Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2) Read online

  “I am as yet…unconvinced.”

  “That is reasonable, Mister Zhao,” Annette replied. “You know very little of me and likely less of the politics of the Imperium and the powers that surround it and us. I asked for this meeting because I have no illusions of my ability to run Earth on my own and I have no desire to lean on the Imperium for local government.”

  Zhao slurped his soup, studying her.

  “I intend to assemble a Ducal Council,” she continued. “This Council will be made of people chosen both for their skills and for their visibility—a functional government but also a symbol of continuity and of self-government.”

  “We will not truly be self-governing,” Zhao pointed out.

  “No,” she agreed. “But we are a very small fish in a very large pond. The A!Tol are not entirely our friends—they have their own reasons for annexing us—but there are worse predators in the water.”

  “The Kanzi,” he said slowly. “The A!Tol have released some information on them. Not much, and it reads like propaganda.”

  “While the Imperium has people who can lie, the A!Tol do so poorly and don’t like to build government affairs on it,” Annette told him. “I don’t know what information on the Kanzi has reached Earth, but they are slave-taking racial purists with both religious and sexual overtones to their slaving.”

  “That sounds…personal.”

  “They tried to enslave my crew,” she said flatly. “Yes, it’s a little bit personal. Even the A!Tol aren’t the biggest fish in this pond, but they’re big enough to keep us safe from the local sharks.”

  He snorted and finished his bowl of soup, considering.

  “Do you trust them?” he finally asked.

  “Without question? No,” Annette answered. “They have their own agendas, their own objectives. Earth is expendable. But those same agendas and objectives value an Earth that can contribute militarily and economically to their Imperium.”

  “Fair,” Zhao allowed. “You understand how this looks, Miss Bond,” he pointed out. “We sent you out to free Earth from the A!Tol, and now you return to rule it for them. Collaborator is the…weakest of terms I could use.”

  “Collaborator. Quisling. Traitor,” Annette said levelly. She clenched a fist under the table. He was trying to push her buttons and she couldn’t let him succeed. “I earned Earth a measure of self-government we wouldn’t have had for fifty years or more, combined with an ally who will defend us against any other threat.

  “I made my choice, Mister Zhao, to do what I saw as best for humanity despite any personal costs. I don’t expect to be remembered as a hero. But because of the choices I made, I expect humanity to be around to demonize me.”

  Zhao chuckled.

  “Eat your soup, Duchess Bond,” he instructed.

  “You’ll join my Council, then?”

  “China has ways of dealing with conquerors,” he echoed. “It seems you understand them better than I would have expected an American to. I do have one question, though.”

  “Ask.”

  “Why Hong Kong?” he gestured around them. “It’s convenient for me, but why return here first? You’ve never even been here before.”

  “I intend to make Hong Kong our planetside capital,” she told him. “We needed somewhere famous, an economic and cultural center, that had never been a capital. It was here or New York, and since I was an American, balance seemed wise.”

  “I begin to understand what Casimir saw in you,” Zhao replied. “Very well, Duchess. You have my service—and as I’m sure you suspected, I should be able to bring most of China’s Party with me.”

  #

  The city administration of Hong Kong wasn’t the adorable three-story brick office of the small Midwest town Annette had grown up in. The administration of a city of almost fifty million souls took up a sixty-story office tower tucked away in a commercial section of downtown with stores on the ground floor of every building.

  The lowest five floors of the Hong Kong Administration Tower were given over to meeting halls and gathering places, many of which apparently had walls and even floors that could be retracted to allow for immense gathering spaces.

  For Chief Executive Monica Ha’s reception for Earth’s new Duchess, those meeting rooms had been turned into a three-story-tall grand ballroom that was easily sized for thousands. A live band played in one corner, but their music was relayed around the space by speakers and audio gear—less than a quarter of the space would have been able to hear them otherwise.

  Annette arrived with her Ducal Guard in tow. Wellesley and his men had given up their power armor for the moment, though she knew perfectly well that they’d concealed plasma carbines under their suit jackets.

  How she wasn’t entirely sure, but she wasn’t going to ask questions. While power armor had made its way into the hands of special detachments of the various local police forces, no one on Earth except the Imperial Marines—and now her personal guard—had the miniaturized energy weapons.

  Chief Executive Ha was a slimly attractive woman with dark hair and a ready smile, switching from directing affairs through a concealed earpiece to greeting guests from moment to moment as Annette and her own team approached.

  “Your Grace, welcome to Hong Kong,” Ha greeted her with a small bow. “I trust our security provisions have been sufficient? We weren’t expecting an aerial attack.”

  “Nor was the attack your responsibility,” Annette told Hong Kong’s leader. “We handled it ourselves. I have no complaints about the Hong Kong Police Department’s efforts to maintain my safety.”

  The same power-armored cops—or perhaps a different set in identically painted armor—stood guard around the building. Anyone entering the tower had to pass a security check with those looming suits of war watching them.

  “The provisional administration has informed me that you will be permanently setting up in Hong Kong?” Ha said questioningly.

