Not far from the spaceport, President Vance and her ministers and advisors were discussing the offer the Felindar delegation had made. She had kept only the senior members of her staff in the room. The busy spaceport in the background, they had retreated to a diplomatic conference room that had been made as secure against eavesdropping as human technology could manage.

„They snuck it in as number eleven of twenty, but it’s clear they are here for that hyper core that everyone is after. It’s not even very subtle, just barely enough for plausible deniability.“, Minister Gordon said.

„Of course.“, Amara Vance stated plainly, taking a sip from her cup of tea, „They want us to know what this deal is actually about without either side having to say it. And leaving us a way to let them know we don’t have it by allowing us to say about a number of items that unfortunately we can’t find this one and that one.“

„Which is what we’ll have to do, given that we actually do not have the core.“, Gordon said.

Amara put down the tea cup and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes quickly scanned the people in the room. Aside from her, it was only the four ministers, Sibastyan Mosely having joined them.

„Everything points to the pirate outpost Binary Bloom being the place to look for it.“, she informed them, „And I had a chat with their leader yesterday. I gave him 50 hours to find it.“

„About that“, Sibastyan added, „While you were talking to the aliens, I received an update from our battleship there. Seems the pirates have had a complete power failure. That might affect the timeline.“

Gordon sat up straight: „We only have about… 16 hours anyway. Let’s all get to business and pull all the strings we have? I will have my people look over all the trade markets and auctions. Maybe we can identify potential buyers.“

„Not much time.“, Amara mused, „Sibastyan, I’ll come with you. We need more pressure on the pirates. We have marines and a battleship in place, why aren’t they simply coughing it up?“

They stood up.

Alhan spoke up: „For the sake of appearances, I’ll have my staff look over the other items on the list so we can have an answer on those as well.“

They went their separate ways with Amara and Sibastyan walking over to the elevator to get to the small military command post located within the terminal building. Outside, the city and the spaceport were as busy as always.

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A short ride up and a short walk took them to the command post. Sibastyan’s tablet beeped an urgent notification just outside and he gave it a quick look, then walked the final few steps a bit faster. „Emergency signal“, he said simply to his president.

They rushed through the door into the control room. A large holographic display in the center, about three meters in diameter, was currently idle. Around it, the square room was filled with desks and computer stations. Seven staff members were busily on duty, analyzing, correlating, prioritizing incoming reports and events. Most of it was routine, much of it was already pre-classified by AI systems. Some of it was important. Like the near real-time feed from the Aegis Prime that was mostly data and some audio.

After a few seconds, the holographic display started to fill with markers. The Aegis Prime, the pirate outpost labeled „Binary Bloom“, another human ship labeled „DSF Volcano (Dephyr)“ and seven ships without labels. It would take a few more seconds for the computer to integrate the incoming data and mark them as Qyrl ships.

Amara was speechless. Sibastyan regained his composure faster and hurried over to the main command station to get a more complete picture. He had received the Aegis Prime’s first burst message verbatim: “seven Qyrl warships, engagement immanent“. Therefore, he was more prepared for the situation they found, while it took Amara an uncharacteristically long time to digest all the information and understand the situation.

By the time she reached the main console, the battle had already begun. „No“, she corrected herself in her thoughts, „Not the battle. The war.“

„Are we positive they are Qyrl ships?“, she asked one of the operators.

„Over 90% confidence.“, the man answered, „Build, weaponry, sizes all point to medium-sized Qyrl warships.“

Sibastyan had also heard it. He turned to another operator: „Alert for all ships in space. All ships on the ground to readiness.“

The operator acknowledged and her fingers went flying over the keyboard, executing the command. There was a hum of voices in the room. Hurried and busy, but structured. The command post had trained dozens of possible situations again and again.

„Sir“, another operator spoke up, addressing Sibastyan who was at the moment in command. Erulas’ government system had distributed responsibilities. The president was the head of government, but military authority rested on the shoulders of the minister of defense. He turned. „Data indicates the power outage on the pirate outpost was caused by a strong EMP. Likely the station is the Qyrl’s target, not our battleship.“

Sibastyan thought for one second before asking back: „Are we in contact with our marines?“

„Yes, sir.“, was the answer, „They retreated to the transport and we have a communication link with it.“

„Order them ready to repel boarders.“

„Aye, sir.“

Unable to influence the battle, most people were now watching it unfold. They saw a Qyrl ship and then the Dephyr scout blink out. Then two more Qyrl ships. Then the display froze, showing the final situation they had received.

„Aegis Prime made an emergency warp.“, a voice from the incoming data link said into the quiet room. A counter showed 2:51. The second most powerful battleship in the Erulas space force had been forced to retreat in less than three minutes.

Amara pulled out her personal tablet and unfolded it slowly. Then she spoke into it: „Arrange a meeting with the Felindar diplomat. Just him and me. I need to buy some information.“