Snowlit Dawn’s Mess Hall, Outskirts of the Zern System

"So," asked Ellia Longtail, reclining against a folding chair at the Snowlit Dawn's table, "now that you know who I really am, was it what you expected?" She'd removed her disguise after they'd left orbit, and introduced herself to both Lana and Vanara.

They just stared at her, almost blankly. "You... actually went to a Leonin occupied world, on your own initiative?" Lana asked, wondering why Ellia's name seemed familiar.

"Do you have a death wish," Vanara interrupted before Ellia could respond, "or are you completely insane?"

"That question was far more impactful when it was being asked by a Gnoll Matriarch," Ellia replied with a shrug, "honestly, I ask myself the same thing sometimes."

Wait, Ambassador Ellia Longtail? Thought Lana, recalling something she'd been sent anonymously, something by all accounts she should not have seen to begin with. "In order to truly understand, and help those who have been held back or held down, we must meet them face to face. Only by knowing other sapients where they are, and feeling what they feel can we give them the tools to better themselves."

Ellia's eyes went wide as she looked into Lana's for a long moment before responding to the quote she'd recited, one she knew very well. "You've read my works and arguments. Those words... were for my people, I don't recall even translating it into Standard. Where'd you read this?"

"I-It was shared with me," Lana stammered, feeling uncomfortable with this sort of questioning out of habit. Ellia's tone was one of genuine curiosity and friendly interest, and she was clearly no Imperial Inquisitor but... "I... I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable just talking about this yet. I may have read things you wrote, even agree with some of it, but I don't know you yet."

"Wait..." Vanara held a finger up, as she spoke, "if you don't even know what propaganda you're spreading, you're not the mastermind of this, are you?"

"Oh, Order's Grace," Ellia laughed at that, "you actually thought I was a mastermind? I'm flattered, but no, I'm really not. Can you guess who is?"

"Will you just tell me?" Van growled, glaring at Ellia. "I've had enough being led around the edges of reality for far too long."

"What would be the fun in that?" Ellia chuckled on response. "I'd thought you Huscanids might have been more interested in learning for yourselves than the Lupin. Oh well, you'll find the answer to that out soon enough."

"Ellia," Dorrin groaned as he brought snacks to the table, "wouldn't you want someone to just tell you if they knew were your real father was?"

"This is why people hate us here, isn't it?" Ellia sighed after a brief pause, "Right, I'm sorry, I'll tell you what I know about-!"

Marla's hologram suddenly appeared over the table, causing her to gasp in surprise.

"Everyone needs to see this!" She declared, her projection vanishing as it was replaced by a flat image with the flag of the Lupin council. "This broadcast is being repeated on all bands and channels, I'm playing it from the starting point."

After a moment, the flag was replaced by an image of Major Illoria Scythe, her fangs barely concealed by her practically snarling maw. "The Lupin Defense Forces have repelled a completely unprovoked attack on our home-world by an Imperial Leonin Military annexation fleet. The following engagement was recorded by Lupin as well as allied forces, and has been verified as genuine by independent Lapinian auditors." The image of Scythe was replaced by soundless replay showing a wormhole forming with a flash, causing the image to distort with digital graininess, but not so much that it wasn't obvious a Leonin fleet was coming through it. As they launched missiles, Scythe continued speaking over the silent playback. "Were it not for our new partners in the New Alliance, the Lupin would be recovering from a the loss of most, if not all our orbital civilian habitats. As a consequence of this cowardly and unwarranted attack, we are upping our military force commitment to the New Alliance from 10% to 50% of our standing Military assets, Captain Hack of New Alliance Command, you may now deliver your response."

The footage continued to play, but a new voice spoke up. "To the Leonin Empire: the members of the New Alliance have been quietly watching or dealing with Leonin aggression for centuries up to this point, that changes now. We will no longer tolerate continued expansion of your borders, regardless of the means, nor will we tolerate suppression of once sovereign states under threat of the Leonin war machine. We have already submitted our demands in a document embedded to this transmission, but since we doubt you'll bother reading it, I'll break it down for you in... simple terms:

1 - this should be obvious, but you will withdraw all military assets to no more than 10 lightyears away from systems populated primarily by Leonin.

2 - you will cease all industrial operations ran by your people in systems with a non-Leonin primary population.

3 - you will submit plans, with a timescale of no less than 6 months, in these same systems allowing these occupied territories to hold an independence referendum. The plans must be reviewed by Lapinian auditors, and the Lapinians will also serve as independent monitors during the vote and handle vote tallying.

4 - you will allow any system that has voted a bare majority to leave the Leonin Empire to do so, at which point the New Alliance will recognize them as independent systems, and offer support for setting up new governments to them.

