59

Aurigan Reach, Coromodir, Cordia City, Arano Palace, High Lady Accommodations

'From what I can conclude from the data obtained, the Magistracy, the Capellans, and the Leaguers are not taking control of the HPGs, regarding the Outworlds Alliance and Rasalhague, we don't have any information. On the other side, we, the Concordat and the Federated Commonwealth are at war with ComStar and regarding Kurita, the information is contradictory to say the least' was my summary regarding the current crisis.

'It's a good thing that in the last decade the Concordat has been producing Invaders, or the situation would be much worse,' Kamea said, not contesting my conclusions 'even if it has been at a huge cost to the Reach'.

'I detected something strange in the communications with Davion - anything commercial or sent and received by us, takes the right time if you know what JumpShips they're using for mail, but the FedRat ambassador gets his orders from New Avalon and Tharkad clearly faster than they should be, compared to the other messages' Kamea said, looking at me, 'do you know something?'

'Well Kammy , for starters, that ambassador is sloppy, to reveal that piece of information so easily, but there are rumors that they have an alternative messaging system since the end of the latest Succession War, slower than HPGs and with very limited traffic. That could be it', was my answer. 'After all, the researchers that both we and the Concordat have studying at NAIS have noted that several Davion and Steiner top researchers in the field of communications rarely appear at NAIS, the intelligence services here and in Taurus think that they are probably involved in another program.'

'A program that officially does not exist, but is active and allows limited communications and alternatives to the HPG network?' asked Kamea, to clarify, and after I agreed, 'of which so far there are only rumors, but the speed of diplomatic messages seems to confirm its existence. As far as I know the Reach has nothing to negotiate for an entry into that program, and the Concordat?' asked Kamea.'So, Professor, 'she has the guts to wink at me,' in your extensive databases that you like so much to look, is there anything at all that could give us some help negotiating with the FedRats?'

'Not that I know of either, but maybe there's something the Federated Commonwealth is interested in.' Kamea without speaking, raised an eyebrow, inviting me to continue 'on the list of secret SLDF bases, which the Argus database contained, there was one that I never investigated because of its location, but as far as I could tell, it was never discovered after Kerensky left. The reason I never visited it was that, unlike the others that were all in the Periphery, this one wad deep inside the Lyran Commonwealth, relatively close to Tharkad, and very far away from our borders'.

'And do you think that such base will have something of interest to our 'friends'?" asked Kamea with an interested look.

'I have no way of knowing, of course, the database only has the location and type of base. But what I did find was that this base or another in that area, one that I never found anything about, has been used to repair WarShips by Kerensky during the Amaris Crisis, and it never appeared in any report or any history book or study on SLDF after that, at least none that I could get my hands on. Everything indicates that whatever was there must still be there.' 

After thinking for a while Kamea turned to me again and decided 'Pass that information to Thomas, let him decide. The last time we took initiatives of this size the results were not pleasant to say the least, and he was furious with us'.

But all of this suddenly moved to second place when a Comstar JumpShip arrived at Taurus system with a diplomatic team.