The universe lay beneath a moonless sky, silent and still. No one knew yet that an obscure battle in a remote corner of the High Seas Trade Route had drawn to a close on August 7. The mighty Holy Galactic Empire had suffered its most devastating defeat in centuries.
But just as Yu Lian and his companions had predicted, if the Galactic Empire meant to strike, it would never make a halfhearted move.
First, let's turn back the clock twenty-four hours. At that time, the fleet returning home under Yu Lian's command—or, in truth, under Admiral Ferragu's—had just reached the terminus of the Hanwang Star Gorge and had already been out of contact for some time.
Across the vastness of space, hyperspace communications relied on source-matter waves, the Enlighteners' cutting-edge technology. They were often interrupted for varying lengths of time by cosmic radiation, shifts in space, channel hijacking, and other causes. Such disruptions were entirely understandable.
Then, at 10 a.m. on August 6, the third round of talks over the border conflict was about to begin at Saideburg Fortress.
On one side was the Blue Star Commonwealth delegation, headed by Mr. Charles Marvin, now director of the Policy Planning Bureau at the Foreign Affairs Committee. His deputy was Mr. Rom Brins, formerly chief counselor at the embassy in the Celestial Domain and now back home, working in the Liaison Bureau of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The other side was a sizable joint delegation made up of the Galactic Empire, the Kaitai Kingdom, and the Republic of Bakvi, each accounting for a third of the group.
The earlier border clash had been a matter between the Katai and the Bakvi, yet somehow the Empire seemed to have taken center stage. That probably just showed how willing the Empire was to shoulder