White Horizon (Iron Crucible Book 3) by T.K. Blackwood

Author:T.K. Blackwood [Blackwood, T.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chromatic Aberration
Published: 2022-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

21

"Daddy, daddy!" Jack cried, "Fly me like an airplane!" The child held his hands up in the air, beckoning for his father to help him defy gravity. Jack was on the cusp of "little enough to want to play airplane" and "too large to play airplane." He fell exactly in what Bayern thought of as "backache valley."

"No airplane, champ," Bayern responded as he tried to finish his lunch without spilling any food on the gaudy carpet of the White House's bedroom apartment. It was a silly concern, all things considered. He was the most powerful man in the free world, why should he be afraid of a little stain? Even so, the garish color pattern defied him to ruin it.

"You flew Emily!" Jack protested, his good cheer turning sour.

"Emily is half your size, big guy," Bayern replied patiently.

"That's not fair!"

Bayern and his wife Pauline exchanged a glance, a knowing smirk.

"Daddy!" Jack tried again, but louder.

Right now, Bayern was happy. Here in the presidential bedroom with his daughter in his lap watching cartoons and his wife sitting beside them while his son fought to be carried around, he could hold on to a sense of normalcy. He could feel like a husband and a father.

"Tonight, okay? I promise. One first-class airplane ride, okay?" Bayern tried.

"Promise?" Jack asked.

"Your daddy promised," Pauline said, her voice the model of patience. "A promise is a promise, now let him eat in peace."

Jack hardly let the words register before he was bounding across the room to practically dive into a collection of action figures which resumed their cataclysmic battle for galactic supremacy.

"Not hungry, sweetie?" Bayern asked Emily. Her plate was half untouched, her eyes fixed firmly to the television.

"No."

Where Jack was boisterous and loud, his younger sister was soft and timid. Jack was always eager to speak for her and loved to be the center of attention which always seemed to suit Emily fine. Still, Bayern worried that she would be overshadowed by her older brother.

"Well you need to eat a little more than that, okay? Don't you want to grow up to be big and strong?" Bayern asked.

"Mhmm." Emily made a half-hearted attempt and put a few pieces of carrot in her mouth before Pauline scooped her up and into her own lap.

"I'll do that," she said, "you eat."

Bayern looked at his own plate and laughed, "Yes, ma'am." Even as he did his best to focus on his dinner, he was glancing back toward the smaller TV perched on the dresser by their bed. Television news made up a significant part of his life now, much more than before the war. The task of governing a country was already well beyond the realistic capacity of one man, and when the rigors of war were added, the bill only grew even more impossible to pay.

He couldn't make out the details, but he saw the rough picture. A large naval vessel sank into the churning black ocean amid an expanding oil slick. Thick columns of smoke rose above on a green horizon while attack helicopters buzzed by.

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