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in charge of the Home Fleet or perhaps even the Palace Guard. But you’re not. You’re still a very new lieutenant. That makes things much more difficult.”
     
    “Forgive me, sire. But actually I’m just an acting-lieutenant.”
     
    His eyebrows rose. “Really? Then somehow we’ve overlooked that little detail.” He scribbled himself a note. “Please forgive my staff—we’re quite overworked. You’ll be legally a lieutenant by this time tomorrow, seniority effective back to the date of your acting-appointment.”
     
    I gulped again. It was that easy?
     
    “Anyway…” he continued, setting down the pen. “It’s proven quite challenging to find you an appropriate posting. Impossible, in fact. So we created one.” He smiled. “You’re being assigned to create a whole new defensive organization on Marcus Prime, the space fencibles. Have you ever heard the term before?”
     
    I nodded. “It dates back to the Napoleonic era. The sea fencibles were seagoing reservists. Small boat people, mostly—fishermen, ferrymen and the like. Even Thames River boatmen. They and their vessels were to be conscripted in the event of invasion. In preparation, they trained from time to time and were paid a stipend to maintain their craft to military standards.”
     
    “Precisely!” His Majesty replied, smiling wide. “You know your history well indeed, David. Your mission will be to set up a similar organization made up of manned satellites, ground-to-orbit vessels, and other small ships and their crews. Back in the old days it was a full captain’s command, but in this instance we’re ignoring precedent. Our goal is to keep the organization small enough that we can justify a mere lieutenant being in charge until we can reasonably promote you again. And in truth, since you’ll be building the whole thing from scratch, it’ll probably be years before it legitimately grows to that point anyway.”
     
    I gulped. The job was… Huge.
     
    “You’ll be permitted to choose your key subordinates within reason, and will be allotted a generous budget. We expect this force to eventually become a worthwhile addition to our military capabilities—the idea isn’t exactly new. So we’re not going to starve you for startup funds.”
     
    I nodded again. “Thank you, sir.”
     
    He smiled. “I have every confidence in you, son. This position will allow you to develop your organizational skills, learn a little bit about politics, meet key people and solidify your position within the House of Marcus. But most of all, David, it met my number one requirement.”
     
    “What was that, sir?” I asked.
     
    He sipped the last of his chocolate milk before replying. “Keeping you safe. I’ll never willingly put you at risk again. Or James either. You’re both now far too important to lose.”
     

5
     
    Nine long months passed before I was able even to ship out to my new command. During that time the war ended, James turned twenty-one and was elevated to titular leadership of the House of Marcus, and I slaved away at my assigned task of creating the space fencibles out of nothing without most of the information I desperately needed.
     
    It wasn’t half that bald or simple, of course. James’s elevation ceremony was a thing of majestic grace and beauty. He chose me to stand at his left hand—circumstances of bloodline dictated that Uncle Robert stand at his right, and of course no one begrudged him the honor anyway. This meant that I had to make time to attend rehearsal after rehearsal. The whole process was infernally frustrating, even worse than mastering the basics of drill back at the Academy. And of course I had to get all dolled up again. But it was worth it to see James in his rightful place at last, especially since the realm of Marcus was raised to a dukedom in the process. James had to resign his commission, of course, which was sad. By then he liked the navy very much, and I suspected that his adventures aboard