The Commonwealth

[Leej]

Location- South west of Newfoundland

The sirens blared and the fire control systems burst into action. Captain Sanjay Chan pushed himself up from the deck and examined the situation, not that it needed much examining, the situation of his ship seemed pretty obvious- it was fucked. Its entire rear half had vanished in the flash of light that had struck in a straight line from horizon to horizon right through the middle of the HMS Bristol.
“Abandon ship!” yelled Chan as it was customary to do in such situations even though he didn’t doubt that the crew were already in the process of doing this. The ship was tilting ever upwards as the water flowed into the front section of the ship, the area just behind the bridge had been vaporised in that flash of light, there was no sign of it ever existing apart from the vapour coming off the water where the light hit and the current situation of the fore of the HMS Bristol.
Rather then slide downwards and be dragged into the sinking ship Sanjay leapt over the side of the ship into the cold waters of the North Atlantic ocean, he swam over to one of the ship’s few lifeboats and was thankful to be dragged aboard by two members of his crew who were evidently as shocked as he was about what had just happened.
The HMS Bristol- formerly the CPS Bristol and then before that the HMS Bristol once more was a vintage great war vessel and so not equipped with as many lifeboats as would have been appropriate at this time (many of the ones it did have had been at the rear of the ship decreasing what was available even more).
Chan gave a silent prayer for the members of his crew that were vaporised with the aft of the Bristol, luckily the ship’s crew was no where near its full compliment though just to make sure every single one of his crew members would be safe Chan gave another silent prayer.
“Sir we’re getting nothing from the satellites!” yelled a panicky young crewmember whom was fiddling with the communications equipment at the front of the lifeboat
“What do you mean you are getting nothing? There are no rescue vessels in our area?“ Sanjay tried to respond as calmly as he could as if this sort of thing happened every day.
“No sir, I’m getting absolutely nothing. There is no response from the satellites”
Chan hoped this was down to this particular crewman’s inexperience though upon fiddling with the equipment himself he came to the same conclusion. Absolutely nothing was being picked up- not even the standard ‘no satellite over your position’ readings that had been a familiar sight during Chan’s early days in the navy, it was as if the satellites were not even there.

[Leej]

The beeping got constantly louder and louder, that was a disadvantage of modern living realised David Wright- it just wouldn’t leave you alone.
“Annie. Time” he groaned from his half awake, semi-asleep state under the covers of his bed
“9 O’Clock AM” responded a level female voice, which seemed to lack any sort of accent.
”Annie. What day is it?”
“The 1st of August 2004”
“Annie. Why the hell are you waking me up at 6 O’Clock on Commonwealth Day?”
“You have a letter from...” there was a slight break in her voice as the electronics behind it worked on just who the letter from was from “Granger Hall. Priority 2 message.”
This finally woke David up and he leapt out of bed “Annie. Display message”
The screen a few meters in front of his bed instantly blinked into life.
The letter was a standard one with no explanation attached informing David that the council was being called for a priority 2 emergency. That was pretty big news, to get a priority 1 there has to have been definite confirmation that aliens had ate the sun or some such nonsense so priority 2 was really the highest you could expect to get.
David walked towards his wardrobe, the curtains automatically opened and his drinks machine spat out a stream of brown vaguely tea like liquid as he went
“Annie. Send out another call for a repairman as soon as possible please. Add a note that I had already called for one a week previously and how important a man I am etcetera, etcetera” David instructed as he changed clothes, picked up his data card and then headed towards the door of his flat.
Despite being around 50 floors up the ride in the lift passed remarkably fast- that was a advantage of modern living David realised- it certainly beat 50 stories worth of stairs, in fact it was such a obvious advantage that no buildings within a mile of his current location contained stairs- few people were quite that fanatical about keeping fit.
“Good morning sir” chimed the man behind the reception desk on the first floor of the building upon the doors to the lift opening. The man was smartly dressed in a dark suit of the latest fashion, his skin was one of the darkest shades of black you could get this side of central Africa and judging by the worn features on his face and his thinning grey hair David figured his age was something around 60.
“Good morning George” replied David “What are you doing in today?”
“Haven’t you heard Mr Wright?” asked George, he was obviously a smart man as he didn’t bother to wait for David to say no and continued “There has been some bombings around the world, as a emergency precaution the railways have closed down and well I’m not even going to try to drive down the AR1 on Commonwealth Day” George grinned then continued “And if I’m not going to get home I may as well come into work and be paid quadruple, Christmas isn’t far off you know sir”
David grinned, he hadn’t thought of that “Good point George, I’m not quite so bitter about being called in today. See you later then, I’m off to defend the free world”
“Indeed sir, by what happened this morning it seems you are going to have to earn your keep from now on”
That thought hadn’t occurred to David, he still wasn’t fully awake (the lack of a working drinks machine hadn’t helped in that regard), defending the free world was a joke he usually shared with George due to his job involving doing very little indeed, as the Commonwealth’s Minister of Defence he normally had to do little more then book keeping.
David climbed into his car and after its brief initiation sequence instructed it to go to Granger hall. As the vehicle sped through the unusually empty streets (especially empty for it being Commonwealth Day in the capital of the Commonwealth) David tried to get a decent channel on the car’s television however for all of his favourites nothing was being received, he flicked randomly through the channels catching the occasional working one however these were mostly nothing but religious channels, advertisements, public information and other such rubbish. Eventually he managed to pick up a local news channel. After some more button pressing David got the main story to play from the start. A pretty young dark haired woman appeared and began to speak
“Early this morning at 12 O’Clock Imperial Time the Commonwealth came under attack from a as yet unknown assailant. Contact has been lost with all areas outside New England minus the far west, the Canadian Maritimes and the northern most counties of Virginia.” The picture switched to that of a village, it seemed perfectly normal at first glance however upon further inspection it soon became clear something was wrong, some of the buildings towards the edge of the town had been sliced, often the contents of the building spilt out into this region which was often occupied by trees “The weapons used are as a of yet unidentified type, they obliterate all standing structures in the area somehow replacing it with pristine untouched territory. The government has yet to make a statement concerning what has transpired however an emergency meeting of the Commonwealth Parliament is being called.
What government officials have said is that the public transport system is offline for all but vital personnel and it is advised that people do not panic and remain in their homes.
The military is being put on high alert- something which is sure to disrupt the organised Commonwealth Day celebrations, which the government has yet to confirm the status of however independent sources suggest that they will be at best postponed...”
At this the car pulled up in David’s parking space at Granger hall- the capitol of the Commonwealth for the 2000-2005 term, the building in which according to the famous saying ‘all of the second most important men in the world met’.

