental note to raid the captain's library. Reading something was a key part of his morning ritual. When he had the luxury of one.

No newspaper was just as well. The whole purpose of sailing in the Mak was to unwind a bit. The wireless would inform him of any overriding crisis. It would be a week to ten days from Panjim to Cape Town. He'd be moving fast again soon enough.

At Cape Town he'd grab a berth on board any available warship of the Imperial Naval Air Service, which would take the ocean route to New York. Normally he would have booked a cabin on a commercial airship, probably an Imperial Airways aeroliner, but those stopped at Recife in the Brazilian Empire and relations with them were strained these days.

No use taking chances.

His operational logs were already en route in a fast scouting airship, probably reaching Gibraltar just about now, and New York before he ate dinner. By the time he reached New York, they'd be properly prepared to debrief him.

The afternoon before he left Panjim, a hard looking Royal Marine major had showed up with two even harder looking Royal Marine sergeants to pick up Snapper's lock box, a steel case with three locks and two wax seals.

“I'm here for the item, sir,” he said, offering Snapper a form on a clipboard to sign. And “Thank you, sir,” at attention after Snapper signed it. “Loquacious chap,” Snapper had thought.

Snapper watched from his window as the two sergeants put the box into a closed van. There was an open truck full of Marines armed with various types of automatic weapons stopped both fore and aft of the van.

He would have preferred something a bit more low key, maybe one of his local operatives with two bully boys and a donkey cart full of straw. But he knew the whole operation had passed far beyond that point.

“A show of raw power is best, I suppose,” he thought as he watched the military convoy pull away from his doorstep. There were in fact six heavily armed men in his house at the moment.

Still, he did slip away quietly after dark dressed as an ordinary seaman lugging a ratty looking duffel bag and he was quite certain that his exit had gone unobserved.

He ate his breakfast slowly and silently, feeling the ships engines throbbing through his feet. “About twenty, twenty two knots,” he estimated.

When he was done, he washed his cup, plate, and silverware. “The proper gentleman is aways a good guest,” had been drilled into his head before he could tie his own shoes. He put on his sunglasses, lit his cigarette from the broiler grill, and headed topside

It was a clear warm day, about eighty degrees at the ocean's surface. The breeze from the Mak's speed was quite pleasant.

Snapper leaned on the railing and watched the water rushing past. He allowed it to mildly hypnotize him, letting his body and mind loosen up. That both were wound tight was an understatement.

The ship's engines suddenly throttled back by at least half. Snapper automatically looked up and scanned the horizon. Off the port bow was a sliver of white.

He focused upon it with great intensity. Soon enough its silhouette resolved itself into a warship. Of course, a white hulled warship in the Indian Ocean meant only one thing: the Royal Navy.

He relaxed a little.

He could tell the vessel was moving at a good clip by the speed with which it grew. A single fast warship traveling alone meant either a corvette or a frigate, probably heading into Panjim, mostly likely on general maritime security patrol.

No wonder the captain had slowed down. An old rust bucket like the Mak whizzing along at twenty knots would raise the suspicions of a first year midshipman, especially with a Japanese ensign waving at the stern, ally or no ally.

A few more moments passed and then a small grin twitched upon Snapper's lips. He knew that outline by heart; a Truxtun class fast frigate. Too soon to tell which one, however.

He was slightly surprised at how happy seeing her made him feel, no matter which ship she was.

His first billet out of the Academy was HMS Truxtun herself, only a year in commission and already upsetting the Naval Establishment. His classmates were green with envy.

He served two years in her as a Nav/Com officer and received his first promotion from her captain, Sir John “Mad Jack” Hartley, who was quite the old seadog by then. It was the happiest time he had ever known, before or since.

His eyes practically caressed the oncoming warship, her sleek six thousand ton hull, clean lines, two raked funnels, a pair of turrets forward and one aft, each mounting a single 3.5 inch Mark VII Ellis gun.

It was Truxtun's speed – rated at thirty two knots, but demonstrated at up to thirty eight – and her Ellis guns that created such a stir. Properly maintained and operated, the Mark VII, a five barrel electric rotary cannon, could fire thirty one 3.5 inch shells per minute, sufficient to reduce a battleship's superstructure to ruin if she got close enough.

The Royal Navy's 'old guard' still had their bowels in an uproar over the creation of the Imperial Naval Air Service as a separate arm a few years earlier. That Ellis guns were an Air service innovation simply added insult to injury.

