Chapter 2

The kite was not repaired the next day.

At nine o'clock in the morning, another military vehicle pulled up at the gate. It was a black sedan with a pass for a senior Ministry of Defense official on the windshield. I saw the car while standing at the window, holding a coffee. The coffee was brewed by Lena after her night shift; it was so strong it was almost bitter.

The car door opened. Aldric stepped out.

He was a little heavier than he had been five years ago, and his hair was receding from his temples. His uniform was still crisp, and he wore the rank of major general—that was my position five years ago. He stood at the gate for a few seconds, his gaze sweeping over the chipped roof, the rusty mailbox, and the potato sacks piled in the corner. His expression didn't change, but he was assessing. Comparing. He must have been thinking: This is that person's house.

I stared at him as he stood in the yard. Five years ago, we stood side by side in the command tent on the eastern front, looking at the same map and drinking coffee from the same pot. Now he stood in my yard, like a bank clerk assessing a property.

He came in while I was pouring coffee in the kitchen. The remaining liquid in the coffee pot sloshed around, and I poured out just enough for one cup. I sat down with that cup in my hand.

“Long time no see.” He placed his hat on the table without extending his hand. He knew I wouldn’t shake it. He sat in the kitchen chair and looked around—the table with a missing leg, the rusty sink, the KA-BAR on the wall. “Graves wants you to report to the capital.”

“He sent someone over yesterday.”

“That messenger. I know him.” Aldric reached for the coffee pot, only to find it empty. He put it down and poured himself a glass of water. “Kael, I’m not as eloquent as Graves. I’ll be blunt. If you refuse to return, the military will take back all the benefits of retired officers, including health insurance.”

He took a document from his briefcase and placed it on the table next to the bill. The signature field was already stamped with the Ministry of Defense's seal. The date was yesterday. This meant they had already blocked all avenues of retreat before even sending someone to fetch me.

"Ella is still young. What if she gets sick—"

I placed the coffee cup on the table. The bottom of the cup hit the wooden board with a dull thud. Aldric stopped.

Lena walked in from the kitchen doorway. She must have heard Aldric's voice—her footsteps paused in the hallway, then turned. Without looking at Aldric, she reached for the water glass in front of him. The bottom of the glass scraped against the table with a short, sharp sound. She carried the glass into the kitchen and poured the water into the sink. She turned the tap on briefly. Then she turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. The whole process took no more than fifteen seconds. She didn't say a word.

Aldric stared at the empty desktop. Then he looked up at me.

"Your wife has a strong personality."

“Give her your opinion again,” I said. “You won’t get out of here.”

He looked at me, something in his eyes flickering slightly. He'd seen that look on my face before. Five years ago on the Eastern Front, when the Imperial 3rd Panzer Division broke through the left flank, I'd walked into the command tent with that same look. The first thing I said that day was, "Give me the map," and the second, "Get the reserves to the left flank." No one asked any questions. My tone told them that asking questions would waste precious thirty seconds. We held the line that day. At the cost of a battalion. Aldric was in that tent then. He remembered.

Aldric stood up. He took his hat in his hand and walked to the door. Turning back, he raised his hand and touched his collar—a gesture I knew all too well. Five years earlier, at a court-martial hearing, he sat in the witness stand, touching his collar as he said, "General Kael Voss overstepped his authority during the Eastern Campaign." He touched it for a full ten minutes. The buttons on his collar were worn shiny by his thumb. I watched him touch his collar from the dock. I thought: This man never touched his collar on the battlefield. His hand was as steady as a rock as bullets whizzed past his ears. Only in hearings did his hand become so restless.

“You know about that hearing,” I said. “Was someone pressuring you?”

Aldric's hand hovered over his collar. He stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other frozen in front of his throat. Sunlight streamed in from behind him, casting a half-shadow on his face. He wanted to say something—his lips moved, his Adam's apple bobbed once.

Then he lowered his hand, pushed open the door, and walked out. There was no answer.

After the military vehicle drove away, I sat in the kitchen all afternoon. Lena was catching up on sleep in her room—she had to work the night shift. The document Aldric had left was still on the table, face down; I flipped it over and glanced at it. It was a notice regarding the recovery of retired military officer benefits. It was stamped with the Department of Defense's seal. They had prepared this document before sending anyone to me. They were prepared for me to refuse. They just hadn't expected that I actually would.

As the sun set, Lena put on her coat and went out. She glanced back at me before leaving. I'd seen that look in her eyes on the battlefield. The look of someone who knew they might die tomorrow, but still had to carry ammunition into the trenches today. She didn't say goodbye. We never said goodbye to each other.

Ella was asleep in her room. I went over and opened the door, looking at her in the hallway light. She had kicked off half the blanket, and one foot was sticking out. Her sock had a hole in it, her big toe sticking out. Before going to bed, she had neatly arranged wooden slats and parchment paper on the living room table, along with a small bottle of glue. She had marked the slats with pencil: left wing, right wing, tail. She had drawn a crooked kite design and colored it with crayons; the butterfly's wings were different sizes.

I gently closed the door and sat down at the kitchen table. The fountain pen—the one I took from the office when I retired, its steel casing and serial number worn thin—twirled between my fingers. I looked at Ella's kite design. Left wing. Right wing. Tail. The butterfly wings were different sizes. She had waited almost a month for this kite. The day I agreed, her eyes shone like the morning star before sunrise on the Eastern Front. That night at the dinner table, she kept repeating, "Daddy's going to make me a kite," until Lena said, "If we don't eat the potatoes soon, they'll get cold."

Then I saw the notice Aldric had left. Welfare recovery. Medical insurance. Ella's school lunch fee.

I examined the notification bearing the Ministry of Defense seal. It was written in standard official format, with calm wording and clear citations, appearing fair and irrefutable. Graves had used the same wording the day he signed off on relieving me of my command. They'd written everything into clauses, turned people into clauses.

I pulled a blank sheet of paper from the pile of bills and turned it over.

Eastern border defenses are weak. There's a troop vacuum at the valley pass. Supply lines are too scattered. If the Imperial Army advances along the western highway of the Ironridge Mountains with armored formations, the three eastern provinces of the Federation will fall within two weeks. Milford, located west of the valley pass, is a water source and transportation hub; if the Imperial Army breaks through the defenses, they won't let it pass. The Federation's eastern defenses have been reduced by forty percent in the past five years, while the Imperial Army's strength has recovered to 1.5 times its pre-armistice level.

I wrote three pages. The letter had no salutation, no recipient. I simply redrawn the defense map I'd had in my mind five years ago. Not to help the Federation. To confirm—to confirm that my judgment from five years ago hadn't been diluted by time, to confirm that they really wouldn't repeat the same mistake. My hand moved across the paper, ink flowed from the pen, and the terrain of the eastern border unfolded in my mind—every pass, every road, every vantage point for an ambush—it was all still there. Five years without touching a map; this map had become ingrained in my brain.

After I finished writing, I folded the paper and placed it under the dismissal order, next to Aldric's welfare recovery notice. The three documents were stacked together—the charges from five years ago, the threats today, and my assessment of this war.

The next morning, when Lena returned from her night shift, she saw the stack of papers. She hung her coat on the back of her chair and stood in front of the table. Her gaze moved from the bills to the termination order, from the termination order to the benefits recall notice, and then to the three pages of strategic analysis.

She moved the bill aside and glanced at the defense diagram I had drawn. Then she put the dismissal order back in its place. She didn't say anything. She took two potatoes from the refrigerator and began to peel them. The soft, scratching sound of the peeler scraping the potato skin was the only sound that morning.