[tom]

Excellent!

[Leej]

Police Constable Thomas Vakouftsis dived around a corner into the crowd of his fellow police officers as another round of gunfire shot in his direction, a round of gunfire which indicated another unsuccessful attempt at negotiation on his part.
“Where the hell is that armour we ordered! These blokes obviously aren’t in any mood to talk” snapped Thomas obviously bitter about nearly being killed.
The officer on the communications equipment- a fat man with a bowl cut who was a complete stranger to Thomas briefly paused in his yelling down the mouthpiece and after catching his breath started “They keep saying they’ll be here in 10 minutes, they’ve been 10 minutes away for 2 bloody hours now. I ought to go down to central headquar…”
He was cut off mid-moan by the sound of a heavy vehicle which rolled into view, the vehicle was a armour carrier- a large lorry with 3 sets of rear wheels and a front compartment similar to those seen on fire engines, it was painted white indicating its status as a civilian vehicle and not military.
The carrier stopped quite some distance from where the regular police officers had parked and four men disembarked, three of them were busy putting on the final parts of a pilot’s uniform. The other man who was dressed the same as a normal police officer apart from few different insignia here and there grinned at the officers who had started to crowd around the vehicle like children around an ice cream van “So what’s the latest situation here then?”
Thomas spoke up- he was the one who first discovered this crime, he was the one who had nearly been killed by it the most times and as such he thought he deserved to be the one who got the most credit for handling it, “About half a dozen men, they are heavily armed with assault rifles of some kind...” at this Thomas pulled a spent bullet from one of his pockets and handed it to the commander of the armoured squad “…I believe they are some sort of dooms day cult, from what I’ve heard from them they believe that the loss of communications with the rest of the world we suffered yesterday morning coincides with some ancient American prophecy about the end of the world. They have barricaded their selves in the old pen factory, we don’t believe they have any hostages…”
“Perfect” grinned ‘smiley’ “Alright move out boys, you heard what the man said, go kick some arse”
It was only now Thomas noticed that the three figures in pilot’s uniforms had vanished from view at some point whilst he was talking, the three men now re-emerged from the back of the carrier (or at least Thomas hoped it was them) only now they were almost twice as tall as a average man and were coated in a thick layer of white metal.
The officers around the lorry stirred at the sight of these monsters, many of them backed away from them in obvious fear, various curses ranging from “Holy mother Mary” to “Bloody hell” rose from the officers.
Thomas was stunned “Mechs…We were err just expecting some kind of a you know, bull dozer type thing. I never even knew the force had anything like this!”
Smiley grinned obviously revelling in the attention his squad was receiving “They aren’t mechs, they are counted as a kind of armour. That’s how the force managed to procure them. They aint quite as big and they lack all of the fancy gadgetry that the military’s mechs have though they serve our needs very nicely…”
The mechanical men advanced around the corner with the familiar (just from films of course) ‘walking sound’ of military mechs.
In his fifteen years on the police force he had never had to call for heavy backup, he had never even heard first hand of a situation where heavy backup was needed. This mechanoid squad was probably the only one in the city- hell probably the only one in the whole of New England.
It seemed to Thomas that very little gun fire met them, this may have just been due to him now experiencing the situation from the third person and not the first and there was probably also the fact that small arms did very little to the think armour of the mechs however in Thomas’ mind there was no doubt that the crazies holed up in the building were just as awe struck as he was, he’d had no idea the police force was capable of fielding such power.

