The words land like a dropped glass.
For a heartbeat, even the chandeliers feel louder.
Someone actually laughs—nervous, disbelieving. It dies immediately when they realize I’m not joking.
Captain Nera leans forward slowly. “You’re saying that out loud. In front of witnesses.”
“I am,” I say.
“You’re going to start a war,” she says.
I shrug. “We’ve been in one. We just didn’t know it because we were paying our enemy rent.”
A lieutenant near the far end—old scar, older loyalty—hisses under his breath. “You can’t juststop.”
I lace my fingers, keep my tone conversational. “Watch me.”
Jasker slams his palm on the table. Rings clack against wood. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But at least we’ll die on our feet instead of kneeling.”
The room ripples with tension—some of it anger, some of it something closer to relief.
Nera’s eyes flick to the slate. “What’s your plan, then? Besides bravado.”
I tilt my chin toward the doorway. “Bring him in.”
My accountant steps into the room like a man walking onto an execution platform. Thin. Precise. Smells like paper and sleeplessness. He clutches his slate so hard his knuckles—pale human knuckles—look like they might crack.
“This is Larr,” I say. “He’s the reason our books don’t catch fire every time someone breathes near them.”
Larrswallows. “God— Lonari?—”
“Just talk,” I tell him. “Before you pass out.”
A few captains snicker.
Larropens the slate, projects a web of accounts into the air above the table—glowing lines, nested shells, routes that snake through half the sector.
“The tribute accounts,” he says, voice wavering, “aren’t just payments. They’re… anchors.”
Captain Jasker rolls his eyes. “Anchors. Here we go.”
Larrignores him. Brave, or too terrified to care. “They’re wired into a series of contingent triggers. If the tribute stops, the triggers activate.”
Nera’s fingers tighten on the table edge. “Define ‘activate.’”
Larr’s throat bobs. “Asset freezes. Seizure protocols. Automatic liens. Fail-safe liquidation orders through third-party proxy banks.”
The room goes still in a different way—less theatrical, more predatory.
“And that’s just the clean part,” Larr adds. “There are… uglier mechanisms. Insurance void clauses. Debt accelerants. Supply contracts that self-terminate.”
I feel the room’s collective pulse pick up. I can almost hear them mentally counting ships, warehouses, bribes, blackmail files—everything they pretend isn’t their lifeblood.
Captain Jasker leans forward now, no longer smug. “How fast?”
Larr looks at me like he wants permission to say it. I give him a tiny nod.
