Chapter Two: Klayton

 

“Some foolish thing in the Balkans will start the next war.”

                                                                        -Admiral Foch, Centaur 2^nd Fleet.

 

The magnificent city of London had survived wars, famines, and numerous rebellions, but somehow had only barely hung on through the city’s Urban Renewal Program. Gone were the Lydgate and Southwark Gate; in their stead were several towers rising grotesquely some miles above the city streets. The Aldgate remained only because a historian owned most of the property along its twenty-one mile length, and there were also remains of other walls erected against the Scots and the Picts to the West. This, of course, was long before Hadrian’s Wall was erected. That gate served to protect the inhabitants of the English section of Centaur from voracious lava flows streaming down the site of Mt. Etna, as well as serving to keep out undesirables.

The governmental branch of London managed to secure itself around Westminster Abbey, a marginal tract of land prone to flooding and a swampy smell in the late spring. 10 Downing Street, or the Parliament, down the street from Buckingham Palace, was unusually busy that Monday morning, but in light of what had taken place in the Balkans city of Bath the day prior, that was to be understood.

In the main hall of the Parliament, there was a crowd of politicians, lobby-makers, and aides and, of course, the press, who loved to stick their noses in anything that would make the conservative government look awful. Scores of Army personnel, and security figures pushed the press back and tried to maintain order around the politicians, some of whom were engaged in heated debates over whom was responsible for yesterday’s assassination.

Yet the real debate took place inside a large meeting hall deep in the bowels of the Parliament. Two and a half meters tall and sporting silver armor, blue hair, and slender, almost feminine features, Commander-in-Chief of the Centauran forces and head of the Erobotic Warriors, Klayton Kravashe, formerly of Dramastia, blasted through the giant doors and charged up to King George V, who was consulting with his advisors, and declared that he was resigning, effective immediately, for failing his King.

King George V, balding, sporting a gray beard and an even darker countenance, was a veteran of the Battle of the Faulklands. In the days when even royalty served in the military, young King George, then one of several Princes, had been assigned as a gunnery control officer aboard HMS Queen Mary. The ship had returned from combat riddled with holes, and George, while unharmed, learned quickly that war was less about parades and pomp and grandeur, and more about solemn lakes of blood and steel and sacrifice.

Now, nearly twenty years after the Great War, he was determined not to let himself get drawn into another squabble that would spell death for an entire generation of men and women. Yet King George was a sensible man, and understood that while he did not desire war, there were other worlds that did.

The aging monarch looked upon his greatest field commander with dismay. The past few months had seen a profound improvement in Klayton’s struggle with anxiety and depression but, not surprisingly, in the wake of this massive crisis, he went to pieces. The King did not find fault with Klayton; he, too, was feeling the tremendous heat of yesterday’s events, the details of which he would share with Klayton as soon as the man calmed down.

For the moment, as Klayton hyperventilated, the monarch dismissed the others in the room, allowing only Klayton, the monarch, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, in the room. As soon as the others departed, the King turned to Klayton and ordered him to get a grip.

“From the preliminary