The debate table at the center of the Imperial Parliament hall was enormous, elliptical in shape and nearly nine meters across. It had been exquisitely fashioned from a piece of petrified redwood from Yessa Province.
At that moment, its surface had been polished almost flawlessly, smooth and bright, reflecting the faint red glow of the lumen lamps suspended high in the upper reaches of the hall's vaulted ceiling.
Only one blemish remained on the tabletop: a tiny, nearly imperceptible dent.
No matter how many times craftsmen studied it, pouring over it with the finest-grade resin or restorative compounds supplied through precision injection tubes, the flaw had never been entirely erased.
It had become permanently attached to the redwood's grain.
Yalvido, the current prime minister of the Benedict Empire, had long since grown indifferent to it, though over the years he had found his gaze frequently lingering there whenever those countless exhausting nights dragged parliamentary sessions on to their most trivial matters.
All bureaucratic proceedings in the Imperium carried a solemn gravity.
Kelsey, the newly appointed Minister of Imperial Trade, stood at the ornate petitioners' lectern at the far end of the central dais.
Nearly a dozen parliamentarians were scattered throughout the hall, each shuffling toward the nearest row of empty seats to better hear her words.
"I have received word that another requisitioned transport fleet is currently anchored at Moskal Port, while two more fleets are still three hundred nautical miles away."
Her voice echoed through the empty space.
"By Her Majesty the Empress's order, every fleet must undergo strict inspection before disembarking and unloading. Yet more ships arrive every day from the western nations and the New California Republic, bringing supplies awaiting inspection—they need to be processed through the harbor more quickly and transferred in full
to the Western