Chapter 323: The Succession War
While Kian and General Zeppelin were still talking, the situation in the upper hive was already at flash point.
The streets around the Campella Estate Tower, spanning hundreds of square kilometres, were packed with armed soldiers in full armour — the stepmother's coalition, deployed in force. Facing them from a smaller perimeter: Nightingale's own forces. Two armed camps in direct confrontation, both at full readiness, occupying an upper-hive district normally filled with civilians and commerce. The residents had been evacuated. Homes and shops had been converted into strongpoints.
Sixty percent of the upper hive's nobility had taken sides. By recent memory, this was the largest internal noble conflict the hive had seen in decades.
The planet's power structure was fragmented in the way these things tended to be — feudal, in the space-medieval tradition. Technically, the Planetary Governor was the nominal supreme authority. In practice, a dispute over a noble family's internal succession was considered a domestic matter, outside the Governor's standing to unilaterally adjudicate.
That said, the Governor could still exert influence. He'd used it to convene an emergency meeting: both factions' principal representatives were summoned to the Governor's Spire, asked to sit across from each other at a long banquet table, and requested, firmly, not to reduce the upper hive to rubble.
"You absolute little—! You brought outsiders into my husband's home to steal his legacy! When this is over, I'll have you hauled in and—"
The stepmother slammed her fist on the table, rose to her feet, and delivered a string of threats that moved through several registers of obscenity.
Lady Nightingale unhurriedly wiped the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin, looked across the table, and smiled pleasantly.
"That's very illuminating, Stepmother. Your familiarity with those particular activities is truly impressive.
But I suppose it makes sense. Given your birth circumstances — your father and that woman, the whole shameful arrangement — one could say it runs in the family."
The stepmother's face went scarlet. She started shouting.
Both factions' retainers joined in across the length of the table, trading insults in escalating volume. The hot-tempered ones began throwing food.
The Planetary Governor, eating steadily throughout, struck the table and bellowed.
"Enough! What is this? Do you call this noble dignity? I didn't invite you here to perform for each other — I invited you here to resolve a dispute! Now sit down and behave!"
The stepmother jabbed a finger, long-nailed, across the table.
"Resolution is simple! My husband dictated a will before his death naming my son as heir to House Campella! This woman is colluding with outsiders to steal the estate! She's a thief and she should be treated like one!"
Lady Nightingale's smile didn't waver.
"My father has been bedridden for years. He never recovered consciousness.
You're telling me that a man who was essentially brain-dead suddenly sat up and wrote a clear, legally binding succession document? Naming not his own blood daughter, but the child of his second wife?
And speaking of that child—" her eyes sharpened "—my father was already elderly when you married in. His capacity to produce children had been medically absent for years. The question of that boy's actual parentage is one I imagine you would prefer not to answer publicly."
A flash of something moved across the stepmother's expression before fury covered it.
"That is a slander! My son is Campella blood and I refuse to subject him to some degrading—"
"A DNA verification test," Nightingale said, very calmly. "That's all I'm asking. Witnessed by the Emperor's representative and the Planetary Governor. If the result confirms he's my father's son, I withdraw my claim entirely. Every soldier stands down. I give up nothing contested."
She folded her hands on the table.
"If you won't submit to that test, the only conclusion available is that you already know what result it would produce."
The table erupted again. Both factions devolved into overlapping recriminations, insults across the tablecloth, a few more food items deployed as projectiles.
The Governor ate a large piece of meat off the bone, set the bone down, and knocked heavily on the table.
"Quiet. Both of you. Last time I ask.
I invited you here to find a resolution. Apparently neither party is willing to make one possible."
His eyes moved slowly over the assembled delegates.
"Then I have one observation. The only mechanism left to resolve your dispute is military conflict."
The stepmother's faction sat up straighter at this. Three-to-one numerical advantage, better equipment across the board — they were confident. They had every reason to be.
Nightingale's side went quiet.
Then the Governor's tone changed entirely.
"However." He set down his utensils. "I will not permit fighting in the upper hive. I will not permit damage to upper-hive infrastructure. If any single artillery round strikes a public installation, I will release nerve agent into the public ventilation network."
Silence.
Complete, airless silence.
Both factions stared at the Planetary Governor.
The Governor stared back — or rather, his eyes moved across the food on the table with the expression of a man thinking about something far away.
He spoke again, quietly, in a register that had lost all its previous bluster.
"I swear this. I swear it on the Emperor.
One shell. One shell hits a public building. The gas goes in."
The breathing in the room changed. No one could understand it. What could possibly motivate the Governor to make a threat that equally endangered both his allies and his enemies?
He reached out and picked up another piece of meat.
"Allow me to offer you some advice.
Eat everything on this table. Eat it properly. Enjoy it."
He looked at no one in particular.
"For quite some time after today, a meal like this is going to be very difficult to come by."
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