But a number of the crusty old bastards fell in love with her once they saw her glide swiftly across the water. Nine more were ordered.

Snapper finally got a fix on her hull number; large black characters reading F-51. He thought for a moment. “HMS Bonaire, ” he whispered. Truxtun was F-43.

She was almost upon them now, her hull a high gloss white, superstructure a flat off white, red and blue bands on her funnels. Her 'spit and polish' was fully evident from stem to stern.

Most of her on-deck personnel paid little overt attention to the disreputable looking tramp steamer, but four officers on her bridge watched the Mak closely through their binoculars.

The Mak dipped her ensign as the Bonaire slid past and got a brief toot of her horn in acknowledgment.

Snapper still leaned casually against the railing, but as the Bonaire's stern came up, her White Ensign flapping vigorously, he could not help but come to attention and give a crisp salute. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed one of the officers on her bridge point that out to the captain.

And then she was past. And getting smaller.

He looked up at the Mak's bridge. Captain Ederveen was watching him, too. He nodded his head and Snapper nodded back.

Suddenly, he felt very tired. Time for some more sleep.

Five hours later, Snapper lay in his bunk dozing. It was a truly wonderful sensation. He did not have to be anywhere he didn't want to be. He did not have to see anyone he didn't want to see. He had nothing unpleasant to attend to.

“Fucking bliss,” he muttered with a smile.

There was a quiet knock upon the cabin door. He instinctively grasped the grip of the Fosbery and almost flowed out of the bunk to the door.

Back to the metal bulkhead, pistol at the ready, he said, “Yes?”

“Captain's compliments, sir,” said a voice from the other side of the door. Snapper thought, “Good English, slight Malay accent.” He let out a deep breath and opened the door.

A fierce looking South Asian greeted him with a polite smile.

“The captain is serving dinner in an hour and fifteen minutes, sir. Medallions of veal in a massala sauce he told me to say,” the crewman said pleasantly.

Snapper returned the smile. “Please tell the captain medallions of veal sounds lovely and thank him for giving me time to make myself presentable.”

The crewman grinned. “Certainly, sir. Do you have all that you need, sir?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Very good, sir.” The crewman gave the slight nod that passed for a salute on The Mak, which Snapper returned, then headed back up the companionway. Snapper closed the door. He noticed he was squeezing the grip of the pistol.

“Steady, Snaps old man,” he whispered.

He shaved and showered in the closet sized stall at the head of the companionway. He dressed in a fine cotton shirt and the raw cotton pants that went with the v-neck shirt he'd worn earlier. He fished around in the duffel and retrieved a leather bound jewelry case. From that he took his Naval Academy graduation ring. It still fit comfortably.

Fosbery Mk1 .488 top-break revolver [4 inch barrel/5 rounds]

A high quality, limited production, blue steel revolver designed to fire the Fosbery .488 cartridge; with a 270 grain hollow nose slug, a large, slow moving round, it fully justifies the company's motto, "There is nothing it won't kill."

The company's founder and principal designer is Major Sir George Fosbery [ret] KIE. Its 'bread and butter' are custom made shotguns of excellent craftsmanship with elaborate motifs.

However, the Fosbery Mk1 .488 was a labor of love for Sir George, its design based upon his twenty plus years of military experience in India.

Edit: Fosbery later on makes a .395 caliber version which is more commercially successful as more people can actually shoot the damned thing!

~This is a note to myself re Snapper's favorite sidearm. Sir George is a friend of Snaps.

August 10th, 1881

In dawn's light, Her Imperial Majesty's Air Ship Kalima rose up over the snow capped granite mountains of Afghanistan's Safed Koh range. Glowing with a terrifying beauty, her pale gray orca shaped hull reflecting a reddish gold, the Kalima looked like Wrath Itself.

The reality was rather more prosaic. HIMAS Kalima's mission was simply to put the Fear of the Queen-Empress - once again - into the recalcitrant inhabitants of the Panjshir Valley, a scruffy lot of Tajik tribesmen who had a bad habit of raiding Her Imperial Majesty's border settlements on the other side of the Hindu Kush.

Back in 'the old days', this would have been done by a detachment of cavalry and horse artillery riding quickly through the Khyber Pass to shoot a few tribesmen and burn a few villages and then dash back, what was known as 'butcher and bolt'.

