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Haart.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Haart sat alone in his office, his fingers rubbing his temples.
They didn’t believe him.
Not that he had really expected them too, but still, it was frustrating. Gavial had given him this role, and so far he had just done an exceptional job of failing it. ‘You have to tell them,’ Gavial had told him a month ago, whilst the two of them sat in John’s office. His real office, the one in New Lyonnes, not this poor imitation. ‘It can’t be me,’ his friend had said. ‘They have to love me, and the bearer of this news cannot be loved. It had to be you, John. You’re the one I want to do this. I’m sorry.’
John pulled a key from his pocket and used it to unlock one of the draws in the desk. Out came a small bottle of whiskey. His lip curled as he twisted the top off and the smell wafted out.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Haart despised alcohol.
Sighing, he threw the bottle back, took a gulp, and let the fiery liquid flood his mouth and throat. After a few moments of drinking, he slammed the now half empty bottle back onto the desk. ‘Damn it all,’ he muttered, ‘damn it.’ He had brought that drink with him to Fort Euphra a month ago, when he had first arrived, knowing full well he would need it before he was done here. Now it was half gone already. Perhaps he should have brought a larger bottle.
He had been putting off telling Lucy the truth from the moment she arrived. He knew he had to tell her, but dreaded the moment. He knew not the words to say. Then Leo arrived as well, and John had to tell him too. And again, he dreaded the moment.
It was idiocy, he knew. He had fought in battles, killed men and seen friends killed, and yet he could not bring himself to tell these two the truth; but damn it, they were still babies. They weren’t even in their twenties yet, just a pair of frightened kids, lost and alone.
But he had to - that was his role - and so he had. In a moment of madness, he told them. He told them, and they only laughed at him.
He sighed. The poor, ignorant, doomed children. The sooner the New Lyonnes escort arrived to take Leo and Lucy to the capital the better. What was taking so long? He had contacted them the day Lucy arrived, and yet they still hadn’t arrived. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few hours.
The silence was broken by a polite knock at his office door. John looked up, his train of thought disturbed. ‘Come in.’
In came Colonel Darien.
Darien was a well built man, and a handsome one too, with a square jaw, thick and neat black hair, and smile lines around his eyes. He strode into the room, rather than walked in, and his ever smiling eyes centred on John. ‘Good day, Lieutenant-Colonel Haart,’ he said pleasantly, his gaze moving to the bottle of whiskey on John’s desk. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything?’
‘Nothing you would consider important, Colonel,’ John assured him. He decided not to bother hiding the bottle. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ It was a pointless question, he knew: Darien would not visit him for no reason. Neither one of them liked the other.
‘Yes, yes there is. It’s regarding the two prisoners you’ve taken captive.’
‘Ah, of course,’ John said. He knew this would come up sooner or later. It was another inevitable conversation, and it was another one he would rather have avoided he could. ‘Please, take a seat.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel,’ Darien said, placing his arse in the seat Leo had been sitting in ten minutes ago.
‘So, about the prisoners?’
Darien smiled. ‘I hope you’ll forgive my bad manners, my friend, but before we begin, I hope you wouldn’t mind if I wet my thirst?’
John didn’t return the smile. ‘Of course, Colonel.’ He passed him the bottle of whiskey. ‘It’s a very warm day, after all.’
‘Oh indeed.’
It would be impolite to take anything but the smallest possible sip of the whiskey, and Darien, being Darien, took the smallest possible sip of the whiskey. ‘Good stuff, good stuff,’ he said as he passed the bottle back to John. ‘You have impeccable taste, Lieutenant-Colonel.’
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ John said, screwing the top back onto the bottle, and putting the bottle back into the draw from whence it came. ‘So, onto business?’
‘Of course.’ Darien had already been sitting upright, but he suddenly seemed to be even more so. Something about his stature change, and became even more formal, without really changing very much at all. ‘So, Lieutenant-Colonel, it’s come to my notice that you’re keeping two prisoners in my fort without informing me. May I ask why this is?’
