“It’s about propriety,” President Augustus Wellington said, slouching in the copilot seat and wearing a suit that Pike knew likely cost more than half a year’s salary for him. “They have arrived in our system uninvited and unwelcomed … a small delegation with a handful of ships and likely led by some unimportant Ushin diplomatic corps lackey, or whatever they call them. It would be inappropriate for the Terran President to come out personally to meet them.”

“I think I get—”

“And to answer your other sarcastic question,” Wellington rolled right over top of Pike’s comment, “we’re now the United Terran Federation because we want to present a unified front to the Eastern Star Alliance. They’ve now cut off all official channels of communication and have sent notice that Fed ships are no longer guaranteed safe passage through their territory.”

“I hadn’t realized it’d gone that far,” Pike said quietly. “Shall I break into the Amsterdam’s secure com array and begin recording?”

“If you please,” Wellington nodded.

Pike reached over and pressed the icon flashing on the large, curved display that would execute a script that would allow the Broadhead II’s intrusion avionics to force their way into the Amsterdam’s secure com array.

“You make that look so easy,” Wellington said idly.

“To be honest, the job is getting a little boring,” Pike admitted as the system reached out and negotiated through a secret “back door” into the battleship’s com system. “Tsuyo has built in so many failsafes that I don’t do much more than run automated sequences to get intel. It’s coming up now … looks like Cole is speaking directly to the Ushin delegation.”

****

“While we’re always happy to see our Ushin friends, you must understand that your appearance in this star system has caused this process some … complications,” Ambassador Cole said. He was sitting in a dedicated room that was completely isolated save for the direct connections to the secure com array.

“Our sincerest apologies, Ambassador, but events have unfolded in such a way that we feel an acceleration in our negotiations is necessary,” the disembodied voice came in over the speakers. Cole couldn’t help but notice that the Ushin real-time translation matrix had evolved rapidly to be just about perfect. Actually, the improvement was more than a little suspicious when compared to the open channel broadcasts, but he put it out of his mind. He was also grateful that the audio from their actual vocalizations was not being transmitted. Their image was distressing enough but their voices caused an irrational spike in his anxiety levels. But he was a lifelong bureaucrat and a trained diplomat so he could hide his stress and fear in order to get the job done.