Firstborn

self-pity. It was simply a fact. Varion had won Marcus Seven in barely two hours. The fiasco Dennison had just watched was a recording of his fourth attempt. He’d needed seven tries to win.
    Dennison sighed, rising and leaving the hologram chamber. He needed to stretch. The lavish passages of the
Stormwind
were oddly empty, and Dennison frowned, walking along the carpeted corridor until he encountered a minor aide. The man paused briefly, saluting and showing the same discomforted confusion the junior officers usually gave Dennison. They weren’t certain what to make of a High Officer who hadn’t been given a command, yet was important enough to share dinner with Admiral Kern every evening.
    “Are we in battle?” Dennison asked.
    “Um, yes, sir,” the younger man said quickly, eyes darting to the side.
    “Be off with you then,” Dennison said, waving the man away.
    The junior officer eagerly dashed away. Dennison stood, frowning to himself. Had he really been so absorbed that he hadn’t noticed the battle alarm? Not that Kern’s flagship was really in any danger. This would be a minor battle; Varion’s personal fleets handled all the serious fighting. Still, Dennison would like to have watched the fight. He headed for the bridge.
    The
Stormwind
’s main bridge was larger than those of ships Dennison had commanded, but the central feature was still the battle hologram. Dennison left the lift, ignoring salutes as he stepped up the railing, looking down. Kern himself stood in the hologram, but said little. He was a traditional commander; he left most of the local decisions to his Squadron-commanders, who flew in smaller gunships or longships who were in the thick of the battle.
    Varion didn’t use Squadron-commanders. He fought every battle himself, controlling each squadron directly. That would have been foolhardy for anyone else, but Varion did it with the aplomb of a chess master playing against novices. Dennison shook his head.
Enough of Varion for the moment,
he thought.
    Kern’s own battle didn’t look like much of a fight. The High Admiral’s ships outnumbered the opposition by at least three to one.
    The battle progressed as expected. Dennison felt a longing as he watched, a wistfulness that he thought he’d quashed back in the Academy. His study of Varion was awakening old pains. He could almost feel the moves on the battlefield. When the squad commanders made their decisions—the orders manifest in the movement of the holographic ships—Dennison instantly knew which choices were better than others. He could see the majesty of the entire battlefield. Kern’s forces needed to press to the northeast quadrant, drawing fighters away to defend their command ships so that the gunships to the south would fall. That would let Kern’s superior numbers drain the enemy of resources until the rebellious group had no choice but to surrender.
    Dennison could see this, but he didn’t know how to accomplish it. As always, he grasped the concepts, but not the application. He was not a practical, hands-on commander of the type the empire preferred. It wasn’t so odd. Dennison knew of men who loved music, couldn’t play a note themselves. One could enjoy a grand painting without being able to replicate its brush-strokes. Art was valuable for the very reason that it could be appreciated by those of lesser skill. Remote leading and battlefield tactics were indeed arts, and Dennison would never be more than a spectator.
    “Where are we, anyway?” Dennison asked an aide.
    “Gammot system, my lord,” the aide answered.
    Dennison frowned, leaning down on the railing.
Gammot?
He hadn’t realized that Varion had gotten so far, let alone Kern’s mop-up force. He waved for an aide to bring him a datapad, then punched up a map of the empire and overlaid it with a schematic of Varion’s conquests. He was amazed by what he saw.
    It was nearly done. Varion’s forces were approaching the last rebellious systems.
I really have been distracted lately,
Dennison thought. Soon there would be peace. And with that peace, commanders wouldn’t be as important. They hadn’t been during the Grand Eras.
    Why, then, was it so imperative that Dennison be forced into Varion’s mold? Everyone—the High Emperor, Kern, Dennison’s father—acted as if Dennison’s studies were absolutely vital.
    It had to be his father, pleading for Dennison’s continued training—not because it mattered to the empire, but because Sennion