‘I’m afraid it’s confidential, Colonel.’
‘Confidential? Come now, lad, I outrank you.’
John frowned. Lad? The two of them were of an age, more or less, both in their early thirties. He was not Darien’s lad. ‘I’m under orders from New Lyonnes,’ he said, ‘from the Lord Militant himself, no less.’
‘Well, far be it from me to question our glorious Lord Militant, but as long as you’re stationed at Fort Euphra, regulations say I know what you know.’
Damn the man, but he was right. John knew the rules inside and out, and so it seemed did Darien. It was John’s place, as a lower ranking officer than the Colonel, to reveal all he knew about circumstances regarding the fort to its commander.
Did Gavial’s orders supersede the usual rules?
Regardless, rules or no, he could not tell Darien the truth. ‘I’m sorry, Colonel. You have to understand, this is a matter of delicacy.’
‘That is most unfortunate,’ Darien sighed. ‘But no, I suppose I understand, Lieutenant-Colonel. Nonetheless, there has been … talking.’
‘Talking, Colonel?’
‘Yes, amongst the men. My men. There is the mystery punishment of Major Romar, for example. He was much loved by many, and the news of his imprisonment has caused widespread discontentment.’
Major Romar; John silent cursed the man’s name. He was the idiot that took a shot at Leo. John had ordered him to be put in a holding cell until a court-martial could be arranged, but he’d done it in secret. Only the higher ranking soldiers at Site D could know of that, and they weren’t on speaking terms with Darien’s men. So how did the news leak?
‘The rumours say,’ Darien continued, ‘that he was imprisoned for shooting at these prisoners of yours. And I have to wonder, why would a fine, upstanding young man do such a thing?’
John hesitated for a moment. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ he decided to say.
‘A shame.’ Darien looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Secondly, there is talk that the two prisoners are somehow related to the scientific experiments taking place in Site D. They were, after all, found by the soldiers working there.’
‘I don’t know what to tell you, Colonel.’
‘Well then, tell me this: have you brought something dangerous into my fort?’
John raised his eyebrows. ‘No, Colonel, of course not.’
‘Do not lie to me, Lieutenant-Colonel Haart. I will not have you put my men at undue risk.’
‘Colonel, it’s only a pair of kids, not a weapon of mass destruction.’
Darien’s eyes peered at him intently, but did not stop their smiling. It was an unsettling contradiction to see. ‘All too often,’ he said slowly, ‘those two things are indistinguishable.’
That wasn’t good, John decided. Not good at all. It seemed Darien suspected that Leo and Lucy were both Broken.
But then, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. He had, after all, sent his man Romar to spy on Site D. Why else would he have done that, if he hadn’t suspected in the first place that Site D was related to the Broken?
This could cause a problem. Darien’s resistance to the very concept of the Broken was well noted.
‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Colonel,’ John said.
‘I’m saying that these two prisoners of yours could be spies.’
John tried not to let the surprise show on his face. He hadn’t expected that answer. ‘Spies, Colonel? Well then, we have them in the right place. They are our prisoners.’
Darien smiled suddenly. ‘Of course, my friend, but that’s not where my fear lays.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid they may be exceptionally clever spies.’
‘I still don’t follow you, Colonel.’
‘A spy tricks his enemy into thinking he is a friend, correct? My fear is that these spies are fooling you, my dear Lieutenant-Colonel.’
‘They’re my prisoners, Colonel, not my friends,’ John pointed out.
‘You’re still not seeing it, and that’s the simple beauty of their subterfuge: they have fooled you into believing that they are amongst the latest batch of the Broken.’
John was silent for a beat. ‘No, Colonel. That’s … nonsense.’
‘Nonsense? Oh no, John, oh no. Do you deny that the experiments taking place in Site D are related to the Broken? No, don’t answer that. I know you’re not allowed to answer me truthfully, but trust me, and don’t worry, because I already do know that they are.
