“You could do well with House Liao. Certainly, it would be no worse than being the Duke’s errand boy, and probably better. You could be an important person in your own right.”

It was actually tempting in a way. To be free of Aaron once and for all, to answer the Duke’s betrayal with one of his own. To abandon everything and seek his own destiny.

“How important? Important enough to be given my own army?”

She laughed. “Erik, you just don’t understand, do you? To be blunt, other than your name, you just aren’t considered that important. Until a few months ago, even your uncle was beneath their notice, though he’s managed to change that somewhat.

“Don’t you see, Erik? People like us, we don’t really matter much. We don’t have many choices. We have to know our place in the world, know our limitations, and make the best of it.”

Erik wiped his face with his hands. Know your place. Know your limitations. He’d heard it all before. Yet this time, he had one last chip to bargain with, and the only way to use it was to play all-in. House Liao didn’t seem to have figured out the Duke’s deception at Shensi yet, and that had value.

If Liao could make the SwordSworn coalition fall apart without landing a single ’Mech or firing a single shot, what would that be worth? If that happened, perhaps they could be persuaded to bypass St. Andre for now, saving SwordSworn lives.

Yet, when it all was said and done, once the deal was made, he would be no more important than he’d ever been. It was the information that was valuable, not Erik Sandoval-Groell. Here or with Liao, he wasn’t much—a little fish in a very big sea. But as long as he was with Aaron, he was at least swimming with a shark, and there was something to be said for that.

“I’m sorry, Elsa. I can’t do that.” He considered. “I’ll make you the same offer. Come over to our side.”

She smiled sadly. “And I can’t do that, Erik, for a lot of reasons. But most of all, what have I really got to offer? My services as your concubine? I care for you Erik, but I can’t be beholden to you that way. It would poison everything, and I’d end up hating you.” She shook her head. “No, I’ve set my course, and I’m staying with it.”

“Well then,” he said.

“Well,” she said.

He unlocked the door. “When we get to St. Andre, just stay on the ship. If you go down to the planet, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”

He considered returning to his quarters, but instead went back to the casino to ride out the jump.

He was still there, sitting at an empty poker table, half an hour later when Clayhatchee appeared. “Commander! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!

“The ship was contacted by St. Andre as soon as we jumped into the system. There isn’t going to be any defensive action, Commander. Liao forces started landing three days ago, and they’ve dug themselves in good.”

Xu district, New Madrid, Poznan

Prefecture V, The Republic

17 December 3134

Aaron managed not to flinch as a bottle smashed against the limousine’s ferro-glass window, a few inches from his face. He glanced at Joan Cisco, who sat on the other side of the car taking notes on a computer pad. “Well, it’s at least good to know that the cost of armor-plating this car was money well spent.”

Outside, blue-uniformed police tried to shove throngs of protesters back onto the sidewalk, and out of the motorcade’s path, with limited success. Aaron looked out dispassionately at the screaming, contorted faces—the waved signs and banners reading things like DEATH TOSANDOVAL, and LIBERATE US, LIAO!There were people spitting on his car.

He shook his head sadly. “Don’t they understand that I’m here to liberate them? Give me six months and I’d have this place cleaned up—end all this unrest.”

Cisco looked at him sideways and lifted an eyebrow. “By crushing it under your iron heel, Lord Governor?”

Aaron grinned. He had given the woman license to be frank. “If necessary. Order has its price. But my heel would fall equally on the oppressed ethnic groups and the people who oppress them. To do otherwise is to simply allow the groups to switch places, or to drag on the conflict for generations.” He saw his own reflection in the window glass. “I could restore order and purpose to the crumbling remains of The Republic,” he said in a low voice. Two hundred fifty worlds for House Davion, delivered by my hand.

“Excuse me, Lord Governor? I didn’t hear.”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

A small man dressed all in black jumped down from a traffic signal he had climbed and landed sprawled on the roof. He pounded on the skylight with his fist, yelling something that Aaron couldn’t hear through the soundproofing. Aaron’s hand strayed down to the armrest. He flipped it open, revealing a hidden control panel. His finger hovered over the controls. He turned to Cisco. “Can I push the button?”

The button was connected to one of the car’s defensive options. If pressed, fifty thousand volts of electricity, at very low amperage, would be transmitted through the car’s exterior rails and trim, guaranteed to turn anyone touching them into a twitching heap on the ground.

She sighed. “No, Lord Governor. You must demonstrate tolerance.”

“I don’t feel tolerance. I feel an intense desire to push the button.”

“I wouldn’t advise it. We must keep up appearances.”

“I suppose so.” He reluctantly snapped the armrest back down over the panel.

There was a pause. Cisco studied him. “You were just joking, Lord Governor?”

He grinned slightly. “About the button? I suppose. About the urge? Not at all.” He looked out the window at the angry crowds. “All people have urges, impulses, and it’s no less true of the very powerful. But when most people slip and let one of those impulses loose, perhaps a window gets broken, or a car fender gets bent, or at worst a nose gets broken. At the very, very worst, the body counts can be tallied on the fingers of your hands.

“But when people like me slip, wars start, planets fall in ruin, thousands or millions die. I have to be very careful about those urges, and so when one comes along like that, where death is unlikely, where the victim is certainly deserving, it is very, very tempting.”

Cisco nodded. “But you still resist.”

“Mostly. But just in case, I depend on my people to remind me of my station. Consider that a test. You passed.” He looked around. The crowds had thinned, and they could at least drive freely, without concern about running someone over. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Nowhere, Lord Governor. We’re simply out so you can be seen.”

He watched a group of children raiding a trash can, and throwing garbage at them. “And this is helping me how, exactly?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I sent you an executive summary. I’d assumed you’d read it.”

“A month ago, I’d have known everything there is to know about this planet; I hired you so I didn’t have to think about such details. I have a war to win. I need to be able to trust you to take care of everything under your purview, and I don’t want to have to oversee everything you do. So tell me what we’re doing here.”

“Poznan is a former member of the Duchy of Liao. Under the Duchy’s control, immigrants of Chinese descent turned the ruling descendants of the original Spanish colonists into an oppressed minority—a fine tradition of hatred that continued for centuries under the rule of the Capellan Confederation. Though this oppression was moderated when The Republic assumed control, it lingers.” She gestured at the windows. “These are members of the Spanish minority, by the way, who are throwing rotten fruit at us.”

“Good to know. And I suppose the people with the ‘LIBERATE US, LIAO!’ signs were Chinese?”