5 - you will relocate any and all military assets within 10 lightyears of any independent system. Any of your citizens that remain within these systems will do so under the laws of the new independent government.

You have 2 weeks to show positive movement towards meeting these demands. And just in case you were considering ignoring us, or launching another attack... after the pause that seemed for dramatic effect, the Leonin ships remaining in the recording began exploding in what's seemed like a wave outward, "consider what happened to the last annexation fleet the kind of response to expect from us."

Lupin Prime, High Orbit

"Voidguard Northpass," asked the New Alliance pilot who called himself Stripes over the comms, "we're getting some possible signals in sector 53 by 32 by 98. Can you verify?"

"Stand by, Stripes." He sighed, looking over the unfamiliar Ragerian controls in front of him. The last thing he'd done in the battle was aim his battered packfighter at a Leonin bomber, diverting the last of his energy reserves to his boosters to try and take out one last enemy before his reactor failed. Instead, the bomber had exploded on it's own before he reached it, along with the rest of the Leonin in the system. The same Ragerian support corvette had picked him up minutes later, and the single officer aboard had asked if he could "lend a hand" with the recovery efforts.

"Upper right, over there." She said with a smile, pointing it out quickly as she ducked back under a console she was conducting repairs of some sort on.

Frost, she knows my name and I do not even know hers. She is attractive too... need to get ahold of myself, she clearly would not be interested in some random Gamma class pilot. Still... "Uh, what is your name, R-Ragerian?"

"Call me Angie," she answered from beneath the console, her fluffy copper-colored tail flipping behind her as she worked, "better get that sector scanned, Mace.~"

His maw practically hung open for a moment at that, before another voice snapped him back to reality. "Uh..." Stripes asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice, "have you scanned that sector yet?"

"I am doing that now," he answered as he aligned the sensors to the sector previously specified, "I apologize, I am still familiarizing myself with the controls." She... wants to speak on a first name basis?

"Hmm," Angie thought aloud as she came back up, and examined the sensors, "that looks like a shift pod, pinging it now... Aha! We've got a survivor, setting course, good catch, Stripes."

"Ejected survivor?" Laughed another voice from the comms, seemingly of a Gnoll, "how embarrassing!"

"Shaddap Princess, ya tit-head," groaned another Gnoll, "didn't we have to get one off your tail 5 times?" From there the conversation, if you could call it that, continued in Gnoll as Mace and Angie worked to pinpoint the pod and bring it in.

"Are they always like this?" He asked her with the comms muted. "I have fought Gnoll pirates many times, they... would not be me first choice as allies."

"Their culture's... different," Angie replied with a blink and an awkward smile, "but they're actually more reliable than you'd think. They're mostly blunt more than anything, at least if you're female. I don't know how Monk kept those two in line, honestly. They see Stripes as a fellow warrior at least, so maybe he'll manage."

"Monk?" Mace blinked, "Who was he? Wait, was that the crazy Ragerian who rammed that-!"

"There it is, bringing it in with a graviton beam," Angie interrupted, suddenly too absorbed in her work to answer his question, then she smiled broadly, "you can ask him in a minute - it's his pod, and it's reporting him in stable, conscious condition."

Snowlit Dawn, Mess Hall, some time later

Sabre grimaced as he re-watched the broadcast with the rest of the crew. He'd already seen it, but it seemed somehow more visceral in an inexplicable way with others present.

"What are those stations," asked an atypically pale-faced Gerard, "civilian habitats?"

Sabre merely nodded curtly, his eyes transfixed on the unfolding attack. There will be blood after this, it is unavoidable now.

"Yotan Gust fighters," Tallia muttered, with none of her characteristic snarkiness, "so, my people have gotten their tails dragged into this already."

"And Ragerian Support Corvettes," Ellia noted with a shiver, wincing as she pointed out one, just to see it explode, "those aren't armed, at least they're mostly automated too, just a single crewperson but... by the Order."

"Honestly I'd kinda wanted to see those giant guns in Lupin carriers fire," Lia noted in an oddly somber tone for one who typically delighted in combat, "but not like this, knew this was coming sooner or later though."

Looking over to the kitchen, Sabre saw Dorrin was just staring blankly at the projection, neither saying a word, nor reacting. "Dorrin," Sabre asked, "are you alright?" Immediately after asking he realized just how foolish a question it felt to ask.

"Gramps..." he muttered, "my last letter from Saril mentioned he was going to be involved in a joint operation in your home system. I have... messaged him, but he has not responded. I don't even know how to contact his commanding officer about this."

