The Feminist Queendom Charlie’s War 78

© Beverly Taff

List of Characters.

Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Dawn Charlie’s armoured spaceship.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.
Margaret Thomas ‘Failed’ police security guard.
Sally. 1st Oz Special forces trooper
Jacky 2nd Oz Special forces trooper.
Juliet Charlie’s Mal engineering assistant.
Laura The second mate of the Second Dawn
Kate (Katherine Bergson) The Australian defence minister.
Lieutenant Engadine Asi Charlie’s second prisoner.
Charlotte Charlie and Chloe’s older daughter
Michael, Jessica & Lucy Charlie and Chloe’s younger triplets

Chapter 78

Lady Jane continued the discussion with the UQ Prime Minister for a further hour as she explained what Charlie had achieved whilst working at Anston Aerospace and then described the degree of loss.
According to UQ Feminista law there was no doubt that Charlie had broken their laws whilst living as a UQ Subject in the UQ. Lady Jane Aston was forced to agree with the Prime Minister that Legally, Charlie was an outlaw but it left the Managing director of Anston Aerospace feeling somewhat un-easy.

After taking her leave, Lady Jane took a long walk down the Thames Embankment until she found a small restaurant and ordered a large pot of tea. There she sat and reflected on events as she debated she might have made her feelings too obvious.

The Australian great reforms concerning men’s liberation had not gone un-noticed in the UQ and it was much in the news, but the electorate had not shown any enthusiasm for such changes. In the recent election this had been reflected in the new Prime Minister and the make up of her cabinet. Lady Jane silently pondered the widening cultural gulf between the UQ and an Australia that had traditionally considered itself a ‘daughter nation.’

‘No longer a daughter now!’ She concluded as she read a column in the paper discussing the loss of the destroyer down in the Diego Garcia naval base. The author of the column declared that even if Australia might not be harbouring the terrorist organisation, they must definitely be providing some sort of logistical support. Even if it was only food.

Jane Anston was certainly no fool and she certainly didn’t consider the Charlie Sage she had known to be any sort of terrorist. It exercised her greatly to realise how things had gone so badly wrong. The quiet, co-operative, highly intelligent, and sometimes amusing works supervisor had somehow become the UQ’s implacable foe.

She would love to meet the reportedly insanely evil terrorist who had sunk a UQ warship without warning and yet with no loss of life. What worried her was that the attack followed the same pattern as the attacks against China. The first attack against the Riau military base had caused no deaths whilst the second attack had been lethal to hundreds of Chinese military. It certainly did not pay to become an enemy of Australia or Charlie Sage.

Following her own logic, Jane Anston quietly instructed her lawyers to drop the anti-gravity patents claims against Charlie Sage and to make sure Charlie knew. Unlike the modern and perniciously hide-bound, young feminista lawyers of today; Jane Anston was old enough to remember when everybody had rights.

Her inexplicable decision certainly irked the young feministas on Anston’s legal team but they were forced to concede that Jane Anston had always proven to be a very wise old bird. Not for nothing had she steered her company through countless economic storms. Even when they had approached her en-masse to try and dissuade her, she simply brushed them off with a clear warning.

“Ladies, - girls; if you want Anston Aerospace and your jobs to be here in a year’s time. Just stay with me on this one, I assure you.”

ooo000ooo

The mail arrived at Charlie’s small Woomera office where Chloe and Juliet were going over the launch plans for Dawn 4. Chloe was opening the bulky letter addressed to ‘Mr Charles Sage’ and she frowned as she read it.

“Look at this Julie.” She remarked as she handed him the letter.

“What is it?”

“Well take a look for yourself. It doesn’t make sense.”

Juliet read the proffered missive and his eyebrows arched in mild surprise.

“So why would Anston Aerospace suddenly drop all claims?”

“I don’t know, but the UQ government aren’t going to like it. The Anston Aerospace claim is the backbone of their case before the United Nations.”

“You’d better let Charlie know. This has got huge ramifications.”

Chloe pressed her speed dial and Charlie responded from the building yard where he was supervising the installation of one of the new, supersized antigravity engines into the number twelve engine bay of the new super ore-carrier Dawn 4.

“Hi darling?”