It had been a Rite of Passage for many a young subaltern. The Tajiks might be scruffy, but they were fierce and damn good shots.

With the introduction of Aeroships and the creation of the Imperial Naval Air Service, that process became cheaper, easier, and had nearly zero casualties – at least on the Imperial side - what one wag called 'butcher and float'.

The old Indian Army types bemoaned such 'luxury cruises' almost as much as the Royal Navy had bemoaned the creation of INAS. “Where are our young officers to get bloodied?” they cried.

“Taking service with one of our client Chinese warlords,” came the Official Answer, which was in fact a good reply. The border wars in Northwest China between proxy armies of the Anglo-American Imperium and the Russian Empire were a far more effective military training ground than occasionally shooting up the odd Tajik hovel and took place on a fairly regular basis.

So the INAS took over 'the trade' on the Northwest Frontier, plied by vessels like the Kalima.

HIMAS Kalima was a Durga class airfrigate, fourth of that class to be build by Westlander Aeronautics, LTD, of the Province of California, Grand Dominion of America. She was 383 feet long and was armed with four Mark IV 2 inch Ellis guns, six barred cannon driven by electric motors, mounted in gymboled turrets. She was manned by twelve officers and thirty eight crewmen.

Her bridge and crew quarters were in an armored gondola that was mostly recessed into the airframe. Fuel, ammunition, and stores were kept in central compartments.

She was powered by six Danning DTP-48 turboprop engines, each rated at 750hp, mounted on variable angle pylons, three to a side, and a Danning DIL-70 V-16 engine, 1800hp, powering a huge propeller in the tail. They all ran on a kerosene/peanut oil mix.

Kalima's frame was constructed of laminated wood, aluminum, and polymer composites and her hull covered with a interwoven canvas/Nylon sheath. Her lift came from six helium cells and was regulated by another four air cells with cooling and heating elements.

She was alone on this mission as it was only an Admonishment. If it had been a full scale Punishment, there would have been a half dozen aeroships and a large ground force. And the aeroships would have come at night without warning.

Coming at dawn let the locals know what was what and gave them time to evacuate their women, children, and livestock.

Commander Shamsher Szczepanski, Kalima's captain, had been up before first light, reclining in his bridgechair while sipping chai. His uniform was crisp and he was freshly shaved. This was his third Admonishment and he planned to do it by the numbers.

He was a perfect example of the creole professional military class of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy. His grandfather, Franciszek Szczepanski, had been a cavalry trooper serving the Polish Republic during the Franco-Iberian Revolutionary Wars and had fled the wreckage of Europe when they ended.

Being a Polish Catholic and former Republican military, he was not welcome in the Dominion of America. But the East India Company army saw him as a experienced, literate, professional soldier and gave him a job.

He changed his first name to Frederick, married the daughter of Sepoy, rose to the rank of general in the Imperial forces, and died in his own bed a wealthy man.

Shamsher Szczepanski's parents were themselves both mixed blood members of the Ascendancy and named him after the Hindi word for Jaguar. His father was still on active duty as an officer in the Imperial Indian Army and his mother an influential society matron.

Great things were expected of him and he had no intention of disappointing. This was not a glamorous job, but he did it well and without complaint. If nothing else, he was a Professional.

After an hour or so, the Anjuman Pass slipped below and soon the first village came into sight.

“Firing turn here, Mr Shannon,” he told the helmsman. “Aye aye, Captain,” replied the craggy faced Warrant Officer at the controls. Kalima slowly orbited the village. “Three standard bursts. Fire!”

The rapid “Throomp Throomp Throomp Throomp“ of the Ellis guns shook the ship. Below, the mudbrick buildings of the village disintegrated into a cloud of dust and smoke. In the silence that followed, the 'ting' of rifle shots could be heard striking the gondola's armor.

Szczepanski grinned. “Cheeky devils, aren't they,” he muttered to no one in particular. He pointed to the nearest hillside. “Mr. Shannon, steer a course for that bluff.”

Kalima swung around menacingly and approached the hillside. The rate of 'tinging' increased.

“Three crisscross bursts, standard pattern,” said Szczepanski. “Fire!”

Once again the rapid “Throomp Throomp Throomp Throomp“ of the Ellis guns shook the ship. The rain of two inch explosive shells tore up the brush and rocks of the hillside, scattering their ruined fragments every which way. In the silence that followed, there was no more 'tinging'.

