It had also made him Pritchart’s most significant opposition when she ran for the presidency in the first election under the restored Constitution. Had it come down to a straight contest between the two of them, his candidacy would have been not only significant but a serious challenge, and she knew it. Fortunately, she’d enjoyed two enormous advantages he simply could not overcome: her status as the provisional head of government who’d actually kept her promise and held general elections when she’d said she would, and the endorsement of Thomas Theisman. There had been seven candidates on the ballot, and Pritchart had taken seventy-three percent of the popular vote. Arnold Giancola had taken nineteen percent, and the other five candidates between them had split the remaining eight percent.

The election hadn’t even been close, but Giancola had clearly emerged as the second most consequential figure of the restored Republic’s youthful political establishment. That was precisely why Pritchart had chosen him for what was technically the number one position in her cabinet. In actual fact, Theisman’s combination of the offices of Secretary of War and Chief of Naval Operations made him the de facto second-ranking member of the administration, but Giancola was definitely the third. And under the Constitution, it was he who would lead the three-month caretaker administration and supervise the special election to replace Pritchart if something happened to her.

To say she wasn’t entirely happy to have him in that position would have been a gross understatement, yet she’d seen no viable alternative. His allies in Congress would have demanded some significant appointment for him even without his showing in the presidential elections, and she’d hoped to bind him to the new administration by giving him a voice in it. Ambitious though he was, he also saw himself as a statesman, and Pritchart was well aware that he truly believed in his own vision for the Republic’s future. That genuine patriotism had made no small contribution to his ability to build his political alliances… and helped to encourage his personal ambition with a sense of mission. That was precisely what had made him so dangerous, and she’d hoped she could convince his patriotic side to rein in his ambitious side by supporting her in the interests of solidarity during the critical, early years of the restored Republic.

The Constitution had also just coincidentally required him to resign from the Senate to accept a cabinet-level post, and she’d calculated that he would be less dangerous in the cabinet where she could keep an eye on him and demand his loyalty than he would directly controlling a senate seat. But he’d foiled that part of her plans by securing his brother’s election in his place in the special election his resignation had set up. Nor had her plans to co-opt him to support her policies proved an unadulterated success. As far as she could tell, he’d simply recognized that he had to work through a different set of rules and priorities in pursuit of his original ambition and policies, and he was building a steadily growing faction in Congress. The fact that he was also busy building support within the Cabinet for at least some of his policies had the potential to turn into a major nightmare, yet she couldn’t demand his resignation. It was probably clear to everyone that he was maneuvering to put himself into position to challenge any reelection bid of her own when her term ended in another four T-years, but his alliances in Congress would provoke a bigger fight than ridding herself of him would be worth.