“Come to the office darling, there’s an interesting letter just arrived.”

“What’s it about?”

“Anston Aerospace have dropped all patent rights claims against you concerning the antigravity engines.”

“Really!” He squawked in surprise, before turning to Laura and Engie.

“You carry on here girls, there’s a letter arrived.”

Chloe smiled as she watched Charlie sprinting across from the yards. Most staff used the hover-scooters for ease and convenience but Charlie insisted on keeping fit.

He arrived gasping from the effort and Chloe handed him the opened letter. She and Charlie had a fully trusting relationship and Chloe opened all Charlie’s mail if he was absent. Charlie read it and smiled knowingly.

“She’s distancing herself and Anston Aerospace from the UQ government.”

“Why?” Chloe asked.

“She’s a survivor and her company is everything to her. Now the dogs of war are slipped, she’s protecting her baby.”

“But nobody knows how that destroyer was sunk. They only know you were somehow involved because you made a public declaration of war at the United nations.”

Charlie wagged his head sagely.

“Jane Anston’s a very shrewd operator and she can see the writing on the wall. She’s also NOT a great lover of the Feminista. When I worked for Anston, she resolutely refrained from joining the Feminista party; even though her company Anston Aerospace was one of the biggest beneficiaries of government contracts.”

“Is this some sort of Olive Branch?”

“I don’t know. She may just be dipping her toe back into the water or even acting as some sort of peace ambassador for the UQ. There’s a dozen different scenarios.”

“Are you going to respond?” Chloe asked.

“There’s no need. She’s dropped the claim, that’s closed the case. There’s no other business between us.”

“But there’s a hell-of-a-lot-of business between you and the UQ. There’s this election result for a start.”

“Yeah. How did that thing go?”

“You should really listen up occasionally Charlie. They’ve got a new Prime Minister and she’s a perfect product of their Feminista Education system. Misanthropy is an understatement and apparently, she’s loaded for bear.”

“Come of it Chloe!” Charlie protested. “I’ve been up to my neck in it making supersized engines for that!” (He jabbed his finger towards the leviathan sized ‘Dawn 4’ brooding on the extended slipway.) “I build spaceship engines. I leave the politics to Katie and the Oz PM.
I have no country, remember! So I have no politics and if anybody wants to trade blows with me, they trade blows face to face and fist to fist. The last time I went the diplomatic route, the bastards tried to kill me or perhaps kidnap me. And that was on the most public diplomatic stage of all!”

Chloe fell silent. Charlie was right. The legal claim by Anston Aerospace had been extrapolated by the UQ government to a full-scale political fight. She tried another tack.

“D’ you know. I think you may be right; Jane Anston is waving an Olive branch.”

“I’m bloody sure she is,” Charlie concurred, “but d’ you think I’m going to step into the bear’s den?”

“D’you think if we could get her to come to Oz, we might talk face to face?”

“You could try, technically, Oz is not at war with the UQ. Jaw, jaw is better than war, war! If you’re gonn’a try, you’d best chat with Katie and your Ozzy PM.”

“I think I’ve got a better way.”

“Oh, do tell,” Charlie’s ears pricked up.

“What d’ you think of this? Dawn 4 is scheduled to be finished next week right?”

“Ye-ess!” Charlie allowed cautiously.

“And she’s scheduled to load a shed load of iron ore from Hammersley to UK right?”

“Ye-ess.”

“What is the UQ desperately short of?”

“Palladium type ores and Magnesium for aluminium alloys.”

“So?”

“Well everybody’s short of Magnesium. That’s why China can bully countries. They’ve had a monopoly for decades.”

“That’s the operative word Charlie; - ‘had’! They don’t anymore.”

“Oh. Has Angie been successful then?”

Chloe wagged her head as Juliet grinned and interrupted.

“You’ve been too far up your own arse with the new engines boss!”

“Really? Do tell captain.”

“Angie’s just struck ‘gold’! Well magnesium actually; - along with another cache of rare ores and exotic minerals.”

“Where? Out in the belt?”

“Yes. Out in the Capricorn sector.”

“The what sector?!”

