This particular book is an experiment for me, dipping my toe into something that’s more romance than adventure–but it’s kind of turning into a strange amalgamation of both. You may notice that I’m electing to throw out a later chapter–I have my reasons, that shall remain nameless. The General’s Lady is the story of Michael Graden and Elaine Harris, two lost souls in search of what’s left for them in a universe torn by war, their homeworld turned to a radioactive husk and the galactic government they once served dead and buried.
Chapter 5 is told from Michael Graden’s point of view.
Five
all of us have ghosts
“House Delmarco holds the coreward end of the Scandian Arm, but they’re going to get a pretty rude surprise from House Fu-Jung out on the fringe faster than they’ve antici—General, are you listening?”
“Hm?” Michael Graden tore his gaze away from the galaxy map spinning lazily in the center of the—his—situation room and looked toward his XO. “Sorry, Arlan. Was thinking.”
“And apparently doing it from about two thousand light years away,” Arlan Camden-Byers said quietly, crossing his arms. “Did you want me to reschedule the sit-rep briefing? Because it’s not like we’re shipping out in the next five hours to deal with anything.”
Graden smiled sheepishly. “No, that’s all right. What were you saying?”
“Never mind what I was saying. What were you thinking about?”
“Just about how quickly things can change,” Graden said quietly, unconsciously touching one arm. There were still bandages under the uniform jacket, but at least they weren’t as bulky as they’d been the week before. He stared at the map but still caught Arlan’s wince out of the corner of his eye. “One minute I’m a Major trying to hold together what was left of four battalions, then I’m being voted general by those battalions.”
“Then you’re throwing yourself in front of a bullet meant for your XO,” Arlan muttered, sighing. “You’re not still upset about that, are you?”
“There’s no point,” Graden said. “I still think you should have told me who you were, but it’s hydrogen into helium. Doesn’t matter now.”
Arlan snorted. “How was I supposed to tell you that?”
Graden shrugged, then winced as pain spiked from his arm up into his chest. “I don’t know, Ar, but it’d have been nice to have some warning.”
“I just wanted you to treat me just like everyone else,” Arlan said, leaning against a chair. “Should we get back to the briefing?”
“Please,” Graden said, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m sure that the great big spider’s got something for us to do, doesn’t he?”
Arlan winced. “You’re too damned perceptive for your own good, General.” He tapped something on the tablet in his hand and the map shifted, zooming in on a quadrant featuring the Scandian Arm, the Andromeda Abyss, and the rimward edge of the Mandrican Expanse. “We have an opportunity to secure our borders here in the Abyss and maybe snag a few Scandian worlds from Delmarco control. Star-Lord Camden just signed a non-aggression pact with House Laurencian.”
Graden waved a finger at a small wedge of space where the Mandrican Expanse butted up against the edge of the Andromeda Abyss. “They control this section of the Expanse, correct?”
“Aye, sir. We have their leave to strike from the Expanse into the Arm.” Arlan smiled wryly. “For once, Father put his clout to good use.”
“Perhaps. Zoom in on the section, will you?” The map shifted and Graden studied the area carefully, brows knitting over stormy gray eyes. Lots of asteroids, and this nebula here. His gaze drifted up on the map. “He wants these four systems?”
Arlan nodded, crossing his arms again. “They’re all within a two-day hop of each other, all gated, all settled, and all pretty lightly defended. He doesn’t think it would be too hard for us to take and occupy them if we blitzkrieg the systems.”
He could be right about that. “What kind of support can we expect?”
His second winced. “I think he was hoping we could manage it on our own.”
“With due respect to him, the Star-Lord is living in a fantasy world.” Graden looked at Arlan. “Tell him that we can take the planets, but we won’t be able to hold them for him without another battalion per world to keep the peace.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a brief smile. “Unless he’s going to send a horde of diplomats and bureaucrats in behind us to cow them into total surrender.”
“He might,” Arlan muttered. “Either way, I’ll convey the first part to him.”
“What, the part about him living in a fantasy world?”
Arlan snorted. “No, about taking them but not being able to hold them.” He shook his head slightly. “Contrary to what you might think of him, General, he really does like you.”
“He likes me because he needs me, Arlan. I’m useful. Once I outlive my usefulness, there’s no telling what will happen to me.”
“You’ll be rewarded for your service,” Arlan said.
Probably with a quiet death from poison or something. What do you do with a general who stops being a general—or worse yet, a soldier who doesn’t know how to stop being a soldier? “With a knife in my back, I’d guess. At least it’d be quick and relatively painless.”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
Graden looked toward his XO slowly. “Wouldn’t he? I’m the fucking Dragonslayer. Tell me I’m not some kind of threat to his power.”
“If you had any ambition to form a house, you’d have done it by now, and that’s the only threat you could ever be to him, General.” Arlan crossed his arms again. The man mercifully took little from his father, the self-proclaimed Star-Lord Byron Camden, other than a solid build and a square jaw—and a sharp mind with a tongue to match. “God knows you wouldn’t serve any of the other houses because—how did you put it?—you found their ethics morally repugnant.”
I don’t think your father’s are much better, but at least he’s trying to maintain some of the Commonwealth’s basic values about life and freedom. Graden grunted. “Thanks, Arlan.”
“I’m only telling you the truth, General.”
Graden frowned. “You know, before you people elected me to General, you did know how to use my name.”
“I thought you said we could either be friends or we could be professional, sir.”
“Being professional went out the window when I took a bullet for you in a fucking bar, Arlan.” Graden smiled wryly.
“You’re never going to let me forget it, are you?”
Graden shrugged with his good shoulder. “If you’d told me, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
“If I’d told you, you’d have stashed your executive officer so deep in the lines that I’d be lucky to ever see a planet’s surface again—that’s assuming you didn’t wrap me in batting and ship me back to my father at the earliest convenience.” He winced slightly. “Thank you for not doing that, by the way.”
“You’re more valuable as my XO,” Graden said. “And I wouldn’t have buried you that deep. Kept you out of the thick, sure, but you’d have seen planets. I always need people to coordinate mop-up, right?”
Arlan smirked, handing him the tablet. “Right. Well, I’d better go shoot the bad news to my father. You can finish briefing yourself, right?”
“I managed well enough before I inherited you,” Graden said. “I think I can handle it this time.” He sank into a chair near the map, staring at it for a moment. Arlan headed for the door, hesitating before opening it.
“Mike?”
“What?”
“What were you really thinking about?” Arlan’s brow furrowed, fair brows knitting together over green eyes. “Politics don’t usually weigh this heavily on your mind.”
He frowned, staring at the Scandian Arm for a long moment before he shook his head. “It’s her birthday, Arlan. I realized it this morning while I was getting dressed. Still had that damn card I got her before things went to shit.” I should have tried harder to find out what happened to her Eagles before the records were purged and we were cut off from the Arm, but it just wasn’t a priority while I had people dying here in the Abyss.
“I’m sorry, Mike. She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?”
“More than a little,” he murmured, then shook his head. He waved his XO out. “Go on, get out of here. You can buy me a drink tonight and I’ll get plowed and forget again. I’m the goddamned Dragonslayer, right? There isn’t a weak spot in my armor.”
“No,” Arlan said quietly. “Of course not, sir.” He snapped off a quick salute and ducked out of the room. Graden kept staring at the Scandian Arm for a moment longer, then shook himself and forced his attention back to the task at hand—how to wrestle four worlds out of House Delmarco’s control before they realized they’d lost them.
