Omake: The Palace
Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom
George Alexander Louis King of England, Scotland and Wales stood at the window of the drawing-room in Buckingham place which he used as an office watching the rain coming down in sheets on the palace grounds with a drink in one hand. He couldn't help but feel lost in memories of a happier and simpler time before the world ran made because of a band of lunatics over in the former United States and it all snowballed from there. He took a sip of the drink; it was an old Scottish whiskey that he had saved from the fall, and now he needed something to fortify himself for his upcoming meeting.
Sighing heavily he turned back and walked over and sat behind his desk and carefully place the drink on the table and pour one into an empty glass and put it across from himself as he picked up a file on industrial statistics and began to read back through it. The Prime Minister was running late, which was most unlike her, but she must have had her reasons.
There was a knock at the door, and it opened, and the footman announced, "Your Majesty The Right Honourable Karen Patel Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is here to see you."
"Send her in please Robert," He said politely.
As he said that a Goanese woman entered the room, she wore a simple black suit was small, but she had a presence of command that most people would have envied. She had grey hair streaking through her black head of hair and several scars across her face and hands courtesy of her time with the Royal Navy back when they had more power and had tried to help the old USA against the Viks. Now she was his Prime Minister and the one who had been the primary driving force alongside him for reunification back when it had the driving force and one of the principal leaders who had been part of the negotiations with the EU.
"Sorry I'm late your Majesty," She said with a bow, "there was an issue which required my immediate attention."
"It's quite alright Exelency You," He said, "Take a seat."
The footman closed the door, and she quickly moved over sat down and took the glass and downed it.
"Rough day Karen?" He asked, smiling they had known each other before he took the throne, and she had been a strong character even then.
She sighed, "I received a request from Representative Blackwood through the Foreign Office," she gave him a look which would have melted steel.
"Oh what did that self-righteous idiot have to say now?" he asked dryly.
She looked as if she wanted to spit and said, "asking me in oh so diplomatic language to turn over any remaining old US military asserts that got left in situ to his government as the Godly And Rightful successor of the United States of America," she looked like she wanted to spit, "I had Lord Bradley distract him with various diplomatic slights of hand but don't know how long that will last."
He looked at her worriedly took a sip of his drink and asked, "We don't have any old USAF or USN kit knocking around?"
"To my current knowledge no," she said, "I've spoken to Field Marshal Levingworth, First Lord Somerville and Air Marshal Jin and they have there people looking into it, but right now Bradley and I are tempted to say no."
"Good," he said, "as far as I'm concerned outside of my Royal title's the Victorians are a rouge state who should be denied any aid by any sane and right-thinking people."
"Do you want that to be the stance my government should take your majesty?" Karen asked.
"Yes," He said firmly nodding, "I will not support the Victorians we will do all we must to support those who will restore sense to the North American Continent see if we can put out feelers to the Commonwealth we can at least see if we can establish diplomatic contact at least to the same level as New York."
"Very well your majesty," Karen said, "If you don't mind I will have Security Service Keep a closer eye on the Representative than they already do I'll also have SIS slip what limited information we do have to parties who can use it against them."
"Please do that Karen also has SIS increases surveillance on the Russian as well if possible," He said.
Karen nodded and sighed. He topped his glass up and asked, "Anyway enough of Victorians and their lunacy. How is the state of the kingdom so far?"
"Good," she said with a small smile, "I had a meeting with Sarah Chislom-Sarmack BEIS the EU and it's specialist and what's left of our industry concerns are making progress in restoring our badly damaged industry. I recently spoke to a Cammell Laird representatives and Blohm Voss Represtives and working together they should have some of the old Liverpool yards back online, and the first keel's on some new general-purpose cargo ships should be laid down in the coming months."
"That's good some new cargo will help transport the equipment and material we need," He said, "If I remember correctly the agreement was Germany get some of the new construction?"
"Yes that was the long and short of it," she said, "But the knock-on is it's help places like Sheffield get their metalworks rebuilt though there was concern voiced by some of the unions over the just depending on one section of the industry."
"I can imagine," he said, "But from what I remember we have more than enough rebuilding going on that we will need domestically produced steel for quite a while."
"Other than that small surprise all light and heavy manufacturing sectors," she said, "are reporting various increase all over its small steps so far but it's going a long way to restoring the country it's also keeping the English, Scottish and Welsh assembles happy since more people are getting employed and more people are in work. I also have spoken to a man from the reformed BP who has people looking over the old British Rigs in the North Sea what's still viable and what we will need to rebuild."
"Good," he said, "What about agriculture and infrastructure all this capacity beeing restored won't mean much if we can't move it or feed ourselves."
"Infrastructure is going slowly we have to clear a lot of rubbish out of someplace or bring in EoD in some case's when we find old Novemberist traps, but it's going all be it slowly however on the power generation side we should be meeting the targets for this month thanks to a drunk ex merchant sailor and a crazy dutchman of all things," she said, "As a side note Education and the NHS are making slow but steady progress, and vaccination of the population is on target."
He raised an eyebrow at that last remark, and she said, "They were good friends before the collapse, and both are very good at making things work with very little I don't know where Sarah found them, but they and their teams alongside the specialists from the EU have been working miracles."
He chuckled at that and then she said, "As to Agriculture I had a meeting with Lady Villers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs things have started to slow down, unfortunately."
"How?" He asked, "I don't want to see rationing imposed again."
