The first thing Alistair Carlisle noticed was amiss in the large Admiralty House briefing room was the absence of the customary cart of refreshments. The gilded steward’s cart with its decanters of various beverages and alcohols had been replaced by carafes of ice water and pots of coffee. That told the Marquess of Sélincourt two things: One, Lady Ashwike would be surly since she was used to having a post-lunch pick-me-up and she was a noblewoman who didn’t like when her routines were disturbed. Two, it meant that the subject matter at hand was serious enough that no distractions were allowed. He glanced at the huge blood-oak table with its inlaid computer stations and holographic projectors, and found an upholstered seat near the far end of the table. Like everything else in Admiralty House, the briefing room was richly decorated with wooden panelling, golden details, and adorned with oil paintings along the walls. However, it was still the headquarters of a massive interstellar military force, and the Neo-Georgian and –Regency furniture often contained computer systems that could be tastefully hidden inside, drones were flying everywhere in the halls and outside the complex, and Smart Artificial Intelligence systems helped the humans run the place.

Sélincourt nodded to the already arrived senior officers, Dame Vanessa Howards, the Third Lady Admiral of Personnel, Lord Lowe Hill, the Second Lord Admiral of Planning, and Lady Suncrest, Commander of Home Fleet, who had been summoned from her flagship in orbit to attend this meeting. So, Sélincourt thought, since I was also ordered to show up as well as Lady Em, this means that the topic is not simply limited to the Admiralty Board, but also both current and future senior fleet commanders. Very interesting.

As if the Fates wanted to underscore his hypothesis, Admiral of the White Sir Morgan Mizushima and Vice Admiral of the White Sir Cornelius McIndoe chose that exact moment to enter the same double-doors Alistair had just come through. Mizushima was a physically imposing man with an impressive dark moustache and ponytail, but he was perhaps the most formidable administrator the Royal Navy had ever seen, which was why he had been Commander-in-Chief Fleet for nine years now. Sir Morgan was second only to the First Lord Admiral, Sir Hugh Donegal, in the hierarchy of the Royal Navy; his job was effectively to act as the First Lord’s chief of staff, and to coordinate the efforts of all Departments and synchronize with the operations and needs of the actual fleets, task forces, and task groups. In many ways, it was the most important single office in the entire Royal Navy, and Sir Morgan and his well-honed staff made it look almost trivial.

Sir Cornelius McIndoe was one of the older members of the Admiralty Board, with a completely bald head, but piercing blue eyes. He had a civilian colleague, the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, and together they supervised and organised the court martial and legal system of the Royal Navy. The fact that old “Barrister Neil” was attending the meeting as well struck Alistair as even more odd than Sir Morgan’s and his own presence. Lord Sélincourt had been reinstated following his long beaching by Koyanagi, but there were only so many commands fit for his high rank, so for the time being his portfolio was “Flag Officer attached to Admiralty House for Particular Duties”, which basically meant he was a glorified staff officer with a very large pay check.

As he poured coffee into a porcelain cup engraved with the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Aurora, the rest of the senior officers of the Royal Navy still on-planet started to file in; Lady Ashwike (Sixth Lady Admiral of Research), Lady New Acre, Vice Admiral of the Black Clarence Harper-Rowland, Admiral of the Red Sir Reginald Templeton (Fourth Lord Admiral of Ships), Adrienne Bower-Henton (Fifth Lady Admiral of Intelligence), Vice Admiral of the Black Erica Kuznetsova, and Admiral of the Red Lady Stephanie Azaïs, Baroness Goldspyre. After they all had found a seat, many of them casting unsure glances at each other, Sir Hugh Donegal finally arrived, closing the doors behind him. He walked up to the head of the table and instead of sitting down, he put his hands on the back of the chair and spoke in a serious tone no one could mistake.

“Outside these doors, there are no Royal Marine sentries, I have made sure that none of the nearby rooms are occupied, and I had to order about thirty civilian and junior level personnel to have an extended lunch because I didn’t want them to go back to their offices in case our meeting was still in progress. On top of that, I have activated the room’s privacy shield. If that does not drive home the point enough, then let me tell you all, that nothing that is said in here leaves this room, until you receive explicit purpose from my own or Adrienne’s office. Do I make myself clear?”

“Oh, so just normal procedure for every other meeting among the Service’s senior staff then.” Sélincourt couldn’t help himself make a quip, and managed to produce some smiles, none of them belonging to Sir Hugh, Adrienne, or Dame Vanessa. Well, Dame Vanessa never smiled, so that was not really a shock.

