"The situation changed faster than I imagined."
Six in the morning, at the Imperial Grand Hotel in Ereno.
John stared at the document before him, titled Grant of Appointment and Removal Authority for Faoken Autonomous Administration. His brows drew together, his fingers tapped unconsciously on the table, and uncertainty clouded his eyes.
In fact, he had understood what the document meant as soon as he finished his first reading.
If he was right, William intended to make him a piece on the political board.
By taking advantage of Faoken's distance from the Empire's heartland, William had granted it autonomy far beyond that of a small imperial province. John, who should have been constrained as governor, would become a ruler in all but name.
This was nothing like the local council system John had envisioned.
The local council system might have sounded astonishing, but if the council insisted on intervening, he would have had no choice but to negotiate or find a defensible reason to delay its actions.
When it came to decisions made at major meetings or the issuance of decrees, he would have had no absolute power to resist. He could only obey.
William's arrangement, however, did more than remove him entirely from the air force command structure.
John had gone from commander of an independent division in the Third Air Army Group and governor of Faoken Territory to governor of an imperial autonomous region, with authority to form military corps outside the standard rank structure and command land, sea, and air forces.
Or, more precisely, head of an imperial autonomous region.
Beyond the authority to establish all three branches of the military, William had even granted the Faoken Autonomous Region limited power to make local laws, taking into account its many nonhuman peoples and their cultural differences.
That