”Espionage is a normal part of diplomatic relations. Every race does it; the only question is to what extent. Some of this depends on the tendencies of the race in question. Some races place more emphasis on information and go to great lengths to acquire it, even if they never truly utilize it, while some view such actions as being beneath them or somehow dishonorable. Another limiting factor is the methods available to each race. A Human can't exactly infiltrate a Mrrroww city by pretending to be one of them, so they have to arrive for other legitimate reasons. Some races allow members of friendly races rather free access to migrate, while others keep a strict leash on such matters for various reasons. Being a trader or a diplomat is an age-old cover, but they are also the people that are most suspect. Vagabonds, mercenaries and other travelers can work as spies but they will rouse suspicion if they stay too long.

Another potential way of performing espionage is to simply buy information. You can bribe members of a race to give innocuous seeming pieces of information for a price, and then deduce greater details from the things you learn. An increase in military recruitment and propaganda is usually a sign of increased likelihood of war for example. This kind of information has the problem of being unreliable though, and could even be deliberately fed to mislead potential spies. In the end, the methods for espionage are many and varied. They each have their good and bad sides, including potential legality. Buying information, for example, isn't illegal in most places, but if caught, the spy is likely to face reprisal of some sort. Some races take a harsher stance of counter-espionage than others. As with many things, no two races are exactly the same in their methods and some are better at both espionage and countering it than others.”

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

-------

As the important personages aboard Selendil’s ship had gathered, the meeting to decide their approach was opened with a declaration from Selendil. "So, we need to get access to a world currently controlled by the Human faction called the Tetrarchy. Apparently, the planet has become a staging area for their ships, so they are not likely to just welcome us with open arms. Plan A, we will fly the ship there, I will destroy everything stupid enough to not flee, and we’ll do what we traveled there to do. Now, I’m sensing that this plan might meet some resistance from you people, so this is your chance to come up with something less confrontational.” Her tone of voice made it clear that Selendil would have absolutely no moral qualms about implementing plan A.

"I think I like plan A," Amaterasu stated to the amusement of some and the horror of the rest. The fact that Illum was at war with the Tetrarchy might have swayed her opinion just a bit.

“Yeah, plan A sounds great.” Xiaoli also agreed for similar reasons. She was still thrown off because Selendil has returned to her normal appearance only minutes before. Somehow the fact that Selendil could freely change her form was harder for Xiaoli to swallow than all the other shocking things she had just learned.

“Humans.” Moonshadow sighed in exasperation. “And Dhar apparently.”

“As much as I’m interested in seeing your prowess in battle after all the talk about Keepers, I think we might want to consider other options. I’m fairly sure we’ll get the chance to do the violence thing sooner or later anyway.” Nochehuatl stated in an effort to bring things to a more productive direction.

Amaterasu made an exasperated sound. “Well, if the violent method isn’t good enough for some, then I suppose I’ll have to contribute something more useful. The way I see it, we have two options. We can either go with the stealthy method or the brazen and conniving method.”

"I think I can already guess the outlines of the stealthy method just from the name," Xiaoli stated. Cybrans were the experts in stealth after all. “It does have certain limitations though, as we will have to keep our movements careful and the place we’re going to will most likely be heavily guarded even if we manage to avoid the fleets in orbit. What’s the brazen and conniving method? That one sounds much more fun.”

“Well, the Illum recently acquired a ship and several rather important individuals belonging to the Tetrarchy’s Psicom. We learned quite a few things from them, and we acquired many of their codes and equipment. Combined with our previous knowledge, it shouldn’t be too hard to play the part of a Psicom unit that has come to inspect something on that world. I’m sure Nox can forge the necessary orders once I provide her with the right specifications. Psicom is usually not questioned too stringently as they hold so much sway, and we do happen to have many powerful psions on board who could play the part. We can’t use that ship of course, but if we happened to gain access to another…” Amaterasu left her words hanging in the air.