“Very good, gentlemen,” he said, “On to the next.”

By one that afternoon, Kalima had 'admonished' four more villages.

Szczepanski turned to a tall man in mufti standing at the back of the bridge and grinned. “And that's how we do things up here on the Northwest Frontier, Mr. Pennington.”

“Damn fine show, Captain,” replied Snapper returning the grin.

“Mr. Shannon, take us home, if you please. I have to show Mr. Pennington here some of the more interesting sights of Peshawar.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Shannon said with a leer.

The Kalima turned majestically over the now smoke hazed Panjshir Valley. On the valley floor nothing moved; not until she had passed overhead.

And there would no more raids...not for a while, at least. Life had maintained a certain pattern on the Northwest Frontier for centuries that even Her Imperial Majesty's mighty aeroship fleets could not alter. Not yet, anyway.

It was a lovely day, temperate with a breeze, perfect for sitting on the patio for afternoon tea at the quite fashionable Cafe Inez. One could watch Panjim's harbor with its cluster of maritime and aero ships, the traffic going around Imperial Circle, then up and down Empress Boulevard, a mixture of stately carriages and up scale delivery vehicles.

The ox and donkey carts, along with the heavy motor vans from the harbor, were restricted by law to travel along Shoreline Quay to the north and west.

Snapper sipped his Lapsang Oolong and studied his fellow patrons. Like him, the men were all wearing nearly identical white linen suits, though they also wore wide brimmed white hats, colorful ties, and were freshly shaved.

Snapper absent absentmindedly rubbed a days worth of stubble.

The women wore various types of diaphanous calve length flower patterned sun dresses, restrained jewelry, and large sun hats, usually with brightly colored bands.

The patio was filled with chatting, smiles, and polite laughter.

Cafe Inez was very popular with the upper middle portion of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy, the 'prime managers' of the Imperium who numbered about three million out of the Ascendancy's twenty plus million. They tended to be of more European blood than Indian, but, like the rest of this polyglot creole class, were all firmly Imperialist and largely Tamist, worshipers of the Nine Fold Tara, the Goddess directly inspired by the Queen-Empress herself.

For decades, Goa, and its capital, Panjim, had been a backwater. It had been purchased by the British Crown during the darkest days of the Franco-Iberian Revolutionary Wars, along with the rest of Portugal's overseas empire. Except for Brazil, of course. The Braganza's needed somewhere to hang their crown while their homeland was being occupied.

As the Imperium's fortunes lay mostly upon India's eastern coast, Goa languished. But in the 1840's, being the personal property of the British monarch, it was the perfect place for the Queen-Empress to initiate her Imperial Citizenship project. From then on, it flourished.

Because of that, in the nearly three and half decades since, it had become – in Snapper's opinion – one of the most civilized places on earth. That also made it a prime target for the operations of the SIR, the Sluzhba Inostrannoi Razvedki, Czar Michael's Foreign Secret Service.

That was why Snapper was here having High Tea at the Cafe Inez, besides the fact that he liked the place. He was mixing business with pleasure today.

Snapper's full name and title was William Frederick Dudley Pennington, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy Reserve. Most called him Freddy. Only a very few called him Snapper. For those who paid attention, one could see that he was a dangerous man, though he played at being 'a gentleman of leisure' quite well. His official, but 'non-existent', job was, as he had once said with a smile, “doing unpleasant things to unpleasant people.”

He casually perused his copy of the Goa Morning Times while keeping an eye on a handsome, ruddy faced man with a close cropped reddish-blonde beard. The man spoke with soft affection to a beautiful dusky young creole woman who gazed at him with adoration.

The chap called himself Tadeusz Biezanko and was officially from Silesia, a state of the Germanic Confederation, the Imperium's main European ally. But Snapper knew he was an SIR operative named Vladamir Borisenko and that he ran a blackmail operation.

Much was publicly allowed in the Ascendancy; mistresses, drug and alcohol addition, even discrete homosexuality. But pedophilia and incest were 'simply not done', although the former was endemic. Child sex trafficking was wide spread. The security services spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the mess.

Biezanko's front was lumber exporting, fine and exotic woods to be exact. But he funded at least three child sex rings that Snapper's 'employers' knew of. Ordinary clients were generally blackmailed only for money and then not too harshly. But they had snared a few Big Fish and those they were extorting for political purposes.