  “Offers are already in place to acquire several of the downtown office towers,” Annette confirmed. “I’m disinclined to seize property for those operations—we can pay in Imperial marks, and I intend to begin as we will carry on: with honesty and transparency.”

  Ha chuckled.

  “Careful, Your Grace, that’s starting to sound like a rehearsed speech,” she warned.

  “You have no idea how many times I had to beat that idea into some of the Imperial administrators’ heads,” the Duchess told her, sighing. The A!Tol in general had a detailed, well-thought-out plan for the uplift and stabilization of Earth.

  They still seemed to think that, as the Duchess, she could get away with things she knew would be bad ideas.

  “There are many people here who will want to meet with you,” Ha noted. “I think you’ll enjoy Hong Kong, Duchess Bond.”

  “Executive Ha, I’d enjoy anywhere on Earth after the last year,” Annette said with a smile. “Thank you.”

  “Remember that you’re scheduled to speak in an hour,” the other woman told her. “But everyone here is going to want a private conversation. Half the planet wanted to show up.”

  “I’ll be ready for the speech,” Annette said with a sigh. “If I have to.”

  #

  Annette didn’t pretend to be good at circulating, but she’d made it to Commander and executive officer of a battleship in her UESF career before things had gone sideways the first time. Then she’d been the personal pilot for one of the richest men alive, followed by commanding his test ships.

  She knew how to circulate, and set her mind to it with a vengeance. Her job right now was to convince as many people as she could that being a Duchy with her at the head was the best thing for Earth. Convincing people that she was trustworthy was an important part in that.

  So, she made nice with the reporters, talked with the businessmen and chatted up the cabal of Party members that Li Chin Zhao had produced at a few hours’ notice.

  After forty minutes, however, she spotted the elder Wellesley holding u
p a wall. He inclined his head to her and then nodded toward a door next to the stage where she’d be giving her speech in a bit.

  “With me, James,” she murmured to her bodyguard, and then crossed to meet the man’s father, ducking into the small meeting room presumably set up to allow for speech preparation.

  “Your Grace,” Malcolm James Valerian Wellesley greeted her with an aristocratically perfectly bow. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

  “Thank you for the invitation, Your Grace,” she told him.

  “In the current state of affairs, it appears you are the only person on the planet with a title that isn’t purely a formality now,” he replied. “The A!Tol achieved in one fell swoop what English republicans have been trying to pull off for most of a millennium: truly making the crown and aristocracy meaningless.”

  “I didn’t work for them then,” Annette pointed out. “I can’t change what they did when they arrived.”

  “No and no, I wouldn’t expect you to,” Wellesley admitted. “As I understand it, your role in this is to make us all good citizens of the Imperium, valuable members of their society.”

  “With the meaning that citizens have rights and privileges, I can’t argue with that explanation,” she said. “I was sent to find technology and allies to protect Earth. I’d argue I succeeded, if not exactly as people expected.”

  “That depends, I suppose, on how independent this ‘Duchy of Terra’ will be. Is this a polite fiction, to salve our wounded pride while we remain a conquered race—or a polite fiction to soothe their wounded pride while we claim our independence?”

  “Neither,” Annette replied with a chuckle. “We’re about as independent as, oh, Iowa. We’ll have a lot of say in our own affairs, but we’re bound by Imperial law and will be protected by the Imperial Navy.”

  The older Englishman looked at his son. “Well, boy?”

  “Well, what?” the Major asked.

  “You saw everything she saw, James,” he pointed out. “Followed her into deep space, followed her into breaking her oaths. For the greater good. Is she right?”

  “She was my Captain and is my Duchess,” the younger Wellesley said flatly. “You of all people understand the meaning of loyalty.”

  The Duke let out a bark of laughter.

  “That answers half the question on its own,” he replied. “But still, James, what do you think?”

  “I think we were on the border between two giants and one of them was going to grab us,” Wellesley told his father. “We got grabbed by the one who wanted a pet instead of the one who wanted a meal. It’s not a great deal—but it’s better than the alternative.”

  “I can live with that,” the Duke said. “That’s about what I figured.” He pointed at James. “I knew this lad wouldn’t have followed you into arguable treason without a damn good reason, so I had a few chats once we knew what was going on.

  “You won’t be getting a response from your invitation to Chandler,” he continued. “Our esteemed ex–Prime Minister will have nothing to do with you, but, to be fair, I think the man just wants to retire quietly and not have anything to do with politics at all.

  “He did sign off on the surrender of the human race, after all.”

  “I can understand that, but you realize I need someone to speak for Great Britain?” Annette said. “Someone to sit on my Council and make the British understand that, yes, they do have a voice in this new world.”

  Wellesley sighed.

  “It’ll be me,” he said flatly. “But not entirely in my own right.”

  “I don’t understand,” Annette admitted.

  “I’m here to extend an invitation for you to meet with Her Majesty Queen Victoria the Third,” Wellesley said formally. “Her title is now as much a formality as mine, but her support is hardly meaningless.”

  Annette swallowed hard. She understood, intellectually, that right now she was the single most important and powerful person on Earth. It was still a shock to realize she was literally being invited to supper with the Queen of England.

