Menkar, he knew, was the key to the Confederation’s push along the spinward border of Prefecture V, the so-called “Algot theater,” under the joint command of Warrior Houses Dai Da Chi and Hiritsu. It was the focal point of several trade routes, and had good on-planet industry that could be pressed into service to feed the Confederation juggernaut with consumables and basic equipment. Five hundred million C-Bills’s worth of expendable annualGNP , two hundred seventy-five of that currently under the control of Bannson Universal subsidiaries. Menkar was also one step off from Algot, which would be important for its working HPG.

Wei was a different case. Solidly behind the Confederation’s return, the planet had become the logistics center for the antispinward front, moving supplies and troops into the fighting on Gan Singh and Shensi. Two of Bannson’s JumpShips had been “commandeered” by Capellan forces—creating deniability—to bring that logistics network up to five transport vessels. Call it an average of two-point-three DropShips per day passing through Wei’s system. That was approximately thirty thousand tons of cargo capacity. Each day. Bannson’s profits on that arrangement amounted to more than five million Ls—Liao dollars converted into neutral ComStar currency at point-six per, for a yield of three million—so far.

Jacob Bannson had a head for figures. And for knowing when his interests lay in common straits with another.

“I can’t tell what Prefect Tao will do,” he said. Though not for lack of money being paid out on New Aragon. “He could move against Menkar, but he has limited transportation to ferry troops around right now, thanks to a labor strike by some peace-loving employees of one of my shipping companies. I can keep that tied up for another week.”

“Two would be more useful,” Rieves said, trying to dictate terms.

Which was why Bannson had forbidden Maskirovka agents from being present. They might have been entrusted with enough authority to put real pressure on the CEO.

“One. At best. In the meantime, I will continue to make inroads into Prefecture VI, but the antitrust restrictions slapped on me by the Senate will make it difficult.”

“One,” Rieves said, testing the word. “One, one.” Eyes half lidded, he looked inward to how that played with his own timetable. “That is not easy, but possible. If you can deliver us to Liao by the twentieth of next month, and guarantee a stealthy insertion.”

Liao. Bannson had long since guessed that Daoshen would push for the seat of Prefecture V. Now, through Rieves, the Chancellor looked for a guarantee. He exchanged a knowing glance with Jones. This was what you paid insurance for.

“It may be possible,” he said, feigning some hesitation. “I have assets in place on Liao that should help mask your arrival. Yes.” He paused for effect. “He should do nicely.”

“He? One man?” Sang-shao Rieves did not look impressed, or particularly confident. “Unless you own the Planetary Legate, what can you expect one man to do?”

Bannson shrugged. “Ask your Chancellor. The Betrayer of Liao was only one man, after all.”

“And you have such a man in place?” Rieves sounded dubious, but looked hopeful.

Bannson smiled, took another pretzel and then brushed his hands clean as he left the bar stool. “Such a man?” he asked. “Yes. Something like that.”

Yiling (Chang-an)

Qinghai Province, Liao

Prefecture V, Republic of the Sphere

21 June 3134

Blood oozed from a gash over the student’s left eye, smearing down the side of his face as he tried to staunch the flow. Ritter Michaelson handed him a patch of gauze, liberated from the ambulances that came and went from the Conservatory grounds, and showed him where to apply pressure. He glanced around. Still, fifteen… twenty bodies stretched out on the Conservatory’s wet grass, attended by very few volunteers who were lucky to keep the two sides from each other’s throats.

And hundreds more thronged around the Guardian, waiting their turn to join them.

“We deserve representation. We demand recognition.” The amplified voice belted out in strident tones over the cheers and heckling. Though distorted slightly by the portable PA system, this Hahn Soom Gui had a timbre in his voice that caught your attention, held it. He paced the edge of the Men Shen’s pedestal, using it as his impromptu stage. “We will not sit back and allow ourselves to be ignored. Capellan unity is not treason. Capellan unity is Liao.” A long roar of approval drowned out all but the closest calls of derision.

“Damn right!” a nearby student shouted, rising up on his elbow. He was tall but not very muscular, and had blood-soaked gauze shoved up into his nostrils. “Free Liao!” he shouted.

“Tā mā dè!” the student with the gash over his eye shouted back, suggesting violent relations between the other cadet and his mother. “Bloody Crapellan!”

The young man with the broken nose lunged forward, and another student lying nearby tried feebly to rise as well. The anti-Capellan supporter also surged to his feet. Michaelson got tangled in their way, trying to keep them from new blows. A fist glanced off his ear which burned with pain.

Michaelson shoved the taller youth back, and when he came at the veteran again grabbed his broken nose in between two thick fingers and squeezed. The student sagged to his knees. As the smaller man tried to slip around Michaelson, the ex-Paladin brought him down as well with a firm kick to the side of one knee. Not enough to injure, just incapacitate.

“Get up again, I’ll break it,” he promised.

The furious cadet rubbed at his leg, but stayed on the ground. Michaelson backed the other student up by keeping his nose in a good grip and leading him back to the matted muddied grass where he’d been laid out before. “And you, this is your own little piece of Liao today. Plant yourself on it.”

He let the youth go, stepped back and wiped the blood off on his trousers. A female student—Jenna, she’d said her name was—moved up to help him keep the two apart. She offered him a weak smile.

“Xiè-xie,” she thanked him. Her breath misted in the cool air.

He nodded. “Bú kè-qi.” Though he had forbidden himself the language more than two decades before, the hàn-yŭ courtesy rolled easily off his tongue. Maybe it was how darkly familiar this felt to his own academy years.

He had wanted to judge for himself how serious the current threat was, with the local government cracking down on anything that smacked of resistance. Well, he had seen battlefields with less fury than what greeted him now. Despite the ugly shift in weather, hundreds—maybe a thousand students and local civilians—crowded around the old Men Shen BattleMech to stage a “duly-registered protest.” A few hundred vehement Republicans had shown up to disrupt things, and it hadn’t helped that the local administration chose today to replace the stone arch that framed the Conservatory’s main entrance. Ruined by Ijori Dè Guāng vandals a month before, two ConstructionMechs and a team of civilians worked to erect the new gate. What had once been the Liao Conservatory of Military Arts, later just the Liao Conservatory, was now cast as The Republic Conservatory.