‘And if I know, Lieutenant-Colonel, there is no reason to suppose that the Lynian don’t.’
John felt lost. He had lost control of the conversation, he knew. ‘I’m sorry, Colonel, but really, this is all preposterous.’ He wasn’t sure exactly what he was denying. Should he continue to deny that Site D had any relation to the Broken? Or should he admit to that and instead insist that Leo and Lucy really were the Broken, and not spies?
‘Preposterous? Not at all, my friend. It is entirely possible that the Lynian have high-jacked your vain attempts at creating a Broken in order to insert a spy into our ranks. That puts my men and this fort at undue risk, neither of which I can tolerate.’
‘There is no logical reason to believe this, Colonel. You’re letting your biases get in the way of your judgement.’
‘I would never do such a thing,’ Darien said. ‘Besides, I have evidence.’
‘What sort of evidence, exactly?’
Darien reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. ‘Yesterday morning, at approximately five hundred hours, our radars briefly detected a foreign aircraft hovering over the forest.’ He handed the paper to John. ‘This aircraft most likely dropped these spies into the forest, where the Site D men subsequently found them, and you had brought here.’
John looked over the report. It certainly looked official. For the space of twelve seconds, radar had detected an unknown object hovering over the nearby forest. Whatever it was, it must have been using some form of stealth technology to have only been detected for such a short period of time so close to the fort.
‘Look, John,’ Darien said, ‘I know you don’t have the highest regard for me, but I’m begging you, please don’t do anything foolish. Do not put this fort and her men in needless jeopardy, and do not allow these spies anywhere near the Lord Militant, nor any other high ranking official. Please, for the good of this great country, do not let your biases blind you.’
John lowered the papers. ‘May I keep this?’ he asked, indicating to the report.
‘Why of course.’
‘I’ll take everything you’ve said into serious consideration, Colonel,’ John said. ‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you do.’ Darien stood up. ‘And thank you for listening. I’ll leave you to think over this.’
‘Very well.’
Darien started to turn to leave, but then hesitated. ‘I should warn you though, if you don’t deal with the spies, I’ll have no choice but to take matters into my own hands.’ And with that, he turned and strode from the room.
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Author notes:
-- Well, this was an interesting chapter to write, even if it’s a boring one to read.
-- Okay, one of my main worries with this chapter is that I’ve overloaded the reader with a lot of implied information. I drop lots of phrases for example - such as the Broken, New Lyonnes, and Lynian - and I’m worried I may have overdone it a bit.
-- As per usual, this is a first draft, which I plan to edit quite heavily later. I’ll of course be referring back to all the advice and suggestions you guys give during the editing process.
-- In particular, I'd like to hear about: a) did you feel overwhelmed/confused by all the phrases I dropped? Do you feel as though anything else was needlessly confusing?
and b) is my dialogue even remotely less crappy than before? I tried to improve on it, but I’m not sure if I really managed.
But as always, all advice, suggestions and thoughts are equally welcome. =)
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Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
I'm becoming a serial offender.
I would move this chapter to 4th, and bring the 4th forward. It makes sense that after this chapter, Haart feels the need to bring both Lucy and Leo in, to explain the situation. It also allows us, the reader, to become aware of the whole, 'new world' thing, which allows you to keep that conversation I was speaking about in chapter 4 - it still remains kinda tacky, but only to the characters, to us, the readers, tis all fine and dandy because we already know and feel quite smug about it too.
I wasn't overwhelmed - I've been calling for these phrases and indications the whole time! It's essential for the reader to know where s/he is, even if the characters don't.
The dialogue was much improved, but still not great. Perfectly acceptable for a first draft though, its important to remember. In first drafts, there is no subtext. Why? Because we don't know it yet, which is why we put it all on the surface - attraction, biases, prejudices, political alignments, etc - come the second and third drafts, we can pull all that back and keep it below the surface. So, it's fine as it is, at the moment. The characters, however, were not.