“So your idea is that we steal one of the Psicom ships and just waltz in there? That is pretty brazen. Might actually work too. And it would give us much more freedom to move around and ask questions than the stealthy way.” Moonshadow nodded approvingly. Brazen methods had a chance to go spectacularly wrong, but they were surprisingly effective most of the time.

“That does leave us with a problem of acquiring a Psicom vessel. It can’t be too large either since the Tetrarchy’s vessels aren’t quite as autonomous as this ship.” Lilly pointed out. She wasn’t too bothered by the idea of doing something that might start a war, mainly because it would be the human members of the crew that would have to do most of the work. No matter how hard they tried, she or Moonshadow couldn’t just disguise themselves as humans.

“Well, I can still get inside their systems and run most of the things.” Nox pointed out. “Depending on the vessel, we might not need more than a handful of people since we aren’t planning on flying the ship to combat.”

“It might turn into combat though.” Xiaoli pointed out the rather obvious detail.

“Yes, and we have several Deity level combatants and a Keeper on board. I think we can manage even if the ship won’t be much use.” Nox replied with a wry tone.

“I think I can help us find that ship.” Xiaoli pointed out. “We have been nominal allies of the Tetrarchy against Illum for a short while, and we have received some data on their fleet movements.”

“And we have agents among the Tetrarchy. They can also provide us with the information.” Amaterasu added.

“Well. It sounds like we have the makings of a plan. I hereby promote the ‘brazen’ plan into the spot of plan A, and the old plan A is now plan B. Get to it, and speak to your contacts.” Selendil declared.

--------

“Right, are we all ready to do this?” Amaterasu asked. For some reason she ended up being the one who was the most nervous. Partially because she was actually in charge of the ship while Selendil was prepared to go out in a mech. She was also the one in charge of Plan A. As she was used to a leadership position, such things should not have really affected her, but for some reason she felt like she was back at school, preparing to take a test she hadn’t prepared for.

“We’ve been ready for a while now. Stop fussing.” Moonshadow stated in a playfully scolding tone.

“Remember, we need the ship intact. And I do mean fully intact. It won’t be much use if all the weapons on the ship are visibly destroyed.” Amaterasu ignored Moonshadow and addressed Selendil instead.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve boarded an enemy vessel you know.” Selendil’s frosty replied sounded over the comms. It actually was as Keepers didn’t bother doing such things even when they got into combat, but she was utilizing the memories and experiences of more experienced Dhar warriors. “I know what I’m doing.”

Amaterasu once again ignored the reply and went for Nox instead. “Nox, are you sure you can stop both the enemy ship and the station from sending any signals.”

“I could do that while asleep. Now stop asking or I’ll show you that I can also jettison the contents of the bridge if I want to.” Nox replied sharply. This was the fourth time Amaterasu asked the question and even the AI was getting testy.

“What’s gotten into you? You’re supposed to be the Dread Empress.” Xiaoli whispered.

“I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t felt this nervous in decades.” Amaterasu admitted.

"Just do it already," Selendil commanded and Nox didn't wait long enough for anyone to voice their opinions as the ship exited phase space right next to their target.

The Psicom vessel was orbiting a particular asteroid. The espionage forces of Illum had identified this place as the perfect target as it was a covert maintenance base for Psicom vessels. There was nearly always at least one ship going through some kind of repairs or re-arming on the station, but as the place was supposed to be a covert and small base, there was rarely more than one vessel present. The same held true this time as well. The base relied mostly on secrecy and stealthy mines for defense, but the mines were all blasted to shreds by Amaterasu’s psionic powers, while Selendil teleported her mech right inside the target ship.