“Alistair…” Sir Hugh said with an accompanying slightly reproving stare, and the lack of honorific conveyed urgency more than anything else he had said so far; it was a serious faux pas –especially for a commoner– to omit the title of the marquess of such pedigree as Sélincourt, and it made Alistair sit up straight in his chair, not out of indignation but apprehension. Donegal sighed and sat down in the chair he had been giving an unintentional back massage.

“Adrienne, I’ll let you take over from here on. Lady Ashwike, you may jump in when you deem it necessary, and I would like everyone else to reserve your questions or comments until the two of them are finished.”

Heads nodded and peaked caps were politely removed, their attention fixed on Adrienne Bower-Henton, who stood up and tapped a few commands on her tablet. The table’s central holographic projector sprang to life, and showed a nearly insect-like mechanical device with bulging “eyes” and a myriad of “limbs” that protruded from a slightly off-centre body.

“This,” Bower-Henton said, the usually chipper and sarcastic Lady Admiral of Spooks now very serious, “is a long range stealth observation buoy. It was found in the ice belt of the Super Jovian Hercules’ Hood in the St. John System, and its discovery was purely by fluke by one of our patrolling light cruisers attached to Western Fleet. The buoy arrived physically in-system yesterday morning after the destroyer HMS Foxhound had crossed the distance from St. John to Euryphaessa in a mere eleven days. Upon arrival, Foxhound tight-beamed HMSS Trafalgar that she had top secret hardware on board, the call encrypted with security code verification ‘Scarlet’. As such, the object was immediately taken to one of our orbital black sites and upon receiving this missive from Intelligence on Trafalgar, I immediately grabbed as many of my most qualified personnel I could get my hands on, along with some of Lady Ashwike’s, and basically locked them inside the black site for twenty hours.

Why is this particular buoy so important? Because it has fewer emissions than a webnet comm drone, but the combined sensor suite of a spy ship from a century back, with stealth hardware comparable to a top of the line SIGINT corvette. It is capable of hiding its presence from basically any prying eyes that are not actively looking for it in more or less the exact location it chooses to hide in. And it is not of Royal Union make.”

That last comment produced a few muted gasps and concerned looks between the admirals, but Bower-Henton simply continued.

“Lady Ashwike’s engineers took the thing apart carefully, and my senior analysts went over every single bolt and wire in microscopic detail. According to radiation-extraction suggestions, the titanium, rhenium, and gold used to construct this buoy were mined in G and K class systems with varying gamma radiation profiles that does not fit any spectrum found in the Royal Union, the United Colonies of Sol, the Berenice Star Federation, the Neuhansa Sternbund… I could go on, but I do not wish to be melodramatic. It had to come from the Independent Systems Alliance.”

Instead of gasps, there was nothing but silence this time around. Knowing silence.

“Now, as most of you know from the intelligence briefs my Department sends out periodically, there has been a marked uptick in… ah, irregular activity in the Union systems bordering the ISA these past good few months. It is the belief of my senior staff, and my personal belief as well, that the reported encounters with civilian ISA-flagged ship behaving abnormally, has in fact been discovered cases of ISA intelligence operatives working undercover to create a deliberate spy network of stealth buoys in Union systems. The other popular theory is that these encounters represent a diversionary tactic to redirect our attention to these unusually acting ships, while other ships moving in monitored shipping routes have simultaneously dropped these buoys off clandestinely. Regardless, these non-manned crafts factor heavily in Department of Intelligence’s analyses. And yes, I am using the plural form here, there is no reason to believe we managed to chance upon the only deployed stealth buoy. It logically follows that there are more of these in systems that have reported suspicious ISA ship behaviour; that includes St. John, Samos, Azurea, and Phoebus, but the list is probably longer.”

“Design-wise,” Lady Aswhike, Valentina Kirkland, shot in, unable to contain herself any longer, drawing a bit of a knowing smile from Alistair, “it is almost unimaginable. Its detection capabilities are on-par with our own recon drones, but its stealth systems and longevity is further than anything unmanned craft we have currently. Yes, it is bulkier, and yes it requires inordinately expensive miniaturized systems, but the total sensor and stealth package is a frightening reminder that we may not actually be the leading naval technological power in every aspect any longer. If the Greens are able to manufacture something like this, and in addition sneak them in right under our noses, I shudder at the thought of what else they may accomplish if they’re given the time, resources, and practical know-how.”

“While I appreciate Lord Hartcastle’s wish to keep this a secret as long as possible,” Bower-Henton continued, “he may have bitched us by sending it to us in person. It took Foxhound just short of eleven days to get here, and a further day for the analysis to be done. However, in that timespan we have received several signal communiqués from Western Fleet HQ, Admiralty Palace in St. Angelo, and from the New Maltese Council of Princes. Electronic signals travel much faster through the Light Way than physical objects, as you all know.

