Bootstrap Colony 5 Snippet 2

 

 

IannaImperium, Colony World

 

For a guy whowas maybe a king, okay, prince consort? King Consort? He wasn’t sure nor did heparticularly care about the titles. But he should be happy. And he was, to adegree.

It was allabout fronts, Eugene Ryans thought as he looked out from the tower overthe battlements of the capital castle.

If he’d beena woman, it would be a storybook fantasy come true. Prince meets and marries awoman making her his queen. Except, in his and Diedra’s case, the roles werereversed. She was the queen, and he was the outsider. He wasn’t even from thisworld.

He lookedover to the kids playing with the nanny and smiled briefly. He went back tobrooding. It seemed the day for it—moody, overcast. Cold, he thoughtwith a slight pang for the poor serfs still stuck in hovels across the planet.

He glanced atthe reflection of his wife in the chair reading by the fireplace. That wassomething that he liked about her; she liked to read. She had taught herselfEnglish and read some of the books that the printers printed ferociously.

Especiallythe romances that the girls had put them up to printing, he thoughtin amusement. What was it with women and reading romances? He thoughtwith a slight shake of his head.

The slightmovement attracted his wife’s attention. She glanced up but then went back toher reading.

He noted themovement and went back to brooding. Okay, a recap woolgathering hethought with a mental snort at his inner narrator.

He had foundand captured the wormhole in the Atlantic with the help of Max and otherengineers and scientists. People had thought they were crazy, which was whythey’d kept it all quiet until they were ready to announce the gate was stable.

Then ofcourse the U.S. government had gotten involved. They had insisted on joiningthe expedition. He’d welcomed the military support, even if it came withstrings.

Fifteencivilians and fifteen military personnel of different stripes had crossed over.Unfortunately, some like Colonel Richards hadn’t made it. At each transit, thewormhole portal on this end of the wormhole had moved backwards along a cliff.The very last hummer had unfortunately come out midair, alla somethinglike a Looney Toon cartoon.

It might havebeen funny for the horrified watchers, a bit of black comedy except that agroup of people had been in the hummer. Colonel Richards had died along withhis driver and three others.

The explorershad been cut off from a quick escape. They’d been forced to go inland, to waitout when the wormhole would inevitably be attracted to the cliffs once more andreturn.

In returningto the original mission they had met their destiny. They had wandered into awarzone of medieval cultures clashing in a classic siege. Well, classic if youreplaced the animals with alien animals for the most part and if you mixed upthe architecture and weapons from different cultures on Earth.

Apparently,the wormhole had been bouncing around Earth for some time. It had sucked upthousands of people over that time period. Those that had banded together andsurvived in the alien world had learned to thrive … to a degree. But they’dbeen stuck in the dark ages of technology. Newcomers called gaijin werehighly prized for their new blood and knowledge.

The maincountry was called the Ianna Imperium, founded primarily by Romans with asmattering of other cultures thrown in. To the northeast was the kingdom ofDuluth settled by Vikings and Celtic tribes.

Sometime inthe past, the Imperium had begun to expand and eventually inevitably fractured.Two duchies were formed beyond the mountains to the north and south. A thirdtribe, Nuevo Imperium, had set up their own kingdom in the southwest.

The continentlooked vaguely like Great Britain. It even had an island off the west coast ofcomparable size to Ireland that was home to slavers and pirates.

Duluth, who hada bad winter, had decided to invade in the early spring of their arrival. Ithad turned into a full siege of the Duchy of Emory. The group of explorers hadtried to avoid it only to be drawn in when they stumbled on a group of Vikingsbusy raping and torturing a refugee party. The party’s survivors turned out tobe Princess Deidra and her sister Zara. Their little brother had been killed infront of them.

They’d had abunch of adventures getting the girls back to where they belonged. Along theway, they had lost more people, mostly to the local alien wildlife. He hadsaved the girls a few times. The others had jokingly coined the Princess RescueInc tag line.

In thecapital, Eugene had been told that he was to marry the elder princess andbecome king. The king died and well, he’d been stuck in a moral quandary.Abandon the girls to be torn apart by the local court or the Vikings or help.

He’d pitchedin to help and help they had. They’d made a deal with Deidra and her people toshare some of their knowledge. In doing so, they’d revolutionized the Imperium.They’d also slaughtered the poor Viking bastards.