[Leej]

“So it seems a certainly gentlemen that we have experienced a situation similar to that in the book ‘Bastion of Freedom’” Jose Zurro, president of the Commonwealth was standing in front of his seat at the head of the long oak table around which were seated the other members of the high cabinet of the Commonwealth “For those unfamiliar with the book it was written in 1954 by the famous Irish author J.L Craddock, it depicts the British isles thrown through time and space into a ‘alternate world’ where France won the great war” none of the other members of the cabinet stirred, they were all well aware of the basic situation they had found themselves in, Jose was just confirming it “Unlike in the book however we have found ourselves fortunate in that we are not in a world where France won the great war, we have found ourselves in a hodgepodge world made up of parts of many different worlds. Though from what we have found out so far none of them are as bad as a world in which France won the war however they are still strange worlds. I believe Mr Wright has prepared a report for us on our new neighbours”
Jose sat and David Wright, minister of defence stood up from his position to the right of the president. Today was the third time the high cabinet had been called in the four days since the event had taken place. The day before the minister of science in a spectacular whir of techno-babble recited word for word from a pre-prepared (probably by one of his assistants) speech on his portable computer had reported what the best physicists left from the real world had found out- that the world had changed virtually beyond recognition and they had no idea what had caused it and how (and so that they couldn’t reverse the effect).
For all David knew the alien space bats could have caused the event. He coughed prepared his notes then began to speak “Together with the Minister for Culture and the Foreign Minister I have prepared the following report on the nations we now find as our neighbours.
To the north in Canada occupying a region which we believe stretches as far west as the Hudson bay is a nation called ‘Ulatis Nouiolitawijâs’, we have yet to find out too much about this nation other then that the only language they have in common with us is Greek, this suggests that their world’s history went different to ours at some early date, this is confirmed by the fact that Ulatis seems to be a Celtic nation whilst in our world the Celts were defeated by the Romans long before the Vikings discovered the Americas, we have yet to confirm the exact history of this nation though we believe that the Celts may have destroyed Rome in its infancy and managed to develop civilization themselves. This nation seems friendly and we are pursing diplomatic relations with them, even if this were not so however they do not seem a military threat.
To the west and south we have some rather worrying nations, they are both offshoots of the same bizarre and twisted branch of history, in this timeline the seven years war was far more successful for Britain and its allies and Quebec and Louisiana were taken, this removed the French from the North American mainland altogether and brought about a sense of superiority amongst the Americans, this led to the French and Americans allying to overthrow crown rule in the Americas. This situation is similar to that in another Craddock book, a book which was nearly banned in all parts of North America due to insultingness to Americans. Apparently the Americans in this world have a treacherous streak in built in them however for both of the nations bordering us to the west and south later rebelled from the…” David flipped through his notes to find the name of the nation “United Estates of America” David took a swig of his tea before he continued “Despite their shameful history however these nations do not seem immediately hostile to us, intelligence on the southern nation is thin however the western nation seems no threat to us at all, there have been sightings of sky fish in use suggesting a technology level roughly around 1900 levels.
The nation to the west- the ‘ISA’ is believed to extend from eastern New England into Indiana stretching past the great lakes.
The nation to the south- the ‘Southern Republic of America’ is thought to cover the whole of Virginia not covered by ourselves or the ISA.
As you are no doubt all aware despite preliminary beliefs America is not the only area hit by this event, it seems practically the entire world has been changed. Britain itself is not the Britain we know however we have picked up some of their radio signals and they do not seem to be from too drastically changed a world, we have heard many times mention of a ‘Queen Elizabeth the second’ and a ‘Prime Minister Blair’, hopefully this Britain will turn out to be from a world where the Commonwealth simply goes by another name…”