Selendil was actually using the smallest mech available, barely larger than a powered suit of armor. She was going to be fighting inside the cramped spaces of a ship and the station and she didn’t want to be hampered by a large mech. The only reason she even used one was because both Xiaoli and Amaterasu had insisted on that for some odd reason. She had to admit that the mech made flying in space a bit faster, but she could just teleport such short distances anyway. Maybe they didn’t realize that even explosive decompression wouldn’t bother her as she was perfectly capable of surviving a long time in space.

As she had teleported right inside the bridge of the ship they wanted to acquire, the enemies had not managed any sort of resistance just yet. With a wave of her hand, the people on the bridge fell down unconscious. Normally she would’ve killed them, but Amaterasu wanted them for questioning. It would make things easier if they got fresh information from the crew of the ship, instead of just relying on the information they got from spies or the captured crew of the Tetrarchy vessel Illum had acquired earlier. Amaterasu had ranted something about newer codes and possible changes to protocol due to compromised agents.

Her arrival point was not chosen randomly. The most important officers of the ship were on the bridge when she arrived, and her quick attack had removed the leadership of the ship and Nox took care of the communications inside the ship and the station. Her next teleport brought her inside the command center of the station itself. This time she didn’t bother sparing the lives of the people inside. Thin invisible strands of psionic power went inside every person and killed them instantly and without creating a mess. Unlike the soldiers of Psicom, the crew and officers on the station didn’t have even the most rudimentary defenses against hostile psionics and this was the result. This was a perfect display why psionic defenses were important, or any half decent psion could just kill everyone. Of course Selendil could just overpower any such defenses, but even Xiaoli could’ve accomplished this with a few helpful tips when there were no defenses in place.

Selendil then moved methodically through the corridors and rooms, taking care of any life that was left. Some of the marines tried to give resistance but failed spectacularly as they didn't even see what hit them. The station was a covert site of the Psicom so there were no civilians present and the place only had the essential crew. Even the engineers were military engineers. Not that Selendil would've cared about the presence of civilians. She came from a warrior people where everyone trained for war in one form or another, and in her mind, anyone associated with the military was a fair target, no matter what race or position they represented.

Still, it took her almost twenty minutes to subdue or kill everyone. She could have done it much faster if she didn’t have to actually leave the Psicom officers alive. Without that inconvenient detail, she could’ve done the whole thing without leaving her ship. Now she had to visually confirm her targets as even the higher ranked psions present looked like children to her. Telling the difference between an engineer and an officer was like trying to differentiate a small number of very particular ants among a swarm of almost identical looking ants. You could do it even from range if you went through the trouble, but it was simply easier to get a confirmation from up close.

As soon as she was done the others entered the ship she had taken over and started separating the soon-to-be-corpses from the already-corpses. They stole all the uniforms and equipment for their own use while Nox went through the databases of both the ship and the station. Amaterasu and Xiaoli handled the questioning of the prisoners while the others prepared the Psicom vessel for launch. The inspection took a bit of time as they had to be thorough. The ship had come to the station for a reason and they didn’t want to suddenly discover the ship was undergoing maintenance for leaking reactor fluids or something equally dangerous.

As soon as they were sure the ship would not explode on them, Nox took control of the systems and jumped the ship towards their destination. Amaterasu continued the interrogation while their voyage was underway. The main point was to make sure they had all the protocols right and that there would be no sudden surprises coming to haunt them. It would be a sad way for their mission to fail if they found out that the ship they were using was expected at their destination already, but for a completely different purpose. That would blow a hole the size of a corvette into their story, and they would be back to plan B.

Luckily the Tetrarchy’s ships were almost painfully standardized and all their human crew members had experience on flying on similar ships. Both the handmaidens and Xiaoli’s guards could handle any tasks that Nox couldn’t just make disappear with some AI magic. Selendil had to take care of a few issues that required a bit more heavy lifting and a physical presence but Nox could walk her through those. The Psicom had been nice enough to include manuals for almost everything in their database.

