After a moment of silence, General Carrick glanced back toward the brightly lit dining hall, where Nova was watching them with a worried expression. He sighed.

  “Walk with me, Lieutenant.”

  Shit. You’re a General, I’m a Lieutenant. Can I say no? Jack thought, but he only nodded dumbly and fell into step beside the General, strolling along the gravel path of the garden. The cool night air and the soft whisper of the fountain were a stark contrast to the echoes of the battlefield—the smell of rust and blood, the roar of explosions—that still rang in his head.

  “Harlan,” the General began, breaking the silence. “That’s an old name. Is your family first-wave colonial? Straight from Old Earth?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack answered cautiously.

  The General waved a dismissive hand, a rare, almost-smile touching his lips. “Drop the sir. This is a private conversation. My family is, too. Not many of us ‘Earth-born’ left these days.”

  Jack felt a wave of relief wash over him. A formal conversation with a general was his worst nightmare. He immediately seized the opportunity to kiss some ass.

  “No, sir—not many at all. We’re practically a rare species.”

  “How do you know Nova?” The General’s tone was casual, but the question was a probe.

  “I’m one of Dr. Thorne’s students, sir. Nova and I are… colleagues,” Jack said, sidestepping the truth. The memory of their wild tangle on the lab floor, the feel of Nova’s gasps, and the heat of her body made his throat go dry.

  “Oh?” Carrick turned, genuinely surprised, and sized up the unimpressive fat man beside him. “Professor Thorne’s standards for students are notoriously high.”

  Jack just grinned, a flicker of pride on his otherwise harmless face. “Just got lucky, sir. Lucky.” He didn’t mention how he’d brilliantly cheated on Thorne’s entrance test.

  The General clapped him on the shoulder. “I’d heard about you at High Command before you even got here. Pulling over two hundred people out of a place like that… that’s not something an ordinary man can do.”

  Praise like that didn’t make Jack happy; it terrified him. Talk me up like that, and I’ll be the first guy you call for the next suicide mission. He just laughed nervously. “Luck, sir. All luck.” But his mind flashed to the pool of blood around Kael, to Roric’s enraged vow, and the stress made his palms sweat.

  They stopped in front of the fountain, the water shimmering beneath pale holographic lamps. The General turned, his expression serious.

  “Nova is in Garipan, and I’m worried. In wartime, a young woman is vulnerable. Can I ask you to do something for me?”

  Jack’s mind screamed, Is it polite to dump your problems on someone you just met? But he just nodded eagerly. “Of course, of course.”

  “Lieutenant,” the General’s voice suddenly regained its full, commanding weight, “help me look after her. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  Jack instinctively snapped to attention. “Sir, yes, sir!” The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted to slap himself. The old fox had deliberately switched to a commanding tone, trapping him into accepting a personal request as a military order. Fuck. Now, if I don’t take good care of Nova, he’ll probably have me sent back to the front lines.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  A few calls interrupted his thoughts. They looked up and saw three slender figures walking toward them under the lamplight—Nova, Nya, and Meadow. The General shot Jack a strange, sideways glance.

  “It seems, Lieutenant, that you’ll need to put a little more thought into your personal life. The Commonwealth is a monogamous nation.”

  Jack nodded sincerely, but his mind was screaming: Oh God, spare me! A queen who might pull a gun on me at any moment, and two traumatized survivors I just slept with, and now I have to deal with you, her father! This is more dangerous than faking death in a Tartarus Legion trench!

  He remembered the feeling of Nya’s wild embrace in the tunnel, sweat-slick bodies pressed together; the memory of Meadow’s soft moans, a sound that had felt like salvation, curing his fear.

  Nova ran up, her cheeks flushed, and pulled her father’s hand, leading him back toward the hotel and muttering under her breath, “Dad, don’t scare him!” Her blue eyes flickered back to Jack, a soft, chiding look that made his heart leap.

  Nya and Meadow flanked him, each taking an arm like two lost children seeking an anchor. Nya’s fingers pinched his side, her tone holding its battlefield edge.

  “Fatty, what did the General say to you? Don’t hide anything!”

  Meadow’s hand trembled slightly, her eyes filled with an unspoken anxiety, as if she were afraid he would disappear again.

  Jack felt like he was surrounded by three unstable bombs. His brain, so good at calculating escape routes, short-circuited in the face of this emotional equation. He tried to defuse the situation with a joke, but chose the wrong one.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Hey, don’t worry. We survived hell together, what’s a boring party? Tonight… we can find a room, and ‘reconnect’… the way we did in the tunnel, huh?”

  He thought it would be an intimate, healing jest.

  The moment the words left his mouth, the hands on his arms went cold and stiff. The color drained from Nya and Meadow’s faces, their expressions shifting from affection to shock, humiliation, and a deep, profound sense of betrayal.

  Nya ripped her hand away as if burned, her voice a blade of ice. “What do you think that was to us, Jack? In the tunnel, we gave you our trust, not a fucking war trophy for you to joke about!” Her eyes were red now, the memory of blood and death flashing in her mind, making her voice tremble.

  Meadow just lowered her head, tears streaming down her face, her voice barely a whisper. “You made us feel alive again… and now you turn it into… this?” Her fists clenched, her whole body shaking as if she were fighting the camp’s despair all over again.

  They turned and ran, leaving Jack frozen on the spot. He didn’t understand. He honestly didn’t understand. His brain could fix mechs and calculate tactics, but it couldn’t solve this emotional puzzle.

  To him, it was a joke. To them, it was a desecration, a cheapening of the sacred trust they had placed in him in their darkest hour. The simple logic of the battlefield—kill or be killed—didn’t work here. He felt like a savage, covered in mud and blood, thrown into a civilized courtly dance, with no knowledge of the steps or rules.

  “Fuck it,” he muttered in frustration. “The Imperial grunts are simpler. All they think about is killing.”

  …

  For the next two days, Jack worked with Nova in the lab, helping her with the mech projects—AMS lattice reinforcement, the miniaturization of the Stinger’s ECM suite. She was quieter now, but when she got angry, she still twisted his ear, her touch now more like a wife managing her husband than a master punishing her slave. The way she looked at him, her blue eyes as clear as spring water, made him feel both flustered and aroused. If I can’t control my dick, General Carrick will probably have it surgically removed.

  On the third day of his leave, the General sent for him. The office was the same: cold lights glinting off polished ferrocrete surfaces, holo-maps casting their ghostly glow. The other generals were still watching him like he was some strange creature in a zoo.

  After the perfunctory salutes, Carrick met him with a broad smile, taking his hand.

  “Lieutenant Harlan, you’ve taught me a lesson. You can’t judge a man by his appearance. A hero,” he said, his voice booming with a false sincerity that made the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stand up, “is a hero, no matter where you put him.”

  The praise felt less like a compliment and more like a new, heavier set of chains being locked around his neck.