?But can we trust the Dangorodians?“, Gordon asked for the third time.


    ?Or that pirate governor“, Sibastyan added, ?Or anyone, really.“, he turned to his right, ?Dr. Chen, any insights on the Felindar motives or why the Xylars stopped talking to us?“


    The other four in the room looked at the xenopsychologist. Amara had called them into a closed session to discuss the next steps. Aside from her two ministers, she had invited Dr. Chen and Colonel Sato. She had not explained her selection.


    Dr. Chen cleared his throat: ?The Felindar appear to be sincere. They are primarily traders and trust is their strongest currency. Every race in the galaxy does business with them exactly because they can be relied upon to keep their agreements. It does not matter how unimportant humankind is within the cosmos, this is more about them than about us.“


    He fiddled with a pen before continuing: ?Really, the Qyrl are the wild card in this. As I said before, the Xylars are a very cohesive species. They have trouble comprehending the concept of a ?rogue faction‘ beyond the purely rational understanding. But the Qyrl, they are not unlike us humans, psychologically speaking. It is absolutely possible that their ambassador said the truth. There are dozens if not hundreds of factions within the Qyrl society. They debate, disagree and even go to war with each other really very much like us. The main difference between humans and Qyrl is their bio-mechanical technology and the symbiosis with this ?Shimmervine‘ plant-like organism.“


    Amara give the alien expert’s words ample consideration before she concluded: ?Makes sense. If the Qyrl are fractured themselves, and understand us as good as we them, they can reasonably assume that it is possible to corrupt humans and use them as agents. Throughout our species’ history we were never known for having much consideration for each other’s benefit.“


    ?So what“, Sibastyan asked, his role as minister of defense giving him a different perspective, ?about the Xylars and their odd silence over the past days? Do we need to prepare for an attack?“


    ?No“, Dr. Chen shook his head, ?I do not think so. I have two hypothesis regarding them. One, they have stated their demands clearly, they are merely waiting for us to comply. They have always been patient or rather: comfortable in waiting. Alternatively, they could have handed the matter off.“


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    ?To whom?“, Gordon wondered.


    ?Obviously the Felindar are the first option.“, Chen continued, ?Offering the Xylars to get back their stolen tech through a business transaction is right up their alley.“


    Amara nodded again, ?Makes sense. They are now waiting if the Felindar can deliver.“


    She turned to the female officer who hadn’t said anything: ?Colonel Sato, what are our military options, if they become necessary?“


    Sato was prepared. She stood up and sent a table of figures from her tablet to the large screen. It showed number of ships and combat strength estimates for humans, Qylr and Xylars.


    ?As you can see“, she began, ?when it comes to the Xylars we are, to put it bluntly, helpless. A serious attack force sent against Erulas would brush our entire space fleet aside. We may be able to buy an hour of time for civilians to evacuate the planet. If they intend to lay waste to Erulas, we know them to have the weaponry to do so. Of course that is a worst-case scenario. Dr. Chen is more competent than me to judge whether they would go to such extremes for one tech item.“


    She pulled the attention of the room back to her with a gesture and continued: ?The Qyrl are slightly more advanced than humanity, but we have a number of effective weapons now that we did not have two decades ago. The Aegis Prime has demonstrated them earlier today. We could most likely hold off an attack, at a considerable cost. We are in contact with the other planets to coordinate a defense. Our sensor stations around the Junkstorm should detect an invasion force.“


    ?They didn’t detect the force attacking the Aegis Prime!“, Gordon intervened.


    ?That is correct.“, Sato picked up the remark, ?Long-distance detection is a matter of scale. The Qyrl need a lot more ships to attack one of the planets. We have already raised the alert because we need to expect small strike forces like that one. It’s the difference between moving a few special force units into enemy territory or marching an entire army.“


    Gordon sunk back in his chair, apparently satisfied with the answer.


    Sibastyan looked across the room, taking in everyone’s reactions. ?So“, he asked, ?what are our next moves?“


    Amara took back the conversation: ?Our priority is getting that core. We cannot trust the Qyrl, so making sure no other alien race is cross with us is crucial. The other thing we need to take care of is finding out if there are indeed humans working with the Qyrl. Gordon, you and me work on the traitors. Get started without me, I’ll join in a few hours. This is all important, but there’s also an entire planet that needs to be run.“, she turned to the other side, ?Sibastyan and Sato focus on the Qyrl threat. And Dr. Chen, I need you to double check our Felindar and Xylars assumptions.“