Firstly, the cat has managed to claw its way out of the bag regarding the fact that we found this buoy, the source of the leak most likely within the Council of Princes upper staff, which led to an uproar among the New Maltese public and military, so our popularity domestically has taken a dip since we tried to keep this to ourselves. That’s politics for you. Secondly, following the leak, the Elysian and ISA ambassadors on New Malta deny this was their nations’ doing, making numerous public appearances that have been quite effectively worded, diverting some of the flak away from them and more towards the United Colonies of Sol. Low-hanging fruit, but such is the game, I guess.

Thirdly, this produced a frenzy of searching for buoys in all the major Union polities bordering the ISA, and it has so far resulted in nothing, leading some far-right nationalist groups in the ISA to claim that this was an Auroran plant and plot all along. And that idea is gaining traction like wildfire among the Elysian man and woman in the street, playing straight into the hands of the Liberal Progressive hardliners and their anti-Aurora rhetoric. And I don’t need to tell you the LibPros are all but ensured a very convincing general election victory in their House of Planets in a few months. This misinformation campaign may have extremely problematic long term effects for us. However, so far, apart from the immediate frustration among the New Maltese, this conspiracy idea has not gained a foothold in any of the other Union states, and indeed, we received a very positive letter of support from Her Majesty Queen Tryphaina this morning from the Dionysian embassy, so at least we know the Kingdom of Dionysia is with us.”

“So, what are we going to do about this?” Sir Hugh Donegal asked, looking at his seated admirals in turn.

“Well, the natural response is to actually go out to the border systems and look for more of these mechanical spies,” Lady New Acre said, pursing her lip in thought, “but somehow I feel Sir Reginald is going to tell me in no uncertain terms that this is beyond impractical.”

Sir Reginald Templeton took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his aquiline nose, the deep furrows on his dark forehead becoming almost small ridges. With almost a decade on McIndoe, Templeton was the oldest member of the Admiralty Board, and was soon to celebrate his two-hundredth and twentieth birthday. But while his body was old, his mind was veritably brimming over with ideas and schemes. Where Sir Damien Koyanagi, Sir Noel Acciari, and many of the previous Admiralty administration had adhered to the “Forward-” or “First Strike School” of naval design, Sir Reginald had created that particular naval design ideology’s antithesis, championing the so-called “Concentration School”, of which Lady Ashwike was the leading star.

In short, the “Concentration School” believed the future of naval warfare lay in designing warships with as much of its firepower concentrated in as few turrets as possible, but radically scaling up the effective electromagnetic rails of the batteries. This was not ground-breaking technology; ultra-long magrails had been how spaceships had been launched from the surface into orbit in the latter days of non-unified Earth. Miniaturizing this into railgun batteries that fit on warships had, however, been something of an achievement, and at this point nearly all warships of light cruiser size and up in the Royal Navy had at least one of these railcannon turrets. This design choice was the reason why Auroran ships were flatter and wider than other nations’ man-of-wars, who all favoured the traditional design philosophy of “chuck as many railguns as humanly possible into the broadsides of our hulls”.

“I won’t say,” Sir Reginald said in a hoarse tone, “that it is Impossible with a capital ‘i’ to deploy enough ships to find all of these buoys, but it is impossible. First off, we don’t nearly have enough information on how to find them if, as you say Adrienne, one of our cruisers sort of ran into one through pure dumb luck. That implies that they’re incredibly creatively hidden, and even combing through a single Jovian’s belt is an incredibly time-consuming task, not to mention extremely taxing on crews and ships. Space is unfathomably big after all, and even sifting through a single system with the equivalent of a fleet’s screen would take weeks, if not months. Second, the Royal Navy simply don’t have that number of destroyers and cruisers to divert to such duties. As incessantly pointed out by Lord Sélincourt here and others with him, we’re critically short of escort class ships; those we do have are desperately needed for patrolling and merchant convoy duties, not to mention their all-important screening duties for capital ships. Despite the valiant efforts of the shipbuilders at Royal Harrow, Monckton, and St. Aurorienne, there is no relief on the immediate horizon for this issue.”

Admiral Erica Kuznetsova, a stocky Novorosyian outbacker with short brown hair, and slightly uncannily long and slender arms, was spinning a porcelain saucer on the table top without looking and smiled lopsidedly.

“I think, Templeton, if you were desperate enough, you’d pull cruisers away from patrol duties and replace them with battlecruisers.”

