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[b][u]Whitehall Palace
Old Quarter, Brandenburg
Praetoria[/u][/b]

Lord Sir Robert Castlereagh, Earl Katyusha, Knight-Companion of the order of St. Diae, and Minister of Foreign Affairs for Her Imperial Majesty's Government pulled open the rich velvet curtains of his office. The sun was just breaking over the ancient stone spires of Brandenburg’s Old Quarter, glinting off the snow and ice and amplifying its somewhat feeble rays. Praetoria was on the cooler end of habitable worlds spectrum, and Brandenburg was really a little too close to the south pole for comfort. Consequently, Castlereagh’s office windows were covered by heavy red velvet curtains, and a massive fireplace dominated the other wall. An actual fire burning actual wood filled that fireplace, but it was made entirely redundant by the modern climate control that had been retrofitted into the old palace at no small cost.

Castlereagh turned away from the window and contemplated the map being projected above his desk. The desk was a beautiful piece, hand crafted from a rich dark wood centuries ago. The antiquity of the desk was verging on sacred in Castlereagh’s mind: modern technology was awkwardly perched in various places atop it, rather than built into it. The map didn’t tell Castlereagh anything new, but he found it helped to focus his thoughts.

Just then, the door opened, admitting a rhodesian and a yanissan.  Lord Sir Cato Telemachus, Knight-Fellow of the order of St. Diae, Baron Polesia, took the specially designed smaller seat in front of Castlereagh’s desk. “Good morning Robert,” he said amiably. “Good morning Cato”, Castlereagh replied. “Good morning Martuf, so glad you could join us” he called over to the Yanissan, who was warming himself by the fire.

Lord Captain Commander Martuf of Sthiss Eban flashed Castlereagh a toothy grin. “Sarcasm suits you very well Robert.”
“Thank you I suppose. I do wish you’d wait to be [i]invited[/i] to these meetings.”
“You did want me here today though, so I don’t see what the difficulty is.”

Castlereagh sighed and chose not to prod further. Martuf did always seem to know exactly what everyone was thinking. Castlereagh suspected he was a psintegrat, but as a yanisssan he never would’ve escaped Toolbox, so he had to be affiliated with that shadowy organization somehow. But that only partially explained the enigma of Martuf: not only did he seem to know what everyone was thinking, he seemed to know what everyone was [i]doing[/i] as well, in all corners of the Commonwealth. He was also apparently quite close to the Imperial Queen, and so had inserted himself into the Metternich government in an advisory capacity. His advice was often very useful, but it still bothered Castlereagh to rely on a person he knew very little about.

“What’s the map got you thinking about today Robert?” Telemachus asked by way of changing the subject.
“Oh, a few things. Namely the Daisan.”
“I should think we have things closer to home to worry about,” Martuf said mildly.
“You’re just annoyed that they’re the one thing you know nothing about,” Telemachus shot back, causing the Yanissan to frown sharply, but he offered no response. Telemachus continued; “I can see why you’d be thinking about them Robert. They’re certainly an enigma. The Feds are no pushovers, but by all accounts they just keep losing ground. And still we know virtually nothing about the Daisan.”
“And that’s exactly it. If anyone is going to hold the line against the Daisan, it’s going to be the Feds...and perhaps they could use our help. The Empire is a mess we won’t delve into, and does anybody trust the Union to hold the Daisan away from our borders?” The question was met with silence.

“But maybe I am thinking too long term. The Daisan are not our concern yet.” Castlereagh adjusted the map to focus on the UAG. “The Artanins, however, very well could be. The Lord Chancellor has asked me to look into the possibility of offering them membership. Discreetly of course.”

Telemachus’s eyes widened slightly. “I hadn’t realized the idea had become so...official”
“The opposition parties are starting to toss it around as well. I have it on very good information that they’ll be bringing it up when Parliament resumes.” Martuf said in his usual mild tone.

“Then we have to act fast if we’re to take credit for the idea,” Castlereagh mentally thanked Martuf for that timely bit of intelligence, though he’d never express his gratitude out loud. “Cato, can we stand it? We’re still settling down from the Valerian integration right? Can we handle another new member so soon?”

Telemachus shrugged in a ‘maybe’ gesture. “It would be tricky. We’d have to follow a more standard integration strategy, probably designate all of the UAG worlds colonial holdings and let the economy do its thing. We certainly can’t afford another special exemption like the Valerians. Even so, I’d predict the unrest would be substantial. I’d have to get back to you with actual numbers, but off the top of my head we’d be looking at a few hundred thousand dead from Civil Order operations. It’s nothing we can’t handle, IF nothing else major comes up.”

Castlereagh nodded. “That’s workable. The Feds won’t be happy if we court the UAG, but they’re hardly in a position to fight us on this.”
“Not directly,” Martuf interjected. “But they could still support Artanin dissidents, supply and arm them, even send a few ships. Angel fleet comes to mind. I think they might need a little incentivizing to stay out of the area. Which brings us back to the Daisan. If the Federation stays out of our business, a few battlefleets could find their way to the front. If not, those battlefleets stay home.”

“That’s certainly worth exploring.” It was the closest Castlereagh would come to saying ‘good idea Martuf!’.

