Chapter 30

　　"What did you expect to find?" Merrick Tan asked, his voice echoing off the bare metal walls of the vault`s interior.

　　Kal had led the group to the Palace`s Throne Room, past the dais with his plain chair and through a series of corridors and stairwells until they reached the Vault that once held the greatest treasures of the Caledonian Duchy.

　　In a barren stone basement deep underground, the tall and grand metallic vault door was wide open, the floors and surfaces of the room covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt that had been undisturbed for years. Inside, a massive room stretched out before their eyes, devoid of any object of value.

　　Impenetrable when closed and secured, the Caledonian Vault had been empty even before the fall of the Planet. The Last Duke had used everything of value to fund his rebellion.

　　"I`m sorry, Kal. I don`t see any miracles here." Talha added, kicking away at some scraps of debris that had accumulated on the floor.

　　If the Baron heard them, he didn`t acknowledge their comments, simply staring at the wall where the faded symbol of House Caledon had once been, now little more than a smattering of dull red paint.

　　"Kal?" Sylla asked, placing a hand gently on his arm to get his attention.

　　"Hmm? Oh, yes. An empty vault is what I expected to find. I was lost in thought for a moment. I`ve only been here once as a boy. There used to be a painting on the wall of my Grandparents at their wedding hanging here. I was just wondering where it might have ended up." Kal said, his voice trailing off at the end.

　　"We could find it if you want. There might be a record on the Net." Sylla offered, ignoring the impatient Tan behind her.

　　"No, it`s not necessary. Just a silly distraction, I suppose," Kal replied.

　　"Did you know my Grandmother grew up on a frontier world? Her parents were poor farmers on Trillium. The Terraforming hadn`t quite taken hold as they had hoped. She told me they had to draw water from a well when she was a little girl. Can you imagine getting water from a well with a bucket in our Empire?" Kal mused, aghast at the thought.

　　"It`s hard to conceive. How did Aurora become a Duchess from such humble beginnings?" Miranda asked. She was curious about Kal`s Grandmother. The public records focused on the Duke, brushing over the Duchess aside from her humanitarian endeavours.

　　"What does this have to do with our current plight!" Tan grumbled with exasperation. Kal ignored the Banker, continuing his story.

　　"She worked hard and studied economics. She became independently wealthy before she ever met my Grandfather." Kale stated.

　　"He was travelling around the Duchy, fighting pirates and bandits that had been preying on traders with some of his House Guard when he found my Grandmother`s Starship under attack. It was love at first sight, according to him. Although she told me that it took a while before she warmed to him. He was more roguish` than she preferred." Kal explained, laughing at the memory of his Grandmother telling him the story.

　　"It`s like something out of a romance Holo." Sylla replied.

　　"Yes. My Grandfather didn`t have a head for numbers and figures, preferring Piloting a Mech or travelling to the far reaches of the Empire over charts and graphs. You may not know this, but Grandmother was the driving force behind Caledon`s economy during her lifetime. She was much like you, Tan, although much more altruistic." Kal looked at the Banker, who seemed taken aback by being compared to the late Duchess.

　　"When they married, she kept her wealth separate from the Duchy. My Grandfather was a bit of a spendthrift, and she didn`t want him wasting all her effort on some endeavour." Kal trailed off, walking up to the wall that once held his Grandparent`s portrait and running his hand along the thick metallic barrier.

　　"The true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can give them no benefit." Kal stated, speaking his Grandmother`s favourite quote. The wall vibrated in response to his words, a crack forming in the impenetrable surface and splitting in half. With a loud rumble, the two halves retracted, revealing an inner vault.

　　"She stored her wealth here." Kal finished, walking into the new area while the others stood stunned behind him.

　　"Were you aware there was a hidden vault here?" Miranda whispered to Sylla. The older woman shook her head. If there were a hidden section of the vault, they would have found it. When Caledon fell, the Empire sifted through everything it could, looking for valuables as compensation for the Rebellion.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

　　"It`s shielded from scans." Tamara guessed, following Kal into the inner vault.

　　The room was small, with barely enough room for them to gather. To their left was a sealed door with a strange symbol etched into the metal above it. To their right is another entrance with a different, equally unrecognizable character.

　　"Huh. So this is where it went." Kal muttered, looking at the painting directly ahead.

　　It was of a young couple on their wedding day. The man wore a uniform in the Caledonian House colours, and his long black hair was pulled back out of his face. He looked like an older version of Kal, although broader in the shoulders with a differently shaped nose than the Baron.

　　The young woman was beautiful, wearing a white dress and smiling widely. She was blond, blue-eyed and significantly shorter than the groom.