  “I would be pleased to accept her invitation,” she told him. A buzzer on her communicator went off, and she smiled.

  “Right now, however, I need to give a speech that the entire world is waiting for.”

  #

  Chapter 5

  Stepping up onto the stage, Annette found it almost impossible to actually see the people gathered in the room. There were so many flying drones, shoulder-mounted cameras and other lights and recording devices pointed at her, she couldn’t make out any of the crowd.

  It was probably for the best. She wasn’t speaking to them tonight. This speech would be carried live on every network on Earth. There might have been more important speeches in history—but there certainly hadn’t been in her career.

  “Citizens of Earth,” she said quietly, trusting the microphones to pick her up. “I am Duchess Dan!Annette Bond.

  “If you know of me, it is likely as Captain Bond of the UESF cruiser Tornado—the ship that now serves as the flagship of our Ducal Militia.

  “You have been told, first by Medit!, the former A!Tol Governor, and then by the provisional administration that Medit! helped put together, that I have been declared your Duchess and Terra—Earth—an Imperial Duchy under my rule.”

  The room was silent. The photographers taking pictures had turned off any sounds and there was enough light to negate the need for flashes. Her entire world could see her—and those who weren’t watching live almost certainly would see her later.

  “But you don’t know what that means,” she allowed. “All you know is that one year ago, the A!Tol appeared in our skies and destroyed our fleets. They forced us to kneel and told us it was for our own good.

  “And we did not believe them,” she said flatly. “Why would we? Our brothers and sisters were dead, fire scattered across our skies. My own ship fled into exile to fight them, to try and free our world.”

  She let those words sink in.

  “But their hand was gentler here than any of us dared hope,” she reminded them. “They tried to uplift us, not exploit us. And perhaps, perhaps, they were not as evil as we thought them to be.

  “I saw firsthand the A!Tol rule of the galaxy. I sailed their stars, fought their navy, and, yes, dealt with their underworld in an attempt to buy you the freedom I promised when I left.”

  Clasping her hands in front of her, she looked at the cameras, hoping that her people would see the truth in her eyes.

  “And I understood in the aftermath of those battles that the A!Tol were not our enemy,” she told humanity. “We had enemies. People who would grind us underfoot, who would make us their slaves, to toil in mines and factories to fuel an all-consuming war machine. The galaxy is not a safe place, and we have two empires in our neighborhood.

  “The A!Tol have their own reasons for coming to Earth, but while they would see us follow behind them, they would have us stand.

  “The Kanzi would have us kneel.”

  Again, she waited, letting the silence fill the room.

  “Make no mistake,” she told them all, “the A!Tol are not angels. They have their own demands of us, and our Duchy will be subject to their laws, their requirements, and, yes, eventually their taxes.

  “But within those confines, I am permitted to run Earth as I choose and to send representatives to the legislatures that run the Imperium.”

  Breathing deeply, she forced a grim smile.

  “For now, I am gathering a Council of humanity’s leaders to lay out the next steps,” she explained. “We will establish a new worldwide government. A new planetary militia of both ground and space forces—the A!Tol are responsible for our defense, but I don’t intend to rely on them completely.

  “Over the next year, we will draft a Charter for the Duchy of Terra, a new constitution for all mankind. Within the confines of Imperial law, we can rule ourselves.

  “Like the member states of the USA before us, we are not entirely independent—
but we are free.”

  Reaching the end of her prepared remarks, relief helped turn her grim smile into something more honest.

  “The galaxy isn’t a safe neighborhood, but with powerful friends, we can make it work. The A!Tol aren’t perfect—but they are prepared to be our friends.

  “I ask you, the people of Earth, to give me a chance to show you the possibilities membership in the Imperium opens up—and I ask you to trust me that I will permit no harm to come to this world.

  “Thank you.”

  #

  With the worst part of the evening out of the way, Annette allowed herself to relax slightly and grab a glass of wine from one of the circulating waiters. She had no intention of doing more than nursing it for the next several hours, but it made her feel slightly better regardless.

  She was going to need a staff. She was actually going to need a planetary bureaucracy, she reflected, but she needed to start with a staff. Right now, she was leaning on her flagship’s crew and Medit!’s staff.

  Neither was really appropriate. She needed Tornado’s crew to start focusing on training and preparing the militia crews they were going to need to recruit, and Medit!’s Uplift personnel weren’t really hers to call on.

  “Duchess Bond!” a feminine voice called to her, and she looked up to see an extraordinarily attractive young woman flagging her down. The woman was too perfect, clearly the benefactor of both high-tier cosmetic surgery and a very professional preparation team that knew exactly what to do with her height and long black hair.

  It was the headband she wore that finally triggered Annette’s memory, though. It faked being a decorative headband well but not enough to prevent a practiced eye from picking out the cameras—it was a media headset, and the Duchess remembered the woman now.

  “Miss Robin,” she greeted the reporter. “Still with Global News Network?”

  The reporter blinked in surprise but managed to hide it quickly. She was good.

  “Of course,” she confirmed. “Jess Robin, if you remember.”