Chapter 276: Climbing the Ladder
Next call: Big Joel at the distillery.
"My lord, we've expanded production five times over since you went off the grid. The Red Lady clears every batch before it's even had time 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 mental note to work on brand prestige at some point. A few hundred wholesome-looking novices harvesting grapes at the vineyard, some tasteful photography, slipped into the packaging. Give the noble clientele something 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 assumed 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 someone let her in."
"I'm not saying anything. You worked that out yourself."
Kian's mind immediately 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 arithmetic. Someone 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 transformed it completely. The atmospheric gardens and decorative architecture were gone, replaced with thick plasteel walls, reinforced blast doors, automated gun emplacements, laser tripwires, and melta-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. Some 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 regiments slipped away from the front lines and started moving toward the Hive. Coup attempt. They weren't subtle enough about it. Someone on the Governor's side spotted the movement and manually shut down the main elevators. The regiments were sealed inside the elevator shafts for five days with no food. By the time 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 regiments 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 regiments joined the coup outright. All thirty have been disbanded, their designations struck from the rolls. The Hive needs to raise thirty new regiments from scratch. And frankly, you've been sitting in a battalion commander slot long enough. Time to move up. How about I arrange a front-line posting for you, you accumulate some formal commendations, come back and I leverage some relationships to get you a regimental command? Ten thousand men under your banner."
Kian blinked.
"Just like that? Regimental commander from a front-line tour?"
The General thumped his chest.
"Absolutely. I stayed clean through this whole mess. No involvement, full loyalty to the Governor. The loyal faction has to be rewarded. Asking for a regimental 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 commendations 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 achievement.
If he was going to climb, he'd do it standing on something worth standing on. Something 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 commendations.
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."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you