Let us turn back time, to the depths of the Londinium royal palace.
"Ah, Your Majesty. Joyful tidings."
An irrepressible smile spread across Prime Minister Galich's face.
"The 1st Division of the Capital Defense Forces has just arrived, they say."
The moment Queen Charlotte saw that smile, she felt a chill run down her spine.
'Checkmate.'
She knew that expression. The smile of one who corners the king after a long struggle and calls out "checkmate."
It was, of course, not the sort of expression the prime minister should be wearing.
Which meant...
"...That is indeed joyful news, Prime Minister."
Charlotte deliberately kept her face rigid as she spoke.
"But it is strange. Why would the defense forces sent to suppress the rioters not fire a single shot?"
"Rioters? They are the oppressed citizens of the United Kingdom, Your Majesty."
Galich slowly straightened his collar, revealing his true colors.
"The army has entered Londinium to sweep away the rotten remnants of the old era and return power to its true sovereigns."
"...What?"
It was Lieutenant Colonel Sterling who reacted before the Queen. Grasping the situation, his hand darted to his waist.
Tahat—! Thwack!
But before Sterling could even draw his pistol, a series of dull sounds echoed from the corridor. Silenced gunfire. The sounds of the royal guards outside the door, who had been protecting Charlotte, being eliminated in an instant.
"Stay right where you are, Lieutenant Colonel Sterling. That is, if you do not wish to see blood spilt in Her Majesty's chambers."
Galich's personal secretary, who had seemed an ordinary bureaucrat, had drawn a pistol at some point and was aiming it at Sterling.
"What is the meaning of this, Galich?"
Charlotte's voice dropped below freezing. Galich was nonchalant.
"I am merely explaining the flow of the times, Your Majesty. The remnants of the old era end today. We will purge the corrupt imperialist exploiters and forge this nation into a true people's united republic."
Outside soon fell eerily silent. It meant all resistance had ended.
In an instant, thoroughly.
There was nowhere to run. The entire palace that had protected her had become a giant cage.
Charlotte racked her brain to its limit.
Galich had called in the 1st Division. Infiltrated by communist forces, they were now no different from rebels.
The reason the Prime Minister had come in person was the same. Not to discuss the situation, but to detain her here.
Her assessment was complete. But the question remained.
'How in the world...'
Galich. A descendant of immigrants from the eastern continent.
That his origins touched the Federated States was a fact well known to both the royal household and Sidney's intelligence bureau. That his ideology was perilously seditious, and even that he had used that sedition as a weapon to win the votes of the poor and laborers—Charlotte had believed it all to be within the nation's control.
But it was not.
A method to perfectly deceive the state system and overthrow the regime.
Ascending to the position of "Prime Minister," the nation's highest authority, and using that top administrator's role to incite rebellion.
'Ha. Absurd.'
Even having worked out the whole story herself, Charlotte could not believe it.
No, even knowing it was the truth, her reason refused to accept this truth.
It was that "unreasonable" a situation. That is why the worst-case scenario of "the Prime Minister's personal coup d'état" had been excluded even by Sidney and the intelligence bureau's counterintelligence nets.
But only now did Charlotte realize her painfully fatal misjudgment.
That from the start, "common sense" does not exist in a "communist revolution."
For them, coexistence with legal democracy is nothing but revisionism. They prefer to trample normal power with the flames of revolution and overturn the game board itself.
Thus, perhaps Galich's judgment had been extremely efficient. He did not secretly nurture rebels while hiding in a basement.
—"The structure of the Capital Defense Forces is bloated. Reform is necessary for equipment modernization and chain-of-command reorganization."
—"The intelligence bureau's illegal surveillance controversy is severe. Its budget must be frozen until the investigation is complete."
All were bills Galich had presented to parliament.
He used the Prime Minister's appointment powers to reshuffle the military command, and used illegal surveillance as a pretext to blind the intelligence bureau. Whenever the intelligence bureau tried to dig into his background, he escaped under the guise of "classified budget cuts," and when the Queen moved to rally the royalists, he countered with the frame of "corruption liquidation."
Naturally, the citizens were enthralled, and parliament passed the bills with overwhelming majorities.
Charlotte ground her teeth.
'I... what on earth...'
Reign but do not rule.
That great blind spot of the United Kingdom's centuries-old "constitutional monarchy" had bound Charlotte and Sidney's hands and feet. By the Prime Minister's... atrocities, backed by the parliament's legal procedures and the overwhelming support of the public.
Before this righteous and heartbreakingly moving red revolution narrative, there was practically nothing a powerless queen could do.
"Your Majesty has two choices."
Galich pulled a document from his breast and placed it on the desk.
[Treaty on the Transfer of Royal Authority and Recognition of the New Government]
"First, stamp this document with the royal seal. We will be considerate enough to let you end your life as an honored monarch and live as a private citizen. Ah, if you wish, we could let you serve as a sort of figurehead madam for the revolutionary government. We still need Your Majesty's beautiful face for internal and external stability."
"...And the second?"
"Is to be executed as a lackey of imperialism in this lovely office."
A murderous glint flashed in Galich's eyes. It was a coaxing no different from a threat. Charlotte suppressed her surging rage with reason.
"You damned traitor...!"
