That terrifying thought had actually flashed through the Winged Race captain's mind when he saw the Sea Wolf's familiar warship design. That was why he had lost his composure so badly then, even letting the Sea Race captain notice his suspicions.
If this Ante Empire warship really was connected to the Sea Race, or even... supplied by them, then there could only be one reason for the two sides to go to such lengths to put on this double act!
Their target could be nothing else. It could only be... him, the council speaker's son!
Wherever there were people, there were power struggles. The Gemini Civilization was no exception.
As an unusual civilization comprising two races, the Gemini Civilization had lost almost as much to internal strife as to foreign wars over its thousands of years of history.
When surrounded by external enemies, the two races often worked together under the pressure to survive. After all, their homeworlds lay in the same star system, and everyone understood that if one fell, the other would be exposed.
Without a powerful external enemy, however, the two races often treated each other as their chief rival. Their internal conflicts and struggles could even escalate into military clashes on a star-system scale.
This peculiar development model fostered competition within the civilization and kept it advancing rapidly. Thanks to the powerful Joint Council, that internal competition had always remained within controllable limits.
Thus, throughout the Gemini Civilization's history, the intensity of its internal struggles had risen and fallen like the tides, depending on how secure its external environment was.
Unfortunately, the only civilization of comparable standing currently capable of threatening the Gemini Civilization was the distant Wulf Civilization. But since no wormhole between them could accommodate large fleets, the two could only glare at each