“Capricorn. The girls were looking for a way of identifying parts of the asteroid belt so they divided it up into twelve sectors and named each one after the zodiac based on the first point of Aries as it transfers from the earth to the sun where it crosses the plane of the earths ecliptic. It’s the nearest thing we’ll get to a fixed reference system in our own solar system.”
Charlie chuckled as he observed.

Trust the girls to choose a romantic, ancient, astrological system."

"It may be quaint, but it's effective." Chloe argued.

“That still makes it a movable feast.” Charlie objected.

“Well until you can find a way of fixing a prime meridian on to the sun and a fixed declination for the first point of Aries when its universal hour angle is zero, everything will continue to be a moveable feast. Juliet chuckled.”

“Point taken,” Charlie conceded, “so tell me about Angie’s find.”

“Well, she located it about two weeks ago when out prospecting with Dawn 2. She took some samples to Moonbase Alpha and they were very rich. So much so that she returned with Dawn 3 and a mining crew immediately! They recovered about ten thousand tons of almost pure Magnesium. Even the impurities were mostly other Palladian ores.

Anyway, she’ll be back on earth in three days and we will have ten thousand tons of Magnesium to trade plus another source of rare earth ores. She’s also ‘beaconed’ the location and registered the claim for our consortium.

“She loves exploration doesn’t she,” Charlie observed.

“No hometown girl is our Angie.” Juliet smiled. “Engie’s more of a hometown kid but for Angie, give her the wide-open spaces.”

“How’s their relationship going with you?”

“Engie’s pregnant, Angie’s not; I don’t think she want’s to be; - well not yet anyway.”

“Oh so you’re going to be a daddy. Congratulations.”

“Charlie, she’s three months gone!” Chloe scolded her husband gently.

”If you and Laura took your heads out of your gravity engines. You might have even attended the first baby shower.”

“Sorryee!” Charlie apologised in a soft’ high-pitched, melodious voice. “I just get carried away.”

Chloe just chuckled to herself then wagged her head resignedly. She knew her husband better than anybody.

‘At least he’s loyal and doesn’t stray.’ She told herself; 'and in these times of Australia’s immense social re-adjustment to universal equality, she had that to be thankful for; - plus a fabulously happy lifestyle.'

ooo000ooo

The following fortnight proved to be extremely hectic for all of Charlie’s circle.

Juliet and Laura took Dawn 4 up on her trial flights to the moon and Mars.

Charlie spent time secretly in Canberra with the Pregnant Engie as his assistant while the PM and Katie helped hammer out a protocol for Jane Aston to secretly visit Australia. They hoped to discuss a possible solution to the political impasse concerning Australia’s liberation and the UQ’s apparent tightening down of their feminista laws.

Finally, Angie returned with Dawn 3 from the asteroid belt with her cargo holds full of various ores including the politically exciting, almost pure, Magnesium samples.

As Dawn 3 slowly settled on the newly reinforced landing area at the Hammersley main ore handling depot, Angie gave an enthusiastic wave from her command bridge. Charlie and Engie looked across from the silo gangway and waved back while an operator extended the companion way.

“It’s really good stuff Boss!” Angie enthused, “come and see for yourself. You can wave goodbye to the CCP hegemony.”

“Can’t wait!” Charlie replied as Engie claimed marital rights to the gangway.

She dashed across without regard to her pregnancy and the pair embraced desperately while Charlie followed at a tactful distance to give the pair a few moments of privacy. By the time Charlie had reached the Dawn 3’s bridge, the girls had recovered their composure and Angie showed Charlie the cargo samples stored in the Cargo office.

All parties were fully cognoscente of the commercial and political value of the cargo and within an hour the Ozzy PM had joined with Katie the defence minister to congratulate Angie on the lucky strike. The later, celebratory supper at Woomera space station was more a declaration of relief, than jubilations of victory. Australia for one, was now entirely free of any political yoke relating to rare earth mineral supplies.

The celebrations were extended the following morning when Juliet and Laura returned to Hammersley from a very successful testing run with Dawn 4. As she landed feather light beside Dawn 3, everybody finally got a true sense of Dawn 4’s massive size. She truly was a leviathan. Over half a million tons capacity for Cargo and passenger capacity for five hundred.

Truly a ship that held huge promise for the future.

ooo000ooo