"Calm yourself, Lieutenant Colonel Sterling."
Charlotte cried out in a grief-stricken voice.
"The palace has already fallen. There is no reason to shed meaningless blood."
A smile spread on Galich's lips. A woman no different from a greenhouse flower after all. She would have no choice before the fear of death.
Charlotte rose as if resigned, reaching her hand beside the oak desk. The gazes of Galich and the secretary naturally followed her fingertips to the pen nib.
Galich was sure of his victory.
Except, he did not know.
What was hidden beneath the monarch's desk, in a palace office with hundreds of years of history.
Click.
Her hand on the desk, Charlotte kicked the switch beneath the desk with the heel of her dress shoe.
Kwoong—!
In that instant, the lights of the office went out all at once, and darkness descended. Simultaneously, steel walls came down, sealing the office door from the inside.
"Wh-what is this!"
"Your Majesty—!"
Just as the startled secretary was turning his gun.
Lieutenant Colonel Sterling drew his pistol.
Pshuk! Pshushuk!
Flames spat. Silenced shots pierced the darkness.
The bullets from each muzzle tore through the bodies of Sterling and the secretary nearly simultaneously. Spitting blood, Sterling shouted:
"Go, Your Majesty!"
Charlotte leaped through the crack that opened as the closet slid aside. She did not look back. Stopping here would make Sterling's sacrifice a dog's death.
"Damn it! Open the door! Smash it and get in!"
The shouts of Galich, hiding beneath the desk, filtered through the closing closet door.
"..."
Soon the closet fully closed, and the secret passage was enveloped in pitch-black darkness. The air was cold and chill.
Charlotte simply moved her steps downward by instinct. The only one who came to the mind of the queen, left with no one by her side, was Sidney Wellesley.
'Please... at least you, be alive...'
Charlotte prayed but did not stop walking. Her delicate fingers clutched a bloodied hem of her dress, with steps that seemed about to snap her high heels, stumbling, yet continuing.
In the darkness, she swore.
'No matter what happens...'
That she would make them pay the price.
*
—"We notify the Imperial Embassy! We are the Londinium Capital Defense Forces 1st Division!"
The armored car's loudspeaker boomed through the night air.
—"You are suspected of inciting illegal unrest. All of you, throw down your weapons and come out with your hands raised! If you surrender, your safety will be guaranteed under international law!"
Bullshit.
This was not something to say while pointing tank barrels this way. The moment we surrendered, we would be dragged into a back alley and get a hole in our heads, or be sent to a revolutionary tribunal and lose our necks.
"Lieutenant Colonel, they're deploying infantry! They're going around the rear and sides of the building!"
Hannah, who had been watching the situation, called out.
"That blatant encirclement is an annihilation formation, not an arrest."
Seraphina clicked her tongue.
And I thought. Fighting to resist here is suicide. If even one enemy armored car fired its cannon, this antique stone building would turn into a stone tomb.
The conclusion was swift.
"Everyone, retreat to the basement! Abandon the first floor at once!"
My subordinates moved as one. Without hesitation, I went straight for the safe house located deeper inside the embassy residence.
"L-Lieutenant Colonel?! What in the world is going on...!"
"What on earth is the meaning of this, Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger! Are those madmen trying to arrest imperial envoys?!"
Soon, Minister Josef came out, and Elise, with a tense face.
"No time to explain! Just run!"
The two started running headlong anyway.
Boom! Kwaaahng—!
At the same time, a massive explosion erupted from the first-floor lobby. The sound of their explosives blowing away the embassy residence's last barricade.
"Lobby secured! Front clear!"
"Ar-Are we really entering the Imperial Embassy?!"
"Shut up and get in there and arrest them! The general's orders!"
"If the top says do it, we do it!"
'Status analysis, status analysis...'
[Target: 1st Division Special Forces Sergeant First Class (Federated States puppet)]
[Status: Murderous intent, Excitement, Exhilaration]
[Emotion: These bourgeois pigs! I'll be a hero today by cutting off the Empire's head!]
[Target: 1st Division light weapons gunner (Conscript)]
[Status: Extreme tension, Fear, Confusion]
[Emotion: Damn, are we really doing this? I thought it was just riot suppression, why are we arresting envoys? Weren't we in some kind of colonial negotiation?!]
[Target: 1st Division Platoon Leader (Radical officer)]
[Status: Fanaticism, Sense of mission]
[Emotion: This is the great first step to driving out the rotten bourgeoisie and building a true people's paradise!]
At least, they weren't all commies.
There were certainly low-ranking conscripts who knew nothing, or those who thought they were just there to suppress a riot, unaware it was treason.
But despite that, they were carrying out their orders on their own two feet.
'Fuck, just what the hell is going on!'
But there was no time for lamentation.
I swiftly shoved Elise and Josef through the basement door.
"Halt!"
"They're resisting, shoot!"
And then they started shooting, finally.
Tatatatang!
Bullets grazed past my shoulder. The guards following me went down, riddled like honeycombs.
Covered in blood, I barely managed to get inside the basement.
Kung!
The iron door shut firmly.
"Damn it, they've hidden inside!"
"What are you doing! Set the explosives now!"
And beyond the heavy door, the sound of their footsteps began to echo.