"Neither do I but we have hit a bottleneck in terms of farming machinery we are waiting for more from the continent," she said, "our factories under local ownership are only just coming online as to fishing we are still talking with Iceland about fishing rights the last thing we need now is another Cod Wars it will hurt our relationship with the EU and damage the reconstruction."
"Keep me informed on this please Karen," He said, "in case I need to bring the Crown into the diplomatic efforts."
"Of course William," she said, "On the other side the in East Anglia we should be able to get more of the old farmland under the plough after clearing the old Novemberist and Loyalist ordinance, and Scottland and Wales have also increased their cattle farming efforts as well clearing some old Lowland farm areas of unexploded ordnance as well."
Sighing, he took a swig of his drink and said, "The old Novemberist, Loyalist and the other flavours of Lunatics and nationalist made our life a lot harder."
"Aye," Karen said unhappily, "Bloody fools cost the country almost everything."
He closed his eyes and banished the memories of the old horrors, "Anyway onto the military side, how are we looking."
"Well Sandhurst, Brtitinnia and Cranwell are finally turning out their first full classes of officers and the various training establishments are finally turning out the numbers we need it's also made the assemblies happy that the crown is focusing on defence somewhat again as well," she said, "so we won't have to worry about a lack of officers, but the issue is they need seasoning we have a lot of collapses and pre-collapse veterans, but they will retire at some point, as to training it's quality is starting to improve as well thanks to the veteran trainers and rebuilt facilities."
"Good to know we will be able to replace losses if needed," he said, "how are each of the forces doing?"
"If it's ok I'll start with the Army and work my way from there," she said.
He nodded, and she went on, "The army has recovered to around 64000 regular troops with around 12000 reservists they are mostly training as mechanized and light infantry along with various support elements our special forces group has also bounced back as well both the SAS and SBS are reconstituted, and the SRR is coming along nicely."
"What about heavy equipment?" He asked, "We should have some old stores leftover from the collapse."
"We do, and we have to bring the Royal Artillery back up there pre-collapse skill level, and we have been training the Royal Armoured up on the old Challengers and other armoured vehicles," she said with a sigh, "However we are currently breaking ground on some new armour, heavy equipment and artillery works at Birmingham, Edinburgh and Cardiff so right now we have a limited supply expect for what our EU can provide us with."
"And they are stocking it up for when the Russians turn their attention outwards," he added grimly, "Not that I can blame them."
"Yes," she said, "on aircraft front, we should be getting some refurbished Linx and Merlin to the army soon, but the old Apaches are a write-off, so we are going to have to look for a new attack Heli."
"To be expected," he said, "keep me informed of what is decided."
"Onto the navy," She said, "the Royal Navy has around 41 ships active and it's the lowest we've been for a long time."
"Aye," he said, "I remember the pre-collapse fleet when I served."
She nodded, "So do I but of the number, we have overall is three destroyers, six frigates, fourteen of the old River class, nine archer patrol boat, two astute subs, five RFA ships, the HMS victory and one damaged aircraft pre-collapse carrier."
"Not promising numbers," he said as she rattled them off.
"No there not," she said, "we can only now barley man them, and until the docks in Portsmouth, Southampton, Cardiff Newcastle and Rosyth are back up we need to send to Germany or Norway for repairs. The situation will get better when our industrial capacity is restored, but for now, we need to focus on maintaining the fleet we do have before we can look at new construction."
"Nelson and Fisher would weep if they saw the fleet," he said sadly, "hell I do now whenever I think about it."
"As do I," Karen said, "we will recover to where we where, but it will take time at least we can protect home waters now."
"I know," he said, staring off, "What about the marines."
"Good news there actually," she said, "40 Commando has been rebuilt and should be ready as a rapid reaction force."
"That amazing news," he said, "will be glad to have the Royal Marines back in the fleet."
"Agreed," she said grinning, "Finally there is the RAF going off current numbers we have around two hundred operational craft with around another hundred in varying states of repair."
"That's not good how far along are we on producing new aircraft and helicopters," he asked.
"Not far enough," she said, "The fighting and the collapse killed a lot of that sector in this country the survivors who formed the core of the new BAE are trying to rebuild it, but it's slow going, for now, we can buy spare parts from Sweden, Norway, Germany or the few stable parts of France and produce a few parts in house."
"Yes," he said, "I saw the reports our once proud aerospace industry is struggling to recover."
She nodded, "I have a few people at the MOD and looking into and BEIS I will get back to you, but so far I can't promise anything with the RAF in the future."
William sighed and rubbed his tried eye, "other than the Vic winging," He asked, "anything else in foreign affairs and intelligence I need to be aware of before we call it?"
"Nothing on the intel front that I can tell you here," she said "as for Foreign Affairs the Russians are still focused inwards as I said and the EU is still pulling itself back together, another protest against the Spanish government in Gibraltar and the FO has made some noise about getting in contact with the Commonwealth which I will push them on after our little talk. Other than that it's the same mess all over the world we have had a couple of feelers put out by various governments in exile and resistance movements ."
"Thank you, Karen," He said, standing up and offering her his hand, "That will be all. I hope I will see you tomorrow and will join Helen and me for breakfast?"
"Of course, your Majesty," she said, taking it and shaking, "I'll see you then."
She went to the door which opened, and she left, he moved back to the window the country still had a long way to go but at least now they were recovering which was more than could be said for some of the nightmare situations in Africa, America and Asia.
"We may never be a Great Power again at least not in my lifetime or that of my sons and daughters," George said to the air, "But God as my witness I will leave the country better than I found it."
