Next call: Big Joel at the distillery.
"My lord, we've expanded production five tis over since you went off the grid. The Red Lady clears every batch before it's even had ti to age properly. She's been paying us 150 million Agri-Scrips a month. You've got about 500 million sitting in the account."
Kian was satisfied. The partnership with the Red Lady had streamlined everything. He just had to keep the stills running and collect the money.
He did make a ntal note to work on brand prestige at so point. A few hundred wholeso-looking novices harvesting grapes at the vineyard, so tasteful photography, slipped into the packaging. Give the noble clientele sothing to think about with their evening glass.
Next call: Reynaud, to catch up on what had been moving through the noble social circuit.
"Oh, plenty. While you were off doing whatever you were doing, the Aeldari pulled another big move. After the failed hit on your adopted uncle, she went quiet for months. Everyone assud she'd packed it in. Then last month she surfaces again and tries to assassinate the Planetary Governor himself."
Kian sat up straighter in the bath. He'd been inside the Governor's Spire. The place was a fortress.
"That shouldn't be possible. The security in that Spire is airtight."
Reynaud's tone was carefully neutral.
"Here's what I'll tell you: she got inside. Didn't find the Governor. Did find his chief steward. Killed him. Then she got out. Governor went absolutely berserk afterward, had about two dozen nobles executed. Make of that what you will."
Kian's expression shifted.
"You're saying soone let her in."
"I'm not saying anything. You worked that out yourself."
Kian's mind imdiately started filling in the diagram. The Planetary Governor hadn't made a public appearance in years. When the man at the top stops showing his face, the people below start doing arithtic. Soone had opened a door for the Aeldari warrior. A blade borrowed to do what they couldn't do themselves. And if the Governor died, the power structure on this world would be up for renegotiation.
He wanted a piece of that renegotiation.
He ended the call with Reynaud and went straight to General Zeppelin.
The General had returned to his own tower. Four months of reconstruction had transford it completely. The atmospheric gardens and decorative architecture were gone, replaced with thick plasteel walls, reinforced blast doors, automated gun emplacents, laser tripwires, and lta-mines. It was a fortress now, not a residence.
Zeppelin was visibly pleased to see him. He walked Kian through the new layout with obvious pride, pointing out a wing that had been kept furnished and waiting.
"That's yours. Whenever you want it."
Kian sat him down.
"Uncle. I heard the Governor's chief steward was killed by the Aeldari warrior. What actually happened?"
Zeppelin's expression tightened. He lowered his voice instinctively.
"It goes deeper than it looks. The Governor's absence has been going on too long. So of the noble houses decided to act. You heard about the Aeldari getting inside the Governor's residence, but what you probably didn't hear was that dozens of PDF regints slipped away from the front lines and started moving toward the Hive. Coup attempt. They weren't subtle enough about it. Soone on the Governor's side spotted the movent and manually shut down the main elevators. The regints were sealed inside the elevator shafts for five days with no food. By the ti the Governor had dealt with the conspiring nobles and opened the elevators, those soldiers looked like they'd been through a siege."
Kian shook his head slowly, impressed despite himself. He'd spent four months underground and missed all of this.
"So the power structure just reshuffled. Is there room in that reshuffle for us?"
He rubbed his hands together with undisguised interest.
Zeppelin nodded.
"There is. This planet has around five hundred PDF regints total. When things kicked off, a good portion of them stopped following the military command structure and started taking orders from whichever noble house was paying them. Thirty regints joined the coup outright. All thirty have been disbanded, their designations struck from the rolls. The Hive needs to raise thirty new regints from scratch. And frankly, you've been sitting in a battalion commander slot long enough. Ti to move up. How about I arrange a front-line posting for you, you accumulate so formal comndations, co back and I leverage so relationships to get you a regintal command? Ten thousand n under your banner."
Kian blinked.
"Just like that? Regintal commander from a front-line tour?"
The General thumped his chest.
"Absolutely. I stayed clean through this whole ss. No involvent, full loyalty to the Governor. The loyal faction has to be rewarded. Asking for a regintal command in exchange for that loyalty is perfectly reasonable."
Kian agreed it was more than reasonable.
What he didn't say was that he had no interest in going to the front to earn comndations fighting rebels. When all was said and done, the rebels were just ordinary people with no options. Building a career on putting them down felt like the wrong kind of achievent.
If he was going to climb, he'd do it standing on sothing worth standing on. Sothing like a certain Aeldari warrior who had now attempted to assassinate the Planetary Governor himself and appeared to have fingers in the Hive's internal power struggles. Now that was a target worth taking down. And taking her head would be worth considerably more than a stack of front-line comndations.
He let Zeppelin finish his pitch about the front-line tour, then cut in.
"Uncle. The front line is too slow. I have a better idea."
☆☆☆
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