A thousand million things could've gone wrong in the many months that'd passed since I'd ordered them here. The Imperial Fleet might've sortied and against all odds won a resounding victory, the Yans might've been detected and our whole overlarge diplomatic contingent slaughtered in revenge, there might've been another coup attempt back home… But it only took me seconds to see that all was well, and in many ways would remain well forever after. For, neatly formed up under the massed guns of the Bard-class battleships drifted the remnants of the Imperial Line of Battle, the core of the Emperor's strength and the ultimate source of all his power to make mischief. They'd surrendered at last—the long, long nightmare was finally over. It didn’t take me long to catch up on what'd happened and how. According to Admiral Regan, my peace-waging campaign had been so successful and impossible to conceal that a bloody palace revolt had erupted, led by "sane" Imperials who wanted to accept our terms.
