The message from Duke Archimedes arrived wrapped in caution.
It came through a channel so layered it felt like speaking through walls, then through water, then through smoke. Kvasir decoded it personally, verifying the signature three times before allowing it to touch Tobias's terminal. Even then, it arrived in fragments rather than a clean narrative, as though Archimedes had been forced to speak around listening ears. Tobias read it once, then again, letting the words settle into him like cold iron.
House Mordred's plea was gaining traction.
They had come to the Clansmoot not as villains, but as victims, draped in the language of commerce and stability. They framed No'aar as a "volatile theater," claimed that Hawthorne stewardship risked "disrupting Dust supply continuity," and suggested that the Emperor's decision to place the planet under Tobias's guidance was "premature given the youth of the steward." Tobias could almost hear the tone in which those words would be delivered, the smooth concern of people who had been caught committing crimes and now spoke as if they were merely misunderstood.
Worse, Archimedes implied that some Houses were listening.
Not because they loved House Mordred, but because they feared precedent. Tobias's rise, his alliance with the Merwyn, and SCORPIO's attention had altered the balance of influence within the Six Great Houses, and houses did not like change unless they controlled it. Archimedes wrote of "measured sympathy" and "calls for temporary oversight," which were the kind of phrases that sounded harmless until they became policy. Tobias sat very still as he read, because he understood what was happening.
They were trying to legalize the blockade.
Duchess Satine stood behind Tobias as he processed the dispatch, her expression composed but her eyes sharp with quiet anger. "They're not arguing about No'aar," she said softly. "They're arguing about you." Trace's face hardened, and Cassian's posture tightened as if bracing for a blow. Kvasir's pleasant mask did not change, but his fingers flexed once against his slate in the subtle tell of someone who wanted to sink teeth into a problem.
"They want to make my stewardship look reckless," Tobias said quietly.
Kvasir nodded. "And they want to make corporate intervention look responsible," he added. Tobias felt the words settle into place like pieces of a larger mechanism. The FMC fleet did not need to win militarily if it could win narratively, because a "temporary protective blockade" could become "temporary oversight," and temporary oversight could become permanent control. The Imperium did not always conquer with guns. Sometimes it conquered with documents.
Another message arrived an hour later, and this one did not come from Archimedes.
It came from the Imperial office itself.
The seal carried authority so absolute the palace systems accepted it without delay, and Tobias felt a quiet chill run through him as the message opened across the hololith. It was brief, formal, and edged with politeness sharp enough to cut. His Imperial Majesty's office requested Lord Tobias Hawthorne's presence, "for consultation," regarding the No'aar situation and "ongoing Clansmoot deliberations."
It was not a summons in the legal sense.
It was worse.
It was an invitation that could not be refused without sounding guilty.
Trace read it and swore softly. "If you leave No'aar, they tighten the blockade," he said, voice low. "If you refuse, House Mordred paints you as defiant." Duchess Satine's gaze narrowed. "They're trying to pull you off the board," she said, each word precise. Cassian's voice remained steady. "If you go," he said, "we hold. If you stay, we fight the story."
Tobias did not answer immediately.
He stared at the FMC fleet icons in orbit, then at the hidden markers of his Second Squadron behind the moon. He thought of Archimedes at the Clansmoot, forced to argue while healing, surrounded by Houses that smiled while calculating his weakness. He thought of the Merwyn alliance, fresh and fragile, and how easily corporate pressure could be turned into Merwyn resentment if Tobias appeared unable to protect them. He thought of SCORPIO leaving with his father, and of the remaining squad watching him as much as protecting him.
Then Tobias spoke, voice calm but decisive.
"Prepare a reply to the Imperial office," he told Kvasir. "We accept consultation, but we propose remote attendance through secure channel due to active blockade conditions." Kvasir's eyes brightened with approval, because it was a move that looked cooperative while denying vulnerability. "And send Archimedes a coded update," Tobias added. "Tell him the FMC fleet is violating Merwyn sanctuaries and interfering with lawful aid traffic. He needs ammunition beyond rhetoric."
Trace leaned closer. "And if they insist you travel?" he asked.
Tobias's gaze returned to the hololith, where the FMC fleet hung above No'aar like a silent wall. "Then we make it impossible for them to pretend this is 'protection' while I'm gone," Tobias said, and his voice carried the steel of a man who had stopped asking permission to survive. Cassian's eyes sharpened, understanding the implication immediately, and Tobias gave the order that would shape the next chapter's gravity. "Second Squadron stays dark," Tobias said. "But we tighten the noose. If Freedom makes one move that resembles seizure rather than blockade, we break their smile."
Outside the palace, the sea rolled under starlight, indifferent to politics, contracts, and noble blood.
Above it, a corporate fleet maintained its polite posture while the Imperium debated whether Tobias Hawthorne was too young to rule. Tobias felt the weight of that debate press against him, and he understood that the next battle would not be fought solely with ships and WarMechs. It would be fought with legitimacy, with narrative, and with the kind of calm that refused to be forced into mistake.
Somewhere at the Clansmoot, words were being sharpened into knives.
On No'aar, Tobias began sharpening his own.