Finally Stahl said, “We’re done here.”

“Wait,” said Kira. “What happened to the Jelly? What did you do about it?”

“The Jelly?” said Stahl. “We moved it to biocontainment.”

A sudden fear struck Kira. “Is it … is it still alive?”

The colonel seemed to take a certain offense at that. “Of course, Navárez. What do you take us for, complete incompetents? It took some doing, but we managed to incentivize your, ah, tentacle-covered friend to move from the Wallfish to the station.”

Kira wondered what that incentivizing had involved, but she decided it was wiser not to probe. “I see. So what is the League going to do about this? Tschetter, the Knot of Minds, and all the rest of it?”

“That’s need-to-know, ma’am.”

She gritted her teeth. “Colonel Stahl, after everything that’s happened, don’t you think I ought to be part of this conversation?”

“Maybe so, ma’am, but that’s not up to me.”

Kira took a calming breath. “Can you at least tell me how long I’m going to be held here?” If the League was going to transfer her to a UMC ship, that would be fairly clear evidence that they were going to take her to meet with the Knot of Minds so she could help negotiate the terms of alliance.

“You’ll be moved to a packet ship at zero nine hundred hours tomorrow and taken to the LaCern research station for further examination.”

“Excuse me?” said Kira, nearly sputtering. “Why would you … I mean, isn’t the League going to at least talk with the Knot of Minds? Who else do you have to translate for you? Iska? Tschetter? We don’t even know if she’s still alive! And I’m the only one who can actually speak the Jellies’ language.”

Stahl sighed, and when he answered, he sounded far more tired than he had a moment ago. “We’re not going to talk with them, Navárez.” And Kira realized he was breaking protocol by telling her.

A horrible sense of dread came over her. “What do you mean?” she asked, not believing.

“I mean that the Premier and his advisors have decided that the Jellies are too dangerous to trust. Hostis Humani Generis, after all. Surely you heard. It was announced before you left Sixty-One Cygni.”

“So what are they going to do?” she said, nearly whispering.

“It’s already done, Navárez. The Seventh Fleet departed today under the command of Admiral Klein to attack the Jelly fleet stationed at the star Tschetter gave us info on. It’s a K-type star about a month and a half away. Objective is to smash the Jellies when they’re least expecting it, make sure they can’t ever threaten us again.”

“But…” Kira could think of any number of things wrong with that plan. The UMC might be cast-iron bastards, but they weren’t stupid. “They’ll see the Seventh coming. And they can jump out before you get close enough to shoot. Our only chance is to take out the leadership before—”

“We’ve got it covered, ma’am,” said Stahl, terse as ever. “We haven’t been sitting on our hands the past six months. The Jellies might outclass and outgun us, but if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s codging together makeshift solutions. We’ve got ways of keeping them from seeing us and ways to keep them from jumping out. Won’t last long, but it’ll last long enough.”