Turraski entered the silent war room. The long, obsidian table was half empty and the seats for the Nal'Larak clan heads were conspicuously empty. The table was silent for at least ten seconds.

"My lord-" Gyrod said.

"Not now" Turraski cut him off with a stern and calm manner. "I think that I have devised a plan that might can even the scales against the elves."

"What's that, my lord?" Gyrod asked as the spirits in the room lifted a little.

"We may have suffered some losses to our fleet, but we've freed the Crescent and secured the border to our sector, and that will free up some of our forces to take the war straight to the elf sector."

"It's about time. We can evade the armada's firepower and keep them off balance" said a lizard wearing on the left side of his chest the medallion of the Dragon Claw Clan.

"No, Kurm" Turraski interrupted. "They will expect us to try and spread them out and make quick and small attacks."

"Are you suggesting a full-scale assault on the elf sector, my lord?" Gyrod said. "Our ship-building program is ahead of schedule, but we can't keep pace with the royal armada and their human worker bees."

"Not exactly" Turraski said. "Zalidore once said that the greatest weapon against elves is elven arrogance. The older I get, the more I realize that he was right."

"What are you suggesting?" Kurm asked.

"The planet Himmerfeld" Turraski said turning on the giant screen in the room and highlighting a planet on the map of the elven sector on the large screen. "We capture it, and all the orbital and planetary batteries, all the munitions, all the ships there, and we dig in and give ourselves a very fortified foothold right on their front porch."

"That could work" Gyrod said, "but capturing and commandeering all of the system's defenses without destroying them will be easier said than done. I just don't think we have the military hardware to do that. And do you think that we can hold that system if we take it?"

"You're forgetting about a technical marvel that we possess that the elves don't" Turraski said with his face going into a small grin.

"And what is that?" Kurm asked.

"You're inside of it" Turraski answered.

"You want to take the mothership to the elf sector?" Gyrod asked surprised. "It's too big to be an assault vessel. If we lose it-"

"We're facing down the reality of the elves dominating this entire quadrant of the galaxy for at least a generation, Gyrod. If we can't utilize this behemoth now, then when do we do it?" The normally easily-angered Turraski had and oddly staid, lad-back confidence to him. No one said anything.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"My lord" said a voice from the other side of the table, "let's not forget about the main reason you've called us here. Do you think it's wise to undertake this assault when there are…divided loyalties among us?"

"I have no idea what the Nal'Larak's so called 'goddess' wants, Skeezik, and it doesn't matter. If we undertake the most important military operation against the kingdom of the elves in centuries they won't dare undermine us."

"Don't underestimate the ability of the elfess of nature to sow discord and sever alliances, my lord."

"The link between the Nal'Larak and their so-called goddess is weaker than the link they have to us. We can send them back to corner of the galaxy from where they came if worst comes to worst. Gyrod, check the mothership's SPG engines. They might have atrophied from not ever being used." Turraski got up quickly and left the room, with no one else saying anything. All of the lizards filed out of the room except for Skeezik and Gyrod.

After the last lizard left the room, Gyrod pushed a button on the control panel next to the door and a large bolt. Skeezik pushed a button on the panel on the table and the map of the elven sector disappeared and an attractive, blonde, big-busted woman appeared on the screen.

"I was wondering if I was going to hear from the two of you again" the woman sassed.

"I just thought you should know" Skeezik said, that the Metaphysicist's knight did visit the ancient city of the goddess as you predicted and took some artifact from it. What do you think that it was?" The woman gave a scowl.

"I don't know, and it doesn't really matter. In any case, we're running out of time" the woman on the screen said.

"Well" Gyrod said, "it didn't take much convincing to get Turraski to act. It didn't take anything, in fact. He plans to try and occupy the Himmerfeld system using the mother ship as a defensive fortification."

"I know that" she said. "I might've manipulated Turraski's search results when he was looking through Zalidore's archives to make sure he found those plans."

"You've inserted yourself into the mother ship's computer system!?" Gyrod asked sounding perturbed.

"Of course" she said not seeming surprised that the lizard seemed miffed.

"I have a good mind to have you deleted from the system" Gyrod said. "How do we know you're not trying to lead us into a trap?"

"Well, first of all, I wouldn't bother trying to waste your time deleting me if I were you. I can promise you I'll be two steps ahead of you the entire way. And second, spare me your accusations. I kept the intellichines secret from the armada since the end of the war as I could and I'm not the one who allowed them to fall into Avistra's hands."

"True" Skeezik said. "But you told us if we stole them from the lab at Latildra you could turn them to our side. We made a very dangerous and costly mission into the sector just to have them turn on us and leave with some important information about our patrols in the crescent!"

"Don't be foolish enough to question my value to you. Without me, you've got no chance of breaking into the Himmerfeld computers and disabling their defenses, and there's no way your operation will succeed."

"What is it that you want?" Gyrod asked, knowing that she had a point.

"We need to find Zardin" she said. "We can't let Baycorf or Cubork gain control of him. And we need to find out what information the elves might have about Nateedra's army and other secrets hidden in gray encryptions."

"Don't get too comfortable in there, Michelle" Skeezik said. "It will only be a matter of time before Turraski or one of his black serpent officers detects you."

"You let me worry about him. You get this mountain of rivets moving." Gyrod turned the screen off, unlocked the door, and both lizards left.