Alice's Point of View
The battlefield had been churned into a muddy mess by machine gun fire, grenades, and mortar rounds; spent shell casings and bits of wrecked robot were everywhere. Alice had to watch her step to avoid cutting her feet on sheered off bits of metal, not fully trusting her combat boots to protect her.
This was their third such war game in as many weeks, battalion versus battalion this time. The heavy machine guns and 82 mm mortars in the battalion heavy weapons company had made the difference.
"Tough old boys, aren't they?" Taras asked, picking up a piece of Vanguard chassis that was still warm.
"Yes," Alice agreed as they walked the perimeter, inspecting the damage. "Small arms don't do much to that black alloy, especially since the factory got our feedback."
"I noticed," Taras said. "The fuel tank in the back has been up-armored since the last batch. You're going to need something pretty heavy to stop these Necrons."
Necron. It was what Taras called them, an alien race from a game he'd told her about.
"Seems a waste," he said, "just destroying them like that."
"Queen Reka isn't going to provide you weapons that haven't been thoroughly tested," Alice said primly. Strange as it was, she felt the need to defend her boss, her old enemy. Where did this sense of loyalty come from?
Taras held up a hand. "I understand. There's no point rushing out a buggy product that has to get patched for six months just to be playable."
Boys and their games, Alice lamented. Even King Brad, who was pushing thirty, if he wasn't already there, spent a decent chunk of his time on the couch with a controller in his hand, the Queen just sitting by his side and watching blissfully. They were awful on days when nothing was scheduled, not even leaving the royal apartments, just completely lost in each other.
Ah, that reminded her. "We're having dinner with the Queen tonight," Alice reminded him.
Taras sputtered. "Me? Meet the Queen?"
Alice wanted to laugh. He was in for a shock. "Don't worry so much," she reassured him. "It will be a very casual affair. Her husband is an American. There won't be any formal protocol or anything like that."
Her...coworker? Training partner? Friend? Whatever Taras was to Alice, he didn't appear to believe her.
"You don't get it," he said tightly. "I was on leave when it happened. When the news story broke about nuclear fusion being discovered my hometown went wild. We thought that if Russia didn't have energy to use as leverage then maybe the world might actually help us. My little sister has Queen Reka as the wallpaper on her phone! She's like, the most famous person in the world! Don't you know?"
Alice had a general sense of how famous Reka was from monitoring social media. The Queen was a genius scientist, an incredibly beautiful and stylish young woman, and now literal royalty. Yes, she could see how that might capture the imagination of girls the world over.
The wedding, too, Alice thought. It was such an elegant, glamorous event, televised globally. Some people even thought that little magic mishap at the end was a literal miracle. Okay. Alice got it.
"She's normal," Alice said, but Taras looked at her incredulously. "Well, a certain kind of normal."
She helped him into her car and started the drive back to Buda Castle.
"It'll be at least a week before the factory can produce two brigades for us to play with," she said, eyes on the road. Ever since that narrow escape back in America she couldn't help but continuously scan her surroundings for threats.
"You've seen combat," Taras blurted out. Alice looked at him sharply. He shrunk in his seat. "You...you don't have to talk about it," he said softly.
It was quiet in the car for a while.
"I was in university when the war started," he said once the silence became oppressive, his voice sounding far away. "Technically, someone my age wasn't obligated to go, but I'd played with drones before and...well, I knew what I could do, even then. That was three years ago."
Taras wasn't a kid, Alice realized. He seemed young but the hard look in his eyes told a different story. This was no isekai cheat skill, just experience.
"We'll need a bigger arena to practice real, large-scale maneuver warfare, will also need to source the vehicles," Alice redirected the conversation.
"Yes, I think mounting and rapidly dismounting the Vanguards when needed would go a long way towards mitigating their weakness in energy reserves," he said conversationally. "They're better at offense, in any case. I mean, they aren't afraid to get shot and can't be suppressed in the same way humans are. It'd be a waste to just have them sitting in a trench."
Alice had the same thoughts. They were like orc berserkers in that way, blunt instruments that could crash right through the enemy's battle line.
"This country looks nicer every day," Taras remarked, looking out the window.
Budapest was barely recognizable compared to when she arrived. LED and neon lights were being put up everywhere, making the city sparkle in the evening. Hungarians living abroad were moving back, chasing all the opportunities and money Reka had attracted to their land.
Nobody was fat, the only developed country on Earth that could make that claim. There were even rumors that territories lost in the Treaty of Trianon were begging to rejoin. Queen Reka refused to entertain such proposals to avoid antagonizing her neighbors, for now. The "Demon King" of Russia would be her focus for the foreseeable future.
Security waved them through and Alice parked her car, a YBD. The Chinese electric car was one of the first built in Europe. Alice had to admit, it was a lot nicer than her old Haneda Citizen, and somehow cheaper.
She led Taras through the halls of Buda Castle to the royal apartments, bracing herself for the inevitable. Reka was going to Reka, she knew it.
"My love, dear Alice is here with her guest," the Queen said, loud enough for them to hear outside the door. "No, don't get up, I'll let them in myself."
On the spur of the moment she put an arm around Taras' shoulders to hold him in place.
"Ah, welcome home, faithful Alice, and you must be our master of machines. Be at ease in my palace, dear fellow!"
The Queen was wearing one of Brad's shirts and nothing else.
*****
Reka's Point of View
"Oh my! You two sure are getting along well!" Reka said cheekily. The boy was vaguely elf-like. Perhaps her guard captain had a type?
