“I have spoken with your current Lord Governor, and he has confessed his inability to keep the peace or to protect his worlds.” There was much whispering among the reporters. “You have heard the rumors, and they are true. Your leaders are weak. They have not betrayed you, but they have certainly, by their own admission, failed you. You know it to be so.

“During this emergency, we must seek present and immediate solutions for order and protection; for those solutions to have strength and longevity, we must turn back to the Great Houses.

“This is not betrayal. This is not treason. The Republic that I served, that we all served, has failed. It may succeed again someday, but first we must have order, we must have peace, we must have freedom from tyranny. I remind you that The Republic was built from worlds ceded by the Great Houses, and if order and communications are restored, that may happen again.

“But for now, we must choose what banner we follow, and we must not let history choose for us. I have chosen to pledge my SwordSworn to House Davion, not merely because it is the house of my forefathers, but because of its traditions of honor, integrity, and justice.

“The SwordSworn are strong, and we stand against the aggression of our common enemies. We stand between you and the tyranny and harsh rule you know you would suffer under the Capellans.

“We are strong. But together with your freely given aid, we could be stronger. I extend the hand of friendship, and the pledge to join you in our common defense. I pray that you will see the wisdom in taking that hand, before the freedom to choose is lost to House Liao aggression.”

He paused, again scanning the assembled press. “I will now take a few questions.” Hands rose, reporters called to him. He picked a woman whom his intelligence report told him worked for a major Tri-Vid network—one likely to value the appearance of objectivity. She might ask a difficult question, but she was unlikely to go on the offensive immediately.

She stood. “Lord Governor. Nina Wu, Interworld. What do you say to the recent rumors of your death?”

He tried to look mildly shocked. “Well, Nina, first just let me say that, to the best of my knowledge… those rumors are false.”

There was laughter, and the mood suddenly seemed to relax a bit.

Aaron allowed himself a smile—not at the joke, but at the question. That it hadn’t been about The Republic or the possibility of treason was telling. These people already had fundamental doubts about The Republic and their own Prefecture. He was only addressing their preexisting concerns.

Once the laughter died, he suppressed the smile, replacing it with a look of concern. He continued. “But in all seriousness, an attempt was made on my life—a cowardly act of sabotage, done in the name of House Liao. I survived only through the heroic actions of Captain Gus Clancy of the DropShip Tyrannos Rex. and especially those of my bodyguard and security chief, Mr. Ulysses Paxton.” Aaron turned and bowed his head toward Paxton.

Paxton smiled slightly, and Aaron held his bow for several beats. Let the cameras linger on Ulysses. Everyone loves a hero.

Then Aaron turned back to the crowd. “I speak from personal experience when I say that safety is an illusion. Peace is fragile and easily broken by men and women of ill will. Kiss your spouses, hug your children as though it were your last day, because you never know if it might be.”

He called on a young male reporter from a computer news service. “Lord Governor; Paul Yi of Uni-Page. There are rumors that you’ve changed your ship into some sort of luxurious flying palace. Comments?”

“Thank you for asking, Paul. I have indeed turned this fine ship into a flying home for myself and my staff. And if you mean ‘palace’ as in ‘seat of government,’ then yes, that’s what it is. With the fall of the HPG network, it is no longer practical to govern from a fixed capital. Not on far Terra, not even on Tikonov or Liao or New Canton.

“Tikonov is my place of birth, and my heart will always live there, but it would be both foolish and selfish for me to insist on living there. I have responsibilities to a growing family of worlds, not just one. So I have given up my home there to live in this home among the stars, to go where there is trouble. I want those under my protection to know that their home soil is also my home soil—that I care as deeply for their worlds as they do. With this great ship, I can go where the people need me, and do for them what must be done.”

He scanned the faces of the reporters. Time to take a hard one.

He recognized a face from his intelligence photos, and pointed at a balding man sitting near the back. “Duke Sandoval, Van Harding of Truth Magazine. You ask us to take the drastic step of abandoning The Republic, to trust you, and you suggest that you are only a servant of the people. Yet your ship is named Tyrannos Rex. Are you our friend, or just a would-be tyrant king?”

Aaron smiled. Exactly as Clancy had predicted. Smart man. “As you can tell from our arrival, I have been lucky enough to secure one of the finest ships, and the finest captains, in the Inner Sphere. This came to me ready-made, and for that, I am most fortunate.

“But the ship came with a name as well, and Captain Clancy informs me that it is highly unlucky to change a ship’s name. I owe the captain my life, and he has never steered me wrong in such matters. Therefore this ship is called what it is called, though the name is ironic. I come not to enforce tyranny, but to stand side by side with you against it!” He shook his fist in the air. “Death to tyrants! Long live House Davion!”

The guests arrived by limousine, motorcade, and, in one case, VTOL executive plane. Altogether, there were about twenty-five for dinner. The politicians were perhaps surprised to see some of the planet’s hottest holo and music stars in their midst, but the mysterious invitations, along with lavish gifts, had been arranged and sent to those celebrities as soon as Tyrannos Rex arrived in the Ningpo system.

Two by two they came, up the red carpet into the entrance hall, and there they waited under the light of the crystal chandelier. And waited.

Crisply uniformed waiters served fine champagne, and a string ensemble in the corner played selections from Bartow’s Symphony for Davion. There was adequate room for all to mingle and talk, though even a few more people might have crowded things a bit.

Aaron watched them on his security monitors and smiled. “Anticipation,” he said to Paxton, “is as powerful an intoxicant as the fruit of the vine.”

The little room, the nerve center of Paxton’s security network, was located in what had come to be called “backstage”—the more functional part of the complex-within-a-ship that Aaron was building. This area included the kitchens, storage areas, some of the servants’ quarters, and a war room where Aaron could work with his senior advisors to oversee his three interlocking empires: political, business, and military.

Per Paxton’s suggestion, the plans had also just been amended to include a press room, where his staff could both monitor and feed the press of any planet they were visiting. It would include a small holostudio where Aaron could record or broadcast his own speeches and announcements.

Paxton nodded. “And it gives the workers a few more frantic minutes in which to tie up loose ends.”

“Well, that, too.” While the transformation of Tyrannos Rex was remarkable, it was far from complete. The carpenters, craftsmen, decorators, and shipwrights he had hired had labored through the journey—and quietly since their landing—to get as much ready as possible.

Yet a great deal of what would be seen was just for show. Many rooms were represented only as rough metal frameworks into which walls and ceilings would later be built. There were doors that opened to nowhere, and Aaron had instructed that the locks be double-checked, lest some curiosity-seeker accidentally plunge into a darkened cargo bay.