The Directorate once met in a building aboveground. Security had been relatively light for the seat of Terra’s civilian government—certainly no greater than for the executive board meeting of any one of Terra’s megacorps. After all, the Zaibatsu had their intercorp feuds to contend with, with all of the accompanying expertise in cutting-edge espionage and occasional sabotage.

  Besides a few bands of heavily monitored and ill-equipped political fringe groups, who would dare attack Planetary Administration? It was beyond imagining, not least because P.A. was under the express protection of Fleet. It only took a glance at the sky, with the berthed might of Fleet’s capital ships, to end the odd Zaibatsu CEO’s drunken dreams of seizing power.

  The old building’s soaring ceiling was constructed of adjustable glass and crystal, which, through a trick of engineering, would catch the sun’s light at its zenith each day, splashing rainbows of color across the building’s marble floors. The light would then spill upward along the high walls, across the ancient tattered flags of Terra’s pre-Unification War past, banners that were hung as a reminder of the folly of separatism and intra-species strife—corporate competition notwithstanding.

  Only a few censored photos of the interior had been available to the general public. Mirem, however, as a new-minted member of the Directorate, has had access to archival images and videos. Even compared to the grandeur of Kaisho-Renalis’ corporate headquarters, the place really did look quite nice.

  That is, before Anomaly-guided Kaisho-Renalis operatives blew it up and murdered half of the previous Directorate members in an attempted decapitation strike.

  Lesson learned, Mirem supposes. Now they meet in a hardened bunker.

  Mirem adjusts the white collar of her Planetary Administration uniform, squares her shoulders, and steps into her suite’s elevator. The doors glide shut and then she’s plummeting eighty stories, past the surface level and into the warren of Planetary Administration governmental offices, rows of suites that are burrowed beneath Central Complex like an ant nest made of steel and concrete.

  Down to sublevel twenty-three, and then Mirem’s stomach is floating upward with deceleration. Why does it have to be so damn fast? she thinks, but at least she no longer feels like she’s going to be sick. Her face hasn’t even lost color as the doors slide open, and she steps into one of the Directorate's fifteen long, separate foyers with barely a wobble.

  Her retinue is waiting for her—her “posse,” as she likes to joke. The first to greet her are two bulky guards in white P.A. livery. Their adamite-infused armor is absurdly unnecessary for anything outside of storming some alien imperial palace, but it’s become the new standard in the presence of Directorate members.

  “Hello Booker. Melkin,” Mirem says, smiling as her two Directorate bodyguards salute her.

  “Director,” the larger of the two helmeted guards replies in an emotionless, vox-distorted voice. Booker’s voice might be unrecognizable, but Mirem still imagines that the word he utters has a smile behind it. The big ex-Versk guard was reluctant to take the post at first—he’d never be as strong or as fast as Admin’s roster of aug-human bodyguards, he argued— but surviving the ambush at the Cauldron together mattered far more to Mirem than some fractional difference in reflex time. Eventually Booker consented, bringing his fellow ex-Versk security officer Melkin along. “After all, I’ve always wanted to see if those Admin Special Security upgrades were worth the fuss,” he said, grinning beneath his beard when he finally accepted the job. The answer was a grunting “hell yes” when Mirem inquired how his modified body was feeling a few months later.

  “Lenock. Hua,” Mirem continues, nodding to the next two members of her retinue. The duo of personal assistants bow back to her in unison. They’re here to help her navigate the still-disconcerting world of planetary governance, like consular attachés on a dangerous diplomatic mission. They’re both older than Mirem, both plucked from the higher echelons of corporate governance, and both viciously competent.

  Lenock is the senior of the two. He’s nearly sixty with swept grey hair and a perfectly trimmed beard, but his face is tanned and smooth and his eyes are sharper than those of a first- year intern at Kaisho-Renalis’ now-defunct finance division. In a different setting he could pass as the extremely expensive lawyer of some underworld criminal boss, but he was in fact the vice-president of KR’s hostile acquisitions department. Mirem guesses that the overlap between the two roles is substantial.

  Beside him, Hua might almost go unnoticed. She is short and compact where Lenock is tall, skin pale where Lenock’s is dark, her manner reserved where Lenock exudes a barely restrained energy. Her prior role at KR was as a “strategic advisor,” one of those rare, undefined roles that made Mirem especially wary of a person’s ruthless effectiveness.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Obviously, they come highly recommended from Mirem’s uncle Peter.

