Snippet #2815945

"I'm retired - involuntarily, I'll add - and imprisoned," said Drulović, her tone light, even in Taiyou. "It'd be no small matter to prosecute war against Terra over suspicions about what I might have done or whom I've aided. While of course he has the military capabilities to do as he wishes, he'd lack sufficient support amongst his putative allies." She looked about the room, reflecting momentarily on how much of her latter life she'd spent in rooms just like this one - austere, plain rooms where the real work of governance happened. "Shimizu hardly ever departs from the Soja. He's loathe to so much as set foot on Niihama. Of course the Taiyou courts lack sufficient power to pursue him for his crimes, as against his father, his mother, his sister, and his brother. He depends on sovereign immunity. But the court of public opinion has no such limitations, nor is the truth subject to legalistic evidentiary requirements. His family knows what he's done - or ought to. They are the witnesses of his crimes even after usurpation." She nodded toward the screen. "You hardly need imagine how the shogunate would take to the revelation of his perverse and pathological proclivities." The old woman sighed though, fingers curling up. "But Yosho requires protection - and the support of more than a single shogun - if he is to survive long enough to outlast Shimizu." She looked directly at Kendra. "You realize that it is entirely within the realm of possibilities that Shimizu may be so adamant about his tenuous hold on power that, though I do not wish this for you, nothing short of death will sever him from it."