　　"One mystery solved." Sylla joked, walking up beside Kal and assessing the painting. Behind her, Talha was trying to decipher the symbols over the doors. The one on the left resembled the letter P` with an X` behind it. While the right held an inverted V.`

　　"They must have moved it here before their deaths. I wonder why&." Kal mused, shaking his head at the ambiguity of the painting`s presence.

　　"What do the symbols mean?" Talha interrupted, losing patience with her attempts to decipher the cryptic characters. Kal turned away from the painting, seeing the pair of doors for the first time. He took a moment to scrutinize one, then the other, before shaking his head.

　　"I`m not sure. But I know that one leads to the vault my Grandmother left me." Kal said, pointing to the door on the left. It corresponded with Aurora`s position in the painting in front of them. Turning, he began to stride towards the left door.

　　"And the other?" Miranda asked.

　　"My Grandfathers. Each left me an inheritance, sealed away before they died and my Father could return and take it from me. They were rather prescient, knowing he would take over any of my bank accounts, so they used physical assets." Kal replied. He placed a hand against the sealed door, which lit up as it tested his DNA and a multitude of other security measures.

　　The door slid open silently, revealing the interior to the group and stunning them to silence.

　　Mounds of treasure, precious gemstones, rare minerals, and priceless metals were stacked neatly in rows as far as the eye could see. Artwork, sculptures, fanciful vases, and statues were placed carefully out of the way. Crates and chests of old coins, loose jewels and glittering jewelry spilled onto the walkways.

　　"This&you had this the whole time!" Merrick Tan screamed, his face flushing red before paling. This room had more wealth than he had seen in all his time at the Imperial Bank. An incalculable fortune, and the Baron had him seizing petty accounts from criminals!

　　"I do not understand. If you had this much wealth, why didn`t you simply hire dozens of Mercenary companies and retake Caledon by force? Why go through freezing accounts, negotiating with the corporations of Trier and only seizing Ellis Morrow to force his city into submission?" Miranda asked, taking in the vast wealth around her.

　　"To what purpose? Retaking Caledon with minimal casualties and disruption to its citizens was my first and foremost priority. Launching a civil war would not have achieved that goal. And besides, who could I trust to secure this? If news came out that I owned this horde without proper safeguards, how could I prevent its seizure?" Kal reasoned.

　　"Still. We visited a Junkyard! You could have purchased us all new Mechs." Talha replied, causing Kal to laugh, echoing off the vault`s walls.

　　"If I did that, wouldn`t it have tipped our hand? I did tell you that I would get you the components regardless. Just look at the positives, Talha. You don`t have to worry about me not paying your salary." Kal stated, smiling at the redheaded woman.

　　"If you have this much wealth stored in this vault, what`s behind the other door?" Sylla asked, looking behind her at the other sealed treasury. She could imagine it filled with more riches, practically spilling from its doorway.

　　"Nothing good. Unless we face annihilation, that door is to remain sealed. If it never opens in my lifetime, I would be eternally grateful." Kal replied grimly. Ignoring the piles of treasures, he carefully pushed deeper into the vault, searching for something specific.

　　"Tan, I assume you can convert items of interest into Imperial Credits?" Kal asked, raking his eyes over the treasures. The sum required for the Tithe was astronomical. He would need something valuable to pay that debt quickly.

　　"Yes. Although for the amount you owe, there would be exorbitant shipping costs and fees for the conversation for something so massive. It would take a Starship`s hold of gold to cover your debt." Tan explained.

　　"Something small then, easily transported. Preferably something the Agency would accept without conversion. Ah! Perfect." Kal paused, finding an item on a stone plinth. It was a simple tiara with a greyish jewel in the center. Made of platinum, it wasn`t the band that gave it its rarity but the gemstone.

　　"Is that?" Miranda asked, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at the headband.

　　"Crystallized Lunite." Kal replied, gingerly picking up the item. It was light, weighing very little, and the gemstone reflected the light impossibly, twisting and turning within. It was mesmerizing, and Kal had to pry his gaze away from the stone.

　　Lunite was one of the most valuable liquids in the Galaxy, found only on a few planets. All known sources were owned by the Emperor, used in creating the Engine and a few pieces of advanced technology whose manufacture was an Imperial secret.

　　In rare cases, that liquid crystallized into a gemstone that few in the galaxy had ever seen, let alone owned. The tiara in Kal`s hands had once belonged to the Empress, who had gifted it to Aurora as a wedding gift.

　　"It`s fitting, in a way, for it to be going home to the Empress for the Tithe. A miracle." Kal whispered. Turning to the stunned crowd around him, he smiled.

　　"Grandmother hated it anyway."