They were all silent for a moment, thinking. “Alright,” Castlereagh said finally. “I’m going to send word to Anderson Ribbentrop at one of our Verge offices. I’m going to tell him to float the idea of membership past the UAG if he gets the chance. Ideally, I’d like to wait for them to contact us on an unrelated matter, but if we don’t hear from them before parliament resumes, Ribbentrop will be instructed to initiate contact from our end.”

“You think they’ll reach out to us first?” Telemachus said dubiously.

“Almost certainly, with what we’ve since confirmed about NAC activity in their space. I suspect they’ll want us to intercede in some way...speaking of the NAC...Martuf, you wouldn’t happen to know anything more about them would you? I’m not entirely satisfied with the explanation they gave about their activities in the UAG. It’s...odd for a transstellar, even one as rich as they are, to so brazenly defy a sovereign state.” Castlereagh seemed hesitant to directly ask for the yanissan man’s help directly.

Martuf grinned widely. “Such a nasty suspicious mind you have Robert. I love it. I don’t immediately know much more about them than you do. A major transstellar from off to the galactic southeast, with a legitimately incorporated division here in the Commonwealth. The VMSRA’s are ostensibly part of a mapping program aimed at improving FTL travel, and the blueprints they provided certainly seem to support that. Something about using essentially an inverted FTL disruption field to match the curvature of faster than light dimensions, very interesting stuff really. For the most part, inspector reports support that, though half of them were probably bribed so we can’t be sure. I’m inclined to agree that they’re a bit odd, odd enough to pique my curiosity. I’ll ask around.”

Silence prevailed again, each man thinking about all they’d discussed. Telemachus broke the silence this time. “Well, I think we’ve covered what we need to, I for one would like some breakfast.”

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[b][u]CSC [i]Corinthene[/i]
Deep Space[/u][/b]

Admiral Lady Dame Lord Captain Commander Selissa of Sthiss Elanin, Knight-Indomnitus of the Order of King Nicholas, Duchess Wurzov, and First Void Lord of the Admiralty, was considerably shorter than her lengthy title, with an equally short temper to match. She was somewhat unusual for a Yanissan, turning her species’ propensity for intrigue and convoluted plots towards military strategy instead. She’d joined the Royal Commonwealth Navy decades ago, and served with tremendous distinction, earning herself a knighthood and membership in the peerage, until she was eventually selected to be the navy’s highest ranked uniformed officer.

Selissa was in good spirits today. She stood on CSC [i]Corinthene[/i]’s flag bridge, surrounded by the comforting murmur of a flagship in operation. [i]Corinthene[/i] was Home Fleet’s flagship, on loan to ferry Selissa and a large number of VIPs to observe the test firing of the new hypometric arrays. The hypometric systems had been in development for years, and had successfully been fired from remote platforms. Today was the first attempt to fire them from a functioning warship, the Imperial-class heavy cruiser RCNS [i]Unyielding[/i]. Only the newer RCN designs had enough spare power to mount hypometric arrays, so even if the weapons proved a success, their deployment would be limited for quite some time.

“Nervous, Aldona?” Selissa said quietly to the vit’azny woman beside her. Admiral Dame Aldona Markov, Knight-Companion of the order of King Nicholas, Fourth Void Lord of the Admiralty and head of the Bureau of Weapons, shook her head emphatically. “Not really, Selissa. The weapon will perform as expected. I’m just concerned it won’t be flashy enough for the civvy VIPs we have down in the observation deck.”

It was a valid concern. The hypometric weapons were Aldona’s pet project, but since they spontaneously generated transient singularities, there wasn’t really much to see until they hit something. Far less flashy than positron beams or railgun broadsides. The entire point of this particular test firing was to show off the weapons to the civilians, let them know what tricks the Navy was developing, what they were getting in return for all that tax money. Normally weapon development was kept under wraps until it was actively deployed in the fleet, but the less than stellar ‘victory’ over the IUC a few years ago meant the Navy needed to show off it’s stuff. The hypometric arrays weren’t likely to fundamentally alter Commonwealth doctrine, simply augment it, so the thought of foreign nations getting a glimpse of them wasn’t particularly troubling.

“[i]Unyielding[/i] reports ready Ma’am,” a technician reported. Selissa nodded, and simply said: “Tell [i]Unyielding[/i]; you may fire when ready.”

Screens around the bridge--and down on the observation deck--focused on the first target, a large asteroid. There was nothing for a few moments, then a large chunk of the asteroid abruptly disappeared, as if a hand had reached out to scoop out a neat semi-sphere from its surface. The screens focused on the second target, a squadron of autonomous drones flying in an evasive pattern. Again, there was nothing, then three of the drones disappeared, two were scooped in half, and the remainder were pulled into the epicenter, a number of them colliding with eachother. The final target was an old decommissioned battleship. There was a bright flash and crackle as the weapon slashed through the target’s shields. A pause, then a scoop of the target’s hull disappeared...a scoop that contained about half the reactor. The target abruptly exploded as its reactor destabilized. Markov had evidently thought of a way to make the weapon flashier for demonstration purposes.

Applause rang out on the bridge, Selissa joining in with a smile. “Well done Aldona, that indeed performed to expectations.”
Markov smiled then shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t expect to be one shotting live targets, but I think I’ve proved the viability of the weapon. We’re already working it into in-progress ship construction, and we can begin refitting existing ships immediately.”
Selissa nodded. “We’ll start with 5th fleet. Congratulations once again.”