Poor, he thoughtin disdain as he sniffed softly. Okay, maybe a few, but most had been all fullof zeal to loot, rape, and burn. He shouldn’t feel bad about stopping them nomatter what it took. It was his modern western ideals that such one-sidedslaughters should be limited.

He knew whereit came from, comic books, cartoons, and movies, and the idea that the herodidn’t go off slaughtering people. They had to have chivalry, a sense ofrestraint.

He snortedagain softly to himself. Funny how it was always expected for the good guys toshow restraint.

Well, theyhad to a degree. The surviving Duluthians had been patched up. Zara had beenput on their throne and sent there to get their house in order.

Eugene hadbeen intent on returning to Earth but it hadn’t worked out that way. A plaguethat had come from exposure to his explorers had swept through the Imperium.Worse, a fire had killed the queen leaving the two teenage princesses asorphans.

He’d sent histeam back, all that wanted to return to Earth anyway, and then settled in to bewith Deidra.

His lipstwitched. It didn’t have anything to do with falling in love with Deidra andvice versa. Such romantic crap only happened in those tawdry romantic novelsand movies the girls loved.

They had madegreat headway in slowly modernizing the Imperium. Zara had been sent to the northeastand Duluth to bring some of their tech there to help with their famine. But thelocals there had turned on her and taken her captive.

Eugene hadtried to stay out of conquest; it had been a part of his deal with the queenafter all. But he’d found himself with a commando unit rescuing Zara in thecold winter. Plus dealing with crap from Earth and other shit.

His chestheaved in a soft sigh. That was it. Earth was bugging him. That and dealingwith the other nation states on the continent. He was doing exactly what he didnot want to do.

Damn them, hethought as his jaw flexed.

He sawDiedra’s eyebrow quirk up a little. Either she’d read something interesting orshe was watching him closely. His fingers flexed a little.

No sooner hadthey gotten Duluth under control then spies from the two duchies had started toget blatant about trying to steal their tech. At one point, even kidnappingsome of his people.

He’d tried toquell such things by agreeing to send a diplomatic delegation to the southeastand the duchy of Calliope. But again, the natives there had broken their word,taken the delegates hostage, and then tried to squeeze them for informationabout how to make modern gunpowder weapons.

He wincedslightly.

Well, ithadn’t worked. Oh, they’d updated and upgraded their tech with what their spieshad given them, but it hadn’t been enough to stop his people. They’d invadedand taken the kingdom apart like a chicken. His people had been rescued andwell, Calliope was playing very nice right now.

They’dbetter, he thought moodily.

That stillleft their partner in crime, the Duke of Medicini, to the north of them. He’dplayed the duchess of Calliope against them and then left her hanging in thewind. Cold, he thought. Machiavellian, he added.

In otherwords, a smart ruthless bastard.

They had beencleaning up Calliope when humans from Earth had returned and seized the gateand the fortress nearby. They had killed some of his people.

His … well,their military had responded in kind, taking out the fortress and gate. He sawmotion and turned just in time to feel hands rub his shoulders and then wraparound his waist from behind.

“Hi,” hemurmured. “Done your book?”

“The chapterfor the nonce,” Deidra murmured. She snuggled against him. He lifted his armand she moved to snuggle under it and against his side. “What are you thinkingabout?”

“Just …getting my thoughts in order,” he admitted.

“We have toomany enemies,” she agreed.

“I know.You’d think they’d get smart and back off,” he grumbled.

“Tis fearthat makes them lash out in unexpected ways. Fear and desire to take what wehave,” she said as her tone darkened slightly.

“I know,” hesaid with a slight sigh.

Duluth was abit of a problem still, restless. For that matter, the Imperium was too. Theyhad the occasional lord who wanted more or wanted to play stupid games. Stupiddangerous games like assassination or the like.

Then therewas the restive natives of Calliope, and now Medicini. Factor in the humansfrom Earth and the pirates off the west coast and well …

He feltDeidra rub his back. “We’ll take on all comers together. And we’ll kick theirarses,” she growled.

Despitehimself he laughed. She was right. As long as they took on each foe one at atime, they could do it. If they had the right mix and had the right pieces inthe right places at the right time.

But damn themall, they’d do it, he thought as the kids came over and hugged their legs. Hechuckled and his rumble made Deidra respond. She tickled him and then theybegan to play with the kids, their problems of state momentarily forgotten.

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