  “I see you read my annotations on Murkata’s moves to subvert the agreed-upon forty-nine percent holding in heavy weapons manufacturing,” Lennock remarks as they begin to stride through the quarter-mile long foyer that leads to the Directorate's meeting hall, three pairs of corporate dress shoes followed by two pairs of armored boots echoing along the concrete floor.

  “I did indeed,” Mirem replies, squinting as she brings up the report on her retinal feed. “But what do we actually do about it? If they’re meeting quotas, then will the Fleet members want to raise a fuss? They might find that they prefer the efficiencies.” Mirem shakes her head. “Anyway, the report isn’t definitive. Murkata has plausible deniability.”

  “I agree that it is not definitive. Rather, a series of personal relationships and infusions of capital that breed reliance and control,” Hua interjects, her tone light and conversational. Mirem glances at the woman: nearly everyone Mirem has met has a similar distant look when they’re conversing with an AI, but Mirem never quite knows if Hua is accessing an external Intelligence or not.

  “There is enough of a pattern that the Admin members, at least, will find it alarming,” Hua continues. She tilts her head and glances up at Mirem. “As should Fleet.”

  Mirem grimaces. They’re all on the same team; so then why do these meetings always feel so fraught? Anyway, only five of the Directorate’s seats have been allocated to Murkata-Heisen and its fellow megacorps, though through its intensive political maneuvering Murkata has made this distinction meaningless. Ten seats, against Murkata’s five: four for the Fleet bloc, five for the surviving members of Planetary Administration, and one for Mirem, who should ostensibly be voting alongside Fleet interests.

  The problem is that the current power dynamics aren’t actually represented in those board seat allocations. Kaisho-Renalis was the largest megacorp on Terra, and when Murkata emerged victorious it feasted on KR’s corpse like a starving dog, unrestrained by a hobbled Planetary Admin or its other, less well-equipped competitors, corporations whose executive teams had been in some cases decimated by KR missile strikes. Murkata is now the undisputed leader of Terra’s industry, both in technical expertise and industrial capacity, vital to Fleet’s rebuilding. How exactly are you supposed to rein in the horse that you’re pushing to a gallop? Mirem wonders.

  “I’ll raise the issue,” Mirem says, suppressing a groan. As the least experienced member of the Directorate, one who owes her place to political maneuvering rather than any seniority or expertise, raising her voice always feels fraught. “But surely we can’t be the only ones to realize this?”

  Lennock chuckles and shakes his head. “Surely? No. It’s only your uncle’s old sources that tie this type of report together. You won’t find them on any official balance sheet.”

  Of course. Lovely Peter and his sources. Through Lennock and Hua, Mirem has come to realize that her uncle still retains a spy network from his Kaisho days, one that is burrowed into the apparatus of Terra’s corporate structures like bulbous ticks behind an old dog's ear. She sometimes worries that these reports are generated as much out of his old corporate hatred of Murkata-Heisen than out of any loyalty to Terra’s fragile new government or critical war effort.

  We really need to talk soon. A face-to-face, not through these report-derived insinuations of or second-hand suggestions. Mirem is Lanis’ representative, not her uncle’s proxy, even if she is flanked by two of his KR subordinates. She reassures herself that at least she has some understanding of how her uncle works, having cut her teeth within the same Kaisho political structures. The corporate dynamics that are at play here are not unknown, and she’s more comfortable with Lenock and Hua than she would be with two unknown PA or Fleet attachés, even if they are her uncle’s creatures. Better the devil you know, and all that.

  They’re approaching the end of the hall-like foyer, to a single armored door. There’s no access panel, only a small light that is currently red. Mirem checks her retinal clock. Three minutes.

  She clears her throat, tamping down on her nervousness. She might not have Lanis’ Navigation mantras to rely on, but Kaisho-Renalis’ corporate training was diligent when it came to suppressing one’s emotions, especially in executive meetings. I belong here, she firmly thinks, biting down on the inside of her cheeks for good measure.

  Hua tilts her head. “Director, I just received a message from your uncle, labeled urgent. He has obtained information from a Fleet source that the Directorate is preparing a new propaganda drive featuring Lanis and the other Navigators. A rather more… aggressive drive, based on a hitherto unreported surge in Rot-affiliated cult activity. We can assume details may be provided in the council. Peter thought that you should know now, with a few moments to spare, as he guessed that the revelation might unsettle you in the meeting.”

  Mirem’s eyes darken. She can hear a rustle of armor as Booker exchanges a look with his fellow guard.

  Shit.

  The light beside the door turns green.