Cooper turned the heavy vellum page of the brief, displaying a timestamped satellite intercept log:
“You spent forty years abusing the judicial prestige of this nation to orchestrate the private acquisition of Conduit Ten.”
“You deployed your granddaughter, Vanessa, to infiltrate Olivia Mercer’s life, romance Ethan Cole, and attempt to extinguish Arthur Mercer’s sovereign lineal veto!”
“You attempted to sever the physical manifold of Valve Station Ten before midnight tonight to clear your family’s thirty-five-million-dollar factoring debt!”
Cooper slammed his palm onto the brief:
“Under Section Fourteen-B of the **1944 Mercer Sovereign Lineal Charter**: eighty years ago, Arthur Mercer Senior decreed that if an adverse commercial factoring partner attempts to murder, defraud, abandon, or extinguish the living lineal bloodline of the master surveyor on an active sovereign defense homestead…”
Admiral David Mercer bared his teeth in a razor-thin, cold line of white bone:
**“Every commercial share of The Valkyrie Trust, your estate in Lake Forest, Julian Vance’s luxury factoring accounts in Vaduz, and seventy billion dollars in carried defense reserves reverts in absolute, un-divided fee simple unto Chancellor Olivia Eleanor Mercer!”**
