“You know,” Kumakar began, his voice low but heavy with restrained fury, “when I first received word that the Empire had attacked my fleet, I had a hard time believing it. I didn’t want to accept it. It was only after I saw the recovered data myself that I even began to consider it might be true.”He stared at Aron, eyes now glowing faintly red with anger, his expression sharp and unwavering.“But seeing you go so far as to fabricate evidence, evidence that can be disproven with a simple scan, like the transponder codes? Claiming you attacked them because they matched those of pirates? That’s a pathetic excuse,” Kumakar said, his voice rising just enough to carry across the room.With a quick motion, he brought up his own holographic display. A transponder code appeared, hovering in the air for all to see.“This,” he continued, “is the code my fleet was using. The universal one assigned by the Conclave to all authorized military and diplomatic ships. And that code you’re showing as th

The order was implemented as soon as Youssef relayed it to the relevant agencies. The wormholes were closed across the network, only allowing ships currently outside their home systems to return. After that, even those vessels would be denied access. But half an hour before the lockdown, the Empire sent out a civilization-wide announcement through the VR network.The message clearly explained what was happening, why the punishment was issued, and what actions Kumakar needed to take to have the restrictions lifted. The Empire justified the thirty-minute grace period as a final opportunity for Kumakar to resolve the situation before irreversible damage was done to his civilization’s economy. But Kumakar took no steps toward reconciliation, and when the countdown reached zero, the Empire enforced the punishment.What Kumakar did instead was turn the Empire’s own infrastructure against them.Using the same VR communication channels the Empire had provided to each civilization’s government

“So we’re dealing with an unknown enemy who wants to drive a wedge between us and the Conclave, and the Conclave now believes we’re behind the attacks and they won’t listen to our explanation that we were manipulated into striking one of their fleets?” Aron said after a moment of silence, having digested the information and its implications. “That’s some highly effective psychological warfare. From what we’re seeing, it’s working exactly as intended. With a few refinements, this is probably how I would’ve executed such an operation myself, though I would’ve made it even more airtight and layered.”“The Conclave won’t accept that explanation,” Youssef replied, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “To even get them to listen, we’d have to disclose how we came across this information. That means revealing our ability to extract and interpret brain data, which they’ll immediately link to our VR systems. And if they start thinking we’ve been using VR to read their minds too, whe

The air in Kumakar’s private stateroom was thick with the metallic tang of ozone and the ghost of shattered crystal. What had moments ago been a chamber of opulent authority was now a landscape of wreckage. A gilded chair, its legs snapped, lay splintered against a bulkhead. Shards of what was once an ornate decanter glittered like malevolent stars across the plush carpeting. On the far wall, a data-slate was embedded deep into the paneling, the spiderweb of cracks around it a testament to the force of its impact.Kumakar stood in the center of the devastation, his chest heaving. The veins on his temples pulsed, a rare and startling sight on a member of his species, whose physiology typically concealed such tells. The carefully maintained composure of a sovereign leader had fractured, leaving behind only the raw, unbridled rage of a cornered predator.His plan, so perfect in its conception, so elegant in its intended execution, was unraveling. It had been nearly two days since the Emp

The wreckage of his rage lay strewn about the stateroom, a testament to a fury that had burned itself out, leaving only a cold, calculating silence in its wake. Kumakar sat amidst the chaos, his physical surroundings irrelevant. His mind was a different landscape entirely, one where the seeds of a new plan, planted during the tense holographic conference, were already beginning to sprout.The suggestion from his economic minister had been a desperate gambit, but a brilliant one. It offered a path through the immediate crisis, a way to weaponize the public’s fear and redirect their anger. While his subordinates would handle the delicate task of managing the narrative within their own civilization, Kumakar’s focus was already elsewhere. He was thinking about the Empire. He was thinking about retaliation. He was thinking about how to salvage the part of his original plan that had failed so spectacularly: dragging the Terran Empire into a conflict it could not win.For over an hour, he re