“We should wait until we can substantiate this lead before committing any [i]military[/i] resources to such a distant location.” Benoit Souza spoke up. He’d been promoted from domestic intelligence to Naval Intelligence director by the new administration. You named Plenipotentiary Wallace as the source but, where is she?”

A few more faces had joined the meeting since they’d started, but none of them were the silver haired senior diplomat.

“Hear, hear!.” João Sequeira boomed. Previously Under-Secretary of the Diplomatic Corps on Outremer, he had also been kept around after his failed bid to succeed President.

“The position itself is obsolete, yet we still have them. Why? We cannot get rid of them, and believe me I tried. They are too powerful! Whatever Wallace has claimed must be properly scrutinised; she could be tricking us into advancing her interests.”

“Quite right.” Souza purred. The agency director was much softer-spoken than the former diplomat, but carried a certain calculating gravitas.

“Even if this lead turns out to be worth pursuing, we can’t just show up with a battle group. For those of you that weren’t in the original briefing, let me explain why.”

Souza shared a 3D hologram of a planetary system with the group. Three planets orbiting around two suns. Souza zoomed in on the smallest of the three planets - it was lush and green, with very little visible water and small spots of desert.

“This is Psi-Helios. 27 years ago the system was surveyed and a previously uncontacted civilisation found. The Tindrel and Qalian-Vosh both claimed the system as part of their ecumene. To avoid all-out war, elements from Earth petitioned the galactic community to declare this new civilisation part of the Control program. This means the system was given demilitarised status and peacekeepers deployed.”