Alice looked mortified, but Reka noticed she wasn't letting go of the master of machines.
"Brad, they're here!" she called out in a sing-song voice. "It's comfort food tonight, 'American slop' as my husband calls it. Come in! Come in!" she urged.
"That's the Queen?" she heard the boy whisper as they followed her inside, but didn't catch Alice's reply. He sounded charmingly nervous. Reka would try to be informal and put him at ease. No need for protocol or rank here!
Brad looked up from his game and met her eyes. "Galiban said the burgers will be ready in five minutes."
The young boy let out a short, high-pitched laugh before closing his mouth. "Right, burgers, American," he said sheepishly. "I mean, it's one thing to see the memes and another to experience it first hand."
"Oh, don't worry!" Reka said kindly. "I ate this sort of thing all the time back when we lived over there; no harm befell me. These will be gourmet burgers, never fear. Our butler is an excellent cook."
"You want to take this conversation to the dining room, honey?" Brad asked.
Good thinking, my love! Her husband was always so attentive.
Their dining room had a long table suitable for entertaining many guests, but in practice they only used a few places on one end. She and Brad sat next to each other on one side and Alice and her guest sat across from them. Her absent friend Julie was actually in China right now, supervising the release of their weight-loss pills to the general public.
"So," she opened up the conversation, "how fare my undying legions?"
Alice and the boy looked at one another in silent communication. Eventually an accord was reached and she got an answer.
"Better than anything I've ever imagined," young Taras told her. "I'm going to be brutally honest with you, er, my Queen; we're losing this war. The front line moves slowly right now but Russia has more men than we do, and the west has been stingy with aid. No offense," he said, looking at Brad.
"No, I know it," her husband agreed. "Especially since Blimp cut you off from Patriot missile batteries."
"Yes, that's made things difficult for all of us; we appreciate the electricity your country has been sending us, by the way," he said sincerely. "With the Vanguard, I really think we could get the momentum back on our side. They handle amazingly in any terrain and can be equipped like any other infantry. A lot Ukrainian families who don't have to send their sons to the front will thank you."
"Why is a lack of patriotism a problem?" Reka asked.
Alice and Taras looked at her funny. Did I say something odd? Their land is under attack. Patriotism should be easy to find.
"Remember when I explained to you what Aegis was, honey?" Brad asked.
She nodded.
"A Patriot is like that, a missile that shoots other missiles out of the sky. The Russians have been using their missiles to attack Ukrainian infrastructure, especially electricity. That's why we've been sending them so much."
"Ah," Reka understood at once. "We're working on something like that, but Galiban has run into a bit of a problem."
As if on cue her butler entered with their food. "Your graces, my lady and noble guest," he greeted, bowing to all.
"It smells divine, faithful Galiban," she complimented. "Any progress with the Dragonlance plasma projectors?"
He shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately not, your grace. They can't be moved, and the immense power surge they require causes localized blackouts."
Reka had worked on the design herself. It was likely she knew more about confining plasma than anyone else in the world. Directing it into a weaponized particle beam had been simple enough, but no mobility...not enough energy...
"You're just discussing this in front of me?" the boy asked incredulously. "Am I dreaming right now?"
"Taras, I told you," Alice said sternly, and the boy seemed to calm a bit.
"Why shouldn't we discuss it?" Reka asked casually as Galiban served each of them. Brad had been looking forward to gourmet cheeseburgers and potatoes fried in tallow. She popped one of the fries into her mouth, excellent.
"We're already sending you the terminators, dude," Brad added. "Just as soon as we work out the bugs with the phasers or whatever you'll get those too."
Her husband took a big bite of his cheeseburger. He'd earned this treat after working so hard at the gym she made for him! Perhaps they could risk making love in her demon form again soon.
Taras sat back in his chair. "The casual way you guys speak about things like this..."
"This is life with Queen Reka, Taras," Alice said.
"First the Necrons, and now direct energy weapons." The boy looked quite out of sorts.
Wait...
"What's a Necron?" Reka asked. It sounded like something she should know.
Brad covered his mouth, clearly trying not to laugh. "I hesitate to do this," her husband said, smiling with every word, "but now that you know I guess there's no stopping it. All you need to do is search for '40k lore videos' on Youwatch."
Youwatch was fine entertainment; Reka often browsed it on her phone while playing with Brad, but her interest was piqued now.
She looked at Taras pointedly. "What can you tell me about Necrons?"
The boy hesitated as well; now she really wanted to know! What forbidden knowledge was this?
Reka manifested a look of silent pressure, of the kind she hadn't had to use on her obedient husband in years. Tell me what you know, master of machines!
Taras gulped. "Okay. Long ago, there was a race called the "Necrontyr", who lived on a planet that was constantly bombarded by radiation..."
Reka was absolutely captivated. This "War in Heaven" was the most epic saga she'd ever heard!
"...Finally, the Necrons shattered the C'Tan into thousands of shards, kept in perpetual servitude."
Could it be so simple? She glanced at Galiban. His mechanical eyes betrayed nothing, but he nodded. Harvesting a soul intact was a laborious process, and yielded power sufficient for only one platform. However, rending a soul into many pieces...
Not permanent, she realized. To hold a soul together on this plane of reality would require an ego, some conception of itself as a whole. A soul shard would fade, but could be bound to a machine for a time.
"A fine tale, Mr. Usyk," she complimented the master of machines. "You may ask of me any boon you wish."
The boy looked at Alice uneasily. "Uh, how about a selfie? My sister is going to freak out!"