The first problem came when they were all pulling on the Psicom uniforms. The uniforms were fine, although the black uniforms of Psicom were a little drab in their opinion. “Ok, Selendil. This time we’ll need you to take an appearance that is less…striking.” Amaterasu stated.

Selendil had automatically assumed the same form she had used while dealing with the Cybrans, as that one had worked after all was said and done. She considered the suggestion for a moment and her previously perfect face suddenly had a sprinkling of freckles. That was the only change. “How about this? Nox suggested that this particular variation seems to be less popular.”

Amaterasu had to turn away and support herself against the wall while Xiaoli laughed before speaking. “You’re quite correct that freckles are less popular in general but on the flipside, they are a turn-on for certain people. That change didn’t really make your appearance any less attractive either, it just made it so you’re a bit more niche in your appeal. The people of that niche will get even more interested though.”

That made Selendil frown. “This is annoying. I dislike the idea of making myself somehow lesser. Doing an imperfect job just doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t really know what Humans find attractive or not either. I can’t just copy our prisoners just in case they have friends at our destination. Friends that might notice the obvious change in behavior.”

“I’ll make some suggestions. Come with me. We’ll need a mirror and some reference materials. Maybe some makeup.” Xiaoli stated while pulling Selendil towards the nearby bathroom. Their little discussion ended up taking hours, but the end result was a slight reduction when it came to Selendil’s looks, though the effect was not major. Amaterasu insisted she keep the freckles for the duration of this mission though.

-------

As soon as they jumped out of phase space they realized something was not quite right. The others were looking at the tactical displays while one of the handmaidens was handling the arrival procedures in a pleasant voice. The number of ships orbiting the planet was not the issue. This was supposed to be a staging area, so having a large number of ships was expected. The problem was that most of those ships were logistic vessels that were going through the standard procedure for receiving a large number of military warships.

“Is it just me or are they preparing for receiving an invasion fleet of some sort?” Moonshadow asked rhetorically.

“It certainly seems so. But against who? Our worlds are too far from here.” Amaterasu replied.

“Isn’t it obvious? The Cybran worlds and city ships are much closer, as this was a world we held for a while. That’s why we’re here after all.” Xiaoli stated angrily. “The Tetrarchy is preparing to stab us in the back.”

“To be fair, that’s not a bad idea on a strategic level. With Selendil’s ship showing up at Haven, the obvious reason for your earlier ceasefire has disappeared. I doubt the Tetrarchy has forgotten that the Cybrans used to be closer to us Illum before Selendil’s ship gave you a reason to turn against us. They are expecting your little coalition to fall apart and are preparing to take advantage of the situation before that happens. It also helps that a large portion of your fleets is now on our border instead.” Amaterasu ran through the implications.

”How have they managed to keep this a secret?! We'll need to get a word back home!” Xiaoli exclaimed.

"We have a job to do," Selendil stated. Then she got an idea. "However, for the right price, I might ask Nox to pass on the message. As you must have realized by now, unlike most AI's Nox can exist in several places at once and have the separate pieces be in constant contact. That's what allows us to instantly communicate with my ship. Well, Nox could take my ship closer to Cybran space and send the message while we finish our mission."

Nox couldn’t freely exist everywhere without the distances becoming a problem. Even the Dhar's AIs had limits as long as they were not connected via the Dhar who were in turn joined by the universal consciousness. However, there were two exceptions. Nox was always present wherever Selendil was, and the AI was also present on Selendil’s ship. These two parts of Nox were still essentially one.

“And what price might that be?” Xiaoli asked, realizing she wasn’t in a great bargaining position. The Cybrans were not fools so they suspected the possibility of betrayal by the Tetrarchy. It was such an obvious possibility after all. But getting a confirmation and the right location where the attack would come was quite important.

“Well, the ship happens to need more crew. It would be useful to have some more permanent security forces present, and the Cybran can also double as engineers quite well.” Selendil smiled while Amaterasu and Moonshadow groaned. They had seen this method of recruitment before.