They Sold Me to the Ruined General, Now His Ghost Won't Let Go novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Latrine Rotation

Sent to Kesh Station as a reserve healer, Idris is isolated by his team lead and watched in his bath by the ghost. A breach alarm sounds and nobody calls his name.

The body held Idris's eyes for the length of a long breath.

Then the lids came down once, slowly, and went up again on nothing.

The head turned back to the wall.

"It does that," the shade said hoarsely, still on his knees. "It has not done that to anyone since Kesh."

"It looked at me."

"I know it did. I was there."

The shade stood, and for the first time he did not look smug.

"Get dressed. The aide is at the door with a letter."

The letter had the Fleet seal on it.

It said that every officer's spouse must serve a term in the Reserve Healer Corps.

Idris Penhallow-Korrigan would report to Kesh Station in two days.

"Kesh," Idris said.

"It's the front," the aide said.

He looked sick.

"The Marshal's old post," the aide said. "The Council thinks the walls there will make the Marshal remember how to be useful."

"And me?"

"They think a flat Beta will sweep floors, my lord."

Idris folded the letter small.

"Then I'll sweep floors," he said. "Where's my mop?"

The shade followed him onto the cruiser and sat down in the seat across from him.

The body rode two days to the border beside the aide without moving a finger.

Kesh Station was a ring of grey metal around a dead moon.

It was full of men in grey uniforms who looked at Idris's gold consort's ring and then at his thin wrists.

Their team lead was Rurik Vossler.

Rurik was twenty-five, an Alpha, broad through the shoulders, with red hair cropped for the helmet.

He had a scar on his chin that he liked people to ask about.

"So you're the Penhallow they dumped on the Marshal," Rurik said.

"I'm the one who signed," Idris said.

"You're a Beta with a flat core in a station full of Alphas. You'll take latrine rotation."

"Is that a rank?" Idris asked.

"It's a bucket," said Rurik.

The other reservists laughed.

Idris looked at the bucket.

Behind Rurik, the shade stood with his arms folded and his jaw set.

"Say the word," the shade said. "I'll have him in the vacuum."

"You can't touch anything," Idris murmured.

"I can touch you."

Rurik frowned. "Who are you talking to?"

"Myself. I'm allowed. It's in the contract."

He took the bucket.

For a day and a half he scrubbed the lower decks.

The reservists left their mess trays on the floor on purpose, and Rurik walked past each time to check the shine.

No one spoke to him.

No one passed him the salt.

It was the Penhallow dinner table again, with worse lighting.

But the lower decks were warm, and there was a galley.

The steward in it had a pot of dumplings, and he pretended not to see Idris take six.

By the second evening he was in the washroom with his shirt off, drawing a bath from a rusty tap.

The shade appeared on the edge of the tub.

Idris looked at him.

The shade looked at Idris, without a hint of shame.

"Rule one," Idris said.

"I was checking the water temperature."

"You don't have a hand."

"I have excellent hands." The shade held one up and wiggled the fingers. "I was making sure you were safe."

"From the tub?" Idris said.

"From the tub, the tap, the water, the steam. I'm very thorough."

"You're looking at my chest," said Idris.

"I'm looking at the bite," the shade said. "It's almost gone. I want to do it again."

Idris went red from his collarbone to his hairline.

He put a towel over the shade's face.

The towel fell through it and hit the floor.

"Out," he said.

The shade went, with great dignity, as far as the doorway.

He did not go any farther than that.

Someone shoved the washroom door in with a boot.

Rurik leaned against the frame, arms folded, with two of his men behind him.

"The rumor on the deck," Rurik said, "is that the Marshal's husband has a weakness."

He took a step in.

"Tell me what you are. Beta? Omega? A bit of both? Why's the whole floor smell like honey?"

"Soap," Idris said.

"Don't lie to me. What are you doing here, really?"

Idris pulled his shirt on, unhurried.

He could say the truth.

He could say that his husband was cut in half and one half would not let him sleep.

He could say he had died once already and was not impressed by buckets.

He looked at Rurik's grin, and at the shade, standing in the doorway behind it with his face gone still.

"I'm a patient's family," Idris said. "I'll heal him, and then I'll file the divorce. It's a medical arrangement, Vossler. Nothing more. Don't lose sleep."

Rurik laughed out loud and walked away.

The shade did not.

He stood there another long moment, looking at Idris, and then he was gone.

Idris felt the cold go out of the room and missed it at once.

"Hey," he said to nobody. "That was for him."

Nobody answered.

A klaxon began to scream through the whole station.

Boots hit the corridors, and Rurik's voice roared the breach drill.

The lower decks emptied in a dozen heartbeats, man after man filing toward the shuttle bays.

Idris stood at the washroom door with his boots half-laced.

He heard Rurik call the roll.

He heard every name but his.

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