At the moment, Biezanko was here on his honeymoon, the young woman his bride, the daughter of a wealthy, socially ambitious Bombay merchant who saw Biezanko as a way to move some grand children up the ladder.

Snapper was here to kill him. “Too bad,” he thought, “They might actually be in love.”

Snapper looked across Empress Boulevard at the image of the only woman to whom he had ever been faithful.

The statue of Queen Alexandra as Boadicea was ubiquitous. There were easily three hundred of them in various locations throughout the Imperium. The one in Panjim's Imperial Circle was typical, polished bronze and three times life size.

Originally done by the emigre' genius Berney when she was in her twenties, it depicted her as the legendary Celtic warrior queen, standing upright in a war chariot drawn by four fierce steeds, her hair streaming in the wind from under an Imperial diadem . She wore an armored girdle around her midriff over a fur tunic, with a double headed axe hung from a wide belt strapped upon her hips. With her left hand, she held a trident up high. With her right, she grasped the horses reins. Her expression was exultant.

Around the pedestal in large letters it read; “Alexandra Queen of Great Britain Scotland and Ireland Regnant Lord Protector of The Grand Dominion of America Empress of India Africa Asia and Oceania”. She did have over two hundred other titles, but it was those three affirmed her as the acknowledged ruler of half the world's population and a third of its landmass.

If you came here at dawn, you could see devotees of the Nine Fold Tara clamber up onto the statue to place flower garlands around her neck and on both arms. They removed the wilted garlands from the previous day and tied on fresh ones. This happened every day without fail, even during Monsoon, when silk flowers were used.

Some of the devotees were Very Important People, but out there, upon the bronze body of Her Earthly Manifestation, princes and beggars were equal. Snapper had done it a few times himself, for reasons he was not really sure of and did not care to examine. He was wearing a red Tam pinned to his lapel, symbol of The Red Tara, Her Warrior Aspect that also brought good fortune.

The statue's ample cleavage and long bare legs had scandalized 'proper' society when it was first unveiled a quarter of century ago. But the people loved this frankly sexual representation of their queen in all of her youthful beauty. It shouted Power and Fecundity.

Snapper didn't think it did her justice. Even in her late fifties, she was still an alluring Amazonian figure and truly a great monarch, as well. She had personally sat in on two of Snapper's debriefings after especially delicate missions. She kept a close watch upon her domains and used her servants well.

It was said that Czar Michael had been madly in love with her and when she rejected his offer of marriage after the death of Prince Hedrick, his loved turned to hate. But then his timing had been hideous. Alexandra had been deeply in love with the Prince Consort and his body was not even cold when the Czar has made his proposal. And at Hedrick's state funeral, no less.

The Russian Empire and the Anglo-American Imperium had been rivals before – it was only natural – but after that, the rivalry took on the aspects of a blood feud. That circumstance had been the impetus to create the 'non-existent' government bureau that now employed Snapper in his 'non-existent' job.

In those regions where their respective spheres of influence overlapped, Central Asia and the northern Far East, an endless series of vicious little proxy wars ebbed and flowed. Many believed that an open full scale global war was only a matter of time.

However, until then, the two empires dueled in the shadows.

Tea time was getting close to its crescendo, the combination of sugar, caffeine, and good company. While still seeming to read his newspaper, Snapper gently grasped the elegant walking stick that leaned against his chair. He raised the tip, pressed a small pip, and an internal spring mechanism made a soft 'ting' that was lost in the ambient noise.

A soluble resin dart with a ricin core pierced Biezanko's Achilles tendon. He yelped and knocked over his teacup. Only a half dozen people noticed. He looked around, his face calm, but his eyes full of fear. He knew he was dead. He glanced at Snapper for a second, then seemed to dismiss him.

Pulling several bills from his wallet, Biezanko tossed them on the table and dragged his bewildered bride off the patio. Many more noticed that and whispered comments.

He'd be in a coma in a few hours and be dead in a few days. But Snapper suspected he would make time to contact his handlers and let them know he'd been murdered in broad daylight during High Tea on the patio of the Cafe Inez. That would send a message to St. Petersburg on several levels.

Satisfied that the Imperium was just a bit safer than it had been a moment before, Snapper poured himself some more Lapsang Oolong and turned to the sports page for the baseball scores. One of his favorite teams, the Hyderabad Pearls, was having a damn fine season.

© 2008 Michael Varian Daly