Inner Sanctum
an excerpt

“I have news!” Tinim came in reporting about a half hour later. The rain had lightened up a bit, but there was still a foggy night gloom outside the city. Ruth and I snapped to attention; mother and father came into the room.
“What do you have to report?” my father demanded, getting quite worked up about the impending war.
“We think we’ve targeted where the ships plan to land. Our scouts were sneaky enough to catch glimpses of the spots the ships have begun to drill holes through the shield at.” the Advisor said excitedly. “This may be the breakthrough that keeps Trivon from an unpleasant confrontation.”
“Shoot them out of the sky. What are we waiting for!?” father shouted. If the throne room hadn’t been soundproof, you could have sworn the enemies would have heard our plotting all the way from Serbira itself. And that would have been VERY bad.
“Sir, we can’t just destroy our own shields to do it. We need to sneak attack.” the Advisor said wearily.
“But the perfect opportunity is now; their weak spot is showing!” my father could have killed someone at that moment with the adrenaline rushing through him. Thankfully, he restrained.
“We need to let them think we’re unaware,” Ruth said. “Then they relax a bit, think it’s all in the bag. Then when they land, we jump out of our camouflage and get em’ while they’re enjoying their ‘good fortune’.”
Ruth’s words seemed to make dad see the point in sneak attacks. He looked around for a minute or two, then said, “We shall do it your way and see how it goes. Any stragglers will be considered dangerous and need to be killed while they’re still stragglers.”
My mother seemed to nod. Ruth and I just exchanged more glances. This night was tense; the people of Trivon weren’t yet aware of the danger that lies just outside their atmosphere.
“Shouldn’t we warn them?” I asked.
“Warn who?” my mother asked.
“Warn the people. Of the Royal City. In fact, probably of all of Trivon. Wouldn’t it be better for them to know and prepare?”
“Oh, honey, I’m confident our military will take care of it before it reaches them,” she said. She didn’t sound confident, though. I know now had I said something else, many more lives could have been saved. But I was confident in my mother who wasn’t even confident in herself at that moment.
“It’s settled, then,” the Advisor said, exuberant. “We’ll have the whole thing done before the commoners wake up tomorrow morning. They won’t know anything – it won’t even make the papers.” he mumbled to himself as he scurried off. I wanted to yell out to him, tell him it wouldn’t work completely, tell him holes would be left in the plan that would allow the enemy a counter-strike. But at that moment, I believed, I truly believed, it wasn’t my place to say such things.
My parents and Ruth left the room. I went over to the throne. I ran my hand over the cool gold armrests; I sat down in the comfort of the cloth seats. I fell into a state of half-consciousness, hearing what was going on but unable to do anything about it. Eventually, I fell asleep, hoping everything would be fine, just as mother had said.
It wasn’t.