Admiral Brax listened to them with a sober seriousness that was nearly unnerving.

Four hours ago, they had withdrawn from the area of the moon Omen, pulling back to the diplomatic carrier.

After consulting with Ambassador-General Abashidze, they used the Craton's zerodrive to open a faster-than-light data channel to the nearest star base.

It was a stretch, nearly four light years distant, but they had a tenuous connection.

And they had given their report.

"When you told me that an Annihilator appeared, I . . . found it difficult to believe," Brax said. "But your data is clear."

"None of us want to believe it," the Ambassador-General replied. "I have seen it as well, in our sensors."

"It is still holding position near Omen?" Brax asked.

"Yes, Admiral," Jaya said.

Brax frowned, looking down in thought. "I would like to tell you that I will have reinforcements out there soon, but I cannot do that. Assistance is a week away at best."

"If the Aeena wish for a fight," Jaya said. "I will do all I can. But the real problem is that we can either fight or carry the Ambassador-General's ship out. We cannot do both."

"And doing either abandons all those teams on the surface," Brax replied. "It's a difficult situation. If you are fired upon, you do have permission to respond. I won't sit here safe and tell you otherwise. But I suggest you act as if you hold a position of strength."

"They must have been waiting just out of the system themselves," Jaya said. "I suspect that message that came from the facility on Omen was meant for an FTL repeater, and then they jumped in. They could have a fleet out there. We would not know until the light of them reached us."

"I do not expect the Aeena know the disposition of our forces. They can't know what you have waiting just out of sight," Brax said. "However, I do wish your input; if need be, we could abandon this operation, withdraw all teams from the surface, and leave Ko."

Jaya glanced to Abashidze. The ambassador's face was stricken.

They had discussed this idea - frankly - while they'd been warming up the Craton's zerodrive for this call.

"We will stay," Abashidze said. "I will make the call, with all repercussions if it proves to be the wrong one."

Jaya hoped that Brax would not try to argue the point. After their talk, she and Abashidze had been in unanimous agreement on this.

"Very well," Brax said. "I admit that I am glad. I did not want to have to abandon the !Xomyi people. I frankly do not believe that the Aeena will attack you - if they would have been so inclined, they would have done it immediately when they arrived. Now the word is out, and to do so would bring another war. One which I do not think they want." She paused. "You have told me the basic facts, but what have your teams learned from everything you've discovered? The Aeena clearly are the ones behind the mysterious constructions on the surface. But for what end?"

"Commander Cutter has been modeling the effects of the station," Jaya said. "His report . . ."

Jaya found herself hesitating.

What the Bicet had discovered was, perhaps, the most disturbing part of all of this.

"He believes that the pattern on the map observed by RT-1 in the structure they explored indicates that a system of similar stations that would be capable of braking the moon in its orbit."

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Brax's eyes widened. "Are you saying that the Aeena have caused Omen to fall towards Ko?"

Jaya nodded, swallowing. "We believe it is the most likely scenario. By braking the moon, it would fall into a lower orbit . . . and towards Ko. Given a few years of firing the zerodrives, it would be possible to destabilize the orbit completely and . . . put the moon into the position it is at today, where it would begin to break up."

Despite having heard this analysis already, Ambassador Abashidze sat down. "I still cannot even countenance this idea. The Aeena are . . . xenophobic and genocidal, but to do this . . ."

After a moment, Brax nodded to Jaya. "Please go on with your report."

Jaya replied with a nod and continued. "In their final firing, the zerodrive stations folded themselves into zerospace. I suspect this is also why they had the mercenaries on the planet, they must have been involved and could have revealed this scheme later on. They were never meant to leave the world alive. By putting the AI in the commander's helmet and continually dangling greater rewards and bonuses in front of them, it could keep them unaware until it was too late to even call for help. Once Omen crashed, all remaining evidence would be destroyed."

Brax spoke. "But the one base on Omen failed to put itself into zerospace. It simply shut down with a partial meltdown."

Jaya nodded. "When my team found it, it was reactivated. I suppose it had connections to a hidden transmitter, which called out to the Annihilator, telling them of the problem so that they could come in and fix it."

"When they appeared," Brax said slowly. "They likely did not know you had people on the surface. Perhaps not even that the Craton was lurking nearby. They must have hoped to strike and destroy the remaining facility before we could find it. If they had succeeded, we would have had an alarming event, one worth complaining about diplomatically, but never have known that they were the cause of Ko's destruction."

Jaya felt almost as sick as Abashidze looked, but she kept it in, stuffed it down, focusing on the facts, and her duty.

"All this just to exterminate a people who are still hunter-gatherers?" Abashidze said, her face pale. "Why?"

Brax sighed. "We all ask ourselves the same question - how could they? But the Aeena deem all other intelligent life a threat and insult to them. Now, or in the future. If the !Xomyi had been left alone, we don't know where they might be in ten thousand years. They might have become space-faring and be colonizing worlds and systems the Aeena considered theirs by right."

"If," Jaya said.

"But I still do not know why this much secrecy," Abashidze said. "That one Annihilator could have destroyed all life on this planet, yes? Why so much effort to hide their work? It must have taken years and huge amounts of resources."

Jaya knew the answer, but she looked to Brax, knowing the admiral had already understood all of this, and could say it better than she could.

"Because," Brax said, "if their plan had worked, they would have had plausible deniability. The light from such a moment will forever be traveling - and someday someone will see it. I doubt anyone would have cared or noticed the small convoys traveling to a moon and made the connection that they had caused it to fall. But if they had seen an Aeena warship exterminate a helpless species, they would know forever that they are an enemy."

"Why the moon, though? I do wonder that," Jaya admitted. "An asteroid a fraction the size would have worked."

"An asteroid we could deflect. As you said - we cannot stop Omen now. At least, that is what I suspect," Brax said. "Or it may be part of their supposed obsession with moons. We may never know for sure."

She shook her head. "The Aeena started their war with the Union with the sterilization of a Coral-populated system. They did not know that the Corals were part of the Sapient Union, or even that the Union existed. Since the war, they have learned a lesson, just not the one we were hoping for. We hoped they would see that they lived in a populated universe and would act accordingly, not attempt such a barbaric action again. But they only learned to take a new tact." Her expression turned even more grim. "They will continue, I think. They believe their result inevitable, no matter how many millenia it takes."

Jaya felt her stomach heave, realizing that in some sense today they had beaten the Aeena's plan. All of their efforts to hide the fact that they were attempting to genocide the entirety of the !Xomyi people had been in vain.

Not that it helped the !Xomyi or Ko. The world, and any life they could not pull off it, was going to die.

Brax saw the look on her face. "Yes, Acting-Captain Yaepanaya. I know what you are thinking. But know that you did well today. Your teams helped uncover a great crime, an act for which five of them gave their lives, the all of their hearts and bodies. Today we won - and we will be sure to tell everyone else about what has happened here."

The Admiral sighed again. "But even victory here is not something that we can feel good about."