Lady Suncrest physically bristled at that, putting down her coffee cup that she had been in the process of bringing up to her mouth.

“Surely, Erica, you’re not serious. That would be escalating an already tense and potentially dangerous situation even further. Taking away cruisers from border and sovereign system patrols and replacing them with capital ships is only going to be perceived as a threat by anyone who are on the lookout for aggressiveness from our side.”

Baroness Goldspyre toyed with the embroidery of her peaked cap.

“I certainly don’t agree with Erica’s suggestion, but in terms of technical capabilities, a battlecruiser is even more suited to patrol duties. Their sensor suites are larger and better, and their speeds are about on-par with heavy cruisers, but regardless of the political optics of their deployment, it would be like cracking a nut with a bunker-buster.”

“Not to mention ruinously expensive in terms of logistics, supply, and command-and-control,” Sir Morgan Mizushima pointed out, running a hand through his moustache.

Kuznetsova let the saucer come to a rest and put up both hands in a mock gesture of surrender.

“It was a joke more than anything. Besides, if I’m reading between the lines correctly here, these buoys represent a security risk, but not one that warrants extreme action on our part.”

“Quite right,” Bower-Henton said, having resumed her seat a while back. “They’re annoying, has the ability to track our and our allies’ fleet movements, as well as discern our different task forces’ order of battle in terms of estimated tonnage. However, according to our initial reports, their range isn’t that great and now that we know of their existence, we can be on the lookout for civilian shipping acting unorthodox and be more vigilant in investigating their activities.”

“Plus,” Sélincourt pointed out, “if the intelligence types in the ISA simply comb through enough Auroran newspapers and magazines, they will have plenty material to form a pretty good picture of our different fleet dispositions anyway. For instance, the Cordelia Sentinel featured the departure of the battleships Conqueror and Royal Mareschal for Kitezh and Southern Fleet in an article just three days ago. Such is the price we pay for having free and uncensored civilian media.”

That last comment was accompanied with a disarming smile, not an actual jab at one of the pillars of Auroran democracy.

“So, we’re all in agreement that this isn’t a top priority?” Lady Suncrest asked, and Bower-Henton and Donegal both nodded.

“Oh, they’re certainly a concern,” Sir Hugh said, “but I believe they represent only another such in a long list of the Royal Navy’s priorities.”

“Please, consider the following,” Lord Lowe Hill spoke for the first time, which was uncharacteristic for the usually bombastic admiral. “The Alliance general elections are taking place in medio October, so just four months away. Our own House of Commons’ elections are scheduled in early September, and just like the Liberal Progressives are all but guaranteed a comfortable majority in the House of Planets, the Royalists and Social Liberals are poised to reinforce their existing majority in the Commons, and polls show the Unionists getting at least fifteen more MPs than last election. That means that the Democrats and Labour will be reduced to forming an unholy alliance with the Conservatives in the Commons, at least where foreign policy and defence spending is concerned, which in turn means that the Royalists-Social Liberals will have no problem making good on their promise of increasing naval spending, with both the Commons and the Lords in their pocket. This is a roundabout way of saying that if the ISA was preparing for all-out war with the Kingdom and the Union, they would have pulled the trigger already; the Royal Navy will only get larger and stronger in the coming years, on top of the ships we already have in the slips. How we’re supposed to crew all these new ships our political masters are about to approve the funds for, is a whole different matter…”

Eyes focused on Dame Vanessa Howards, who shrugged.

“What do you want me to say? After two months in Admiralty House, my Department has been able to punt the worst of the Koyanagi shirkers and political appointees out, either to postings where they can do minimal damage, or encouraged them into an early retirement. Granted, a few of them chose to go into politics, all but two of them on the ‘wrong’ side of the aisle, but we knew this was an acceptable trade-off for putting dedicated and diligent officers into important slots. As for our recruitment problems, plans for the tentatively named De Chandlier Academy on Amaranth to supplement and take some of the load off King William Academy is proceeding nicely, but it will require pulling sorely needed experienced officers and NCOs from the Fleet. And the shore establishments New Saxony and Cumberland are still not at full capacity; they have the potential to graduate four-thousand more enlisted sailors each year.”

“I was under the impression that volunteers were at an all-time high?” Sélincourt asked, and Dame Vanessa nodded in confirmation.

“You’re right, King William’s Class of ’73 was one-thousand and fifty-nine strong, but even that many fresh ensigns are barely enough to cover the empty slots due to promotions, secondment to allied navies, and of course the commissioning of new ships. The Royal Navy has never had this many platforms to crew, be they ships, stations, supply vessels, shore stations, or supply bases. We’re forced to issue warrants of commission to an unprecedented number of senior NCOs, which is akin to pissing your pants to stay warm; it is going to bite us in the medium term future.”