I was confused by Colonel Darien's manner; supposedly, he's got a superior position and commands the Fort and yet he's almost obsequious to John [note: 'I'm begging you'].
Why is the Lt. receiving orders from higher up? Doesn't this undermine the Colonel? Not something a professional Lord Militant would be likely to do....I don't know, I guess my ignorance of the military hierarchy and internal dynamics is what's bugging me here. Too many unknowns. Just be aware of all the ramifications of these things; even if the Lt. is receiving orders from higher up, doesn't mean the Colonel needs to be so subservient. In fact, he seems quite prideful, so one would think he'd be talking down to Haart as much as possible.
In any case, I quite liked this chapter. It's been the most interesting thus far.
Aha, this is the only thing making me review these days. On the same accord, my best procrastination tool
).
‘Damn it all,’ he muttered, ‘damn it.’
I would rearrange these two phrases. “Damn it all” has a more powerful and final effect than the latter, and so is, you know, more effective.
he slammed the now half empty bottle back … here. Now it was half gone already.
This irritated me. Tell us once about the bottle being half empty—I recommend the last use. The first one made me think, “hmm…” with the word order. Just say he slammed the bottle on the desk, and that’ll be enough
The sooner the New Lyonnes escort arrived to take Leo and Lucy to the capital the better.
This is kind of ‘in-your-face’. Mentioning the names let it down—nothing else otherwise. I don’t think he would be on such good terms that he would refer to these two teenagers by their names whenever he thinks about them, if you know what I mean. So, just ‘them’, is fine.
He had contacted them the day Lucy arrived
Wasn’t that yesterday?
May I also point out that in that paragraph, you used the word ‘arrived’ three times?
‘Come in.’
In came Colonel Darien.
Repetitive. How about “Colonel Darien stepped in”? Two colonels in a fort concern me a bit… wouldn’t that have their soldiers to be ordering about?
He strode into the room, rather than walked in
I find this awkward. I’d rearranged it: “Instead of walking, he strode into the room.” Is striding really that different to walking, anyway? Marching? Hurried?
Darien would not visit him for no reason.
If you get any more than a single negative, you can cancel it down to something breathable. “Darien always had a reason for visiting.”
one he would rather have avoided [if] he could.
Darien said, placing his arse in the seat Leo had been sitting in ten minutes ago.
Nice little way of telling us what Haart thinks of Darien. =P But anyhow, two ‘in’s in a sentence is fickle. Why not: “into the seat Leo had sat at ten minutes ago”?
from whence it came.
Might just be me, but this feels too archaic to fit. It’s modern grammar, but I’d change it.
John silent[ly] cursed the man’s name
…
A few brief points;
--Dialogue’s great (vast improvement, and more fleshy!);
--I’m not overwhelmed (as described below).
When you post the chapters, I tend to just skip down to your notes, so I know what to expect. When I first saw that you had mentioned ‘the Broken’ and all the rest, I was, as you yourself were, a little hesitant. Too fast? Initially, I thought so, but no longer.
I actually think that if you don’t have Leo and Lucy find out about being in another world until a little later on, it could work better. Why? Because then we’ll hear Haart’s viewpoint and find about New Lyon when everyone else does; it would be a sort of mystery and I’d want to know what this Darien guy’s going to do.
This has been my favourite chapter so far because you’ve moved the story and from it, we’ve learnt character and background etc. You’ve got the dialogue in with the narrative, and there’s a topic to it, one that’s there for substance and that actually benefits the plot.
It wasn’t excessively confusing because let’s be honest, you’ve just thrown in some names and begun developing the world in its context. Now you’ve got a a guy who suspects them, doesn’t want to trust and wants them dead (or so I'm lead to believe...
One thing I'd like to add some one when it comes round to editing: why does Haart dislike Darien? Actually tell us. I mean, he's polite, apparently handsome and... well, ye, is it just his rank?
There's not a lot more I can add, but overall, great job!
... Blink?
EDIT: I swear I'm addicted to this thing.