“That said,” Sir Morgan countered, “the University Officer’s Training Corps is reporting an incredible uptick in membership, with thousands upon thousands joining up all across the kingdom. It is both an excellent source of skilled officer cadets, and a social equaliser; get a university degree, learn a cut-down version of the naval academy’s curriculum, enrol in King William’s for a shortened period, enlist for ten years, and have your student loan paid for by the Royal Navy.”

“No wonder the Tories hate the concept,” Kuznetsova said with a laugh, “it both incentivises joining the Service, and is a direct Department of Education-approved funnel into the Navy that is hard to cut off in Parliament while eluding appearing stingy.”

“I feel,” Sir Hugh said, “that we’re getting slightly off topic here. In summary, these new buoys are a definitive security risk, but one that the Departments of Intelligence and Planning will take into assessment. If Adrienne’s hypothesis is correct and these have indeed been deployed by the ISA, then we have to go back to the drawing board regarding our own and our allies’ OPSEC.”

“Not to mention,” Harper-Rowland commented, the first time he had spoken, “there will be hell to pay once Parliament and media catches wind of this, and doubly so if it comes to light that the Royal Navy was aware of the fact.”

“I think this is something,” Lady New Acre said, “we might have to float by the shadow defence secretary and possibly His Majesty.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Sir Cornelius warned, “I would advise talking to Lord Hartcastle and Western Fleet intelligence before we approach St. Andrew’s Palace and risk blowing this up even further.”

“So,” Lord Sélincourt said with a frown, “the official policy of the Royal Navy is to carry on as if everything is business as usual? Pardon me, but that seems like a rather poor solution to what is in reality a major interstellar political incident.”

“Lord Sélincourt…” Lowe Hill began, but Sir Morgan Mizushima cut him off.

“Alistair, the timing of this whole thing is not to our advantage. The most expedient solution is to wait out the election period for both the Kingdom and the ISA, see where the chips land, and then, while conversing with our civilian leaders, stake out the most prudent course.”

“I must say, I agree with Lord Sélincourt,” Lady New Acre said, crossing her arms over her chest, the electronic muscles of her black-silver prosthetic purring.

“I trust everyone in this room are aware that Aurora only has a fraction of the total population and industrial base of the Independent Systems Alliance. Yes, we have our trusty allies in the Royal Union, but unlike the ISA, the Union is not a monolithic economic and political construct; it is a cultural and economic patchwork of states that sometimes don’t even get along very well. Yes, the Royal Navy is larger and more technologically advanced than any other space navy at the moment, but given time, there is no reason why the Alliance Space Navy cannot inherit that mantle.”

“Lady New Acre,” Lady Ashwike said, her tone flinty, “I cannot help but detect some distrust in my staff’s ability to retain our naval technological advantage.”

“No offence was intended, Countess Ashwike,” New Acre replied, “but even if we keep putting the very bleeding edge of naval technology into, say, a dozen battleship hulls, the Elysians are able to put yesteryear’s tech into three dozen, and most likely have them launched before we are able.”

“You forget, My Lady,” Adrienne said, “that we still do enjoy a marked advantage in terms of hulls, personnel quality, and a sizable gap in naval technology over the Elysians.”

“Now,” Lady Chiang said, “that won’t count for much if we sit on our hands and allow the Elysians to seize the momentum when it comes to warship design and construction, regardless of the fact that the new Vanguard class battleships are closing in on completion; the next generation of Elysian warships is sure to surpass our own if we allow ourselves to rest on our laurels.”

“Surely, Lady Suncrest, you cannot in good conscience advocate a more aggressive stance towards the ISA?” Dame Vanessa commented. “Certainly that would put our own fighting forces at a disadvantage in this current political and strategic environment…”

“Now, hold on,” Harper-Rowland started, but Goldspyre cut him off.

“You, ‘hold on’, this whole ordeal deserves the Admiralty’s undivided attention, overtly or not, though Adrienne would most likely prefer ‘or not’, but that should not divert attention away from the fact that this is a serious breach of interstellar law…”

“We cannot simply sit on our hands and accept this,” Erica Kuznetsova half-cried, trying to get heard over the rising voices of the rest of the admirals, and Sir Hugh Donegal sighed deeply and ran a hand through his thinning dark hair, allowing himself to sit back and let the arguments and deliberations of the Royal Navy’s senior officers wash over him.