"I will reach out to my people," Sabre nodded in understanding, immediately getting out his quantum comms, "we will learn of his fate, hopefully directly from him."

"Thanks gramps," Dorrin came over and hugged the big wolf, giving him a tearful smile, "I just... I can't believe you're taking this so well."

"I am not taking it well, Dorrin," Sabre growled very slightly, "I am taking it how I was trained to, especially since I know the outcome. Hmmm..." Sabre blinked in confusion as he showed Dorrin the text on his screen."

"Reassigned to the New Alliance?" Dorrin asked with a dumbfounded look. "That bi- er, Major did say a lot more of your people were being assigned there."

"Perhaps this will make the inquiry easier," Sabre nodded after giving Dorrin a sidelong glance regarding what he nearly called Scythe, "hopefully I'll be in a much more adjacent command structure to his."

"Finding out casualties aside," Marla sighed, looking at a freeze frame of the explosion at the end of the broadcast, "I'm more concerned with the implications of this... act. Hack is a Ragerian, but this kind of 'response' is very much not how we do things, at least not if we can avoid it."

"Really?" Lana asked, standing tall and leaning forward imposingly over Marla. "Because if I know my people well enough, and I do, then an overwhelming defeat like this is exactly what is necessary to stop them!"

"I wouldn't expect most of you to understand, especially not you!" Marla sneered at Lana, not even reacting to the visible attempt at intimidation, then turned to Ellia. "But you, you I am more surprised at. You would support this... this... path to bloodshed?"

"I'm surprised you don't," Ellia replied, shaking her head and sighing, "no Marla, I do not support bloodshed at all... but the New Alliance is giving the Leonin Empire a way to avoid it."

"One they'll neeeever take," Gerard snorted humorlessly, "there's a better chance the Emperor pardons us all and makes me a real noble."

"Come on Gerard," Lia cried out, smacking him on his shoulder hard enough to make him wince, "this is exactly what should have been done centuries ago and we all know it! Honestly, if they do what they're claiming, I'll be tempted to join the New Alliance once the Leonin refuse, or wait out the deadline."

"Not until you've completed your contract with me you're not..." Donna spoke up for the first time since playing back the recording after calling the meeting, "I've been reading the formal listing of demands, politics may not be my thing but I understand terms and conditions. I noticed that Zern is in the list of systems provided with the demands, how does this tie in with our mission, Ellia? You were going to tell us what you knew?"

"Right, as boring and disappointing as that may be. You're to going to meet with a ship just across the Lapinian border. I wasn't told specifically who it is, or what the purpose of the meeting is, buuut... my little birdies tell me that it's someone or something tied to the old Republic of Zern, possibly former military."

"We're on course for the system," Marla nodded, "and it looks like we'll arrive a day or two early."

"Wonderful!" Ellia cheered, clasping her hands together in front of her, "then we'll have plenty of time to look at the other thing in the system, which you already know about, Marla." She winked and made a nudging gesture, causing the imprint's projection to groan.

"Well, I guess maybe I'll find something there useful to me too;" Marla sighed, lowering her ears, "less said about the place the better, it still officially doesn't exist."

"We're going to Lapinian space," Lia raised an eyebrow and glared at Marla, "what is this thing that doesn't officially exist?"

"In short," Marla grimaced, shaking her head, "my old command post."

LDFCV Steel Claw, Lupin Prime high orbit

"Commander Stormworn?" Asked the higher pitched than expected voice of the Yotan engineer who'd been crawling around her bridge for almost an hour. "Can we run a system check now, or do we need to wait for something?"

Valk Stormworn regarded the male coyote-like alien now standing before her chair on the bridge: almost her height, but a much thinner frame. He'd been getting into places with ease that Lupin technicians frequently cursed about having to squeeze into for repairs or routine maintenance. His uniform and fur were smeared with several forms of grease from doing so - none of which seemed to bother him, if he'd even noticed. And I did not even get his name, she thought, mentally reprimanding herself for this oversight as she sat down the cup of tea she'd been sipping. "That will depend on what you wish to check, Mr..?"

"Tim," he replied raising an eyebrows as he stared straight at her face, "just call me Tim. And as for what I plan to check... everything? With all due respect, your ship was half shredded, patched up with tape, and now I'm trying to actually fix it. Honestly, this will take as long as it takes, so I say again, do you want me to start now or do you need to wrap something up first?"

Stormworn grit her teeth resisting the urge to howl in anger at being addressed so impudently and directly by some random Yotan mechanic but... they did save us, and we were told that their culture is different. "Very well, Tim... do you not have a rank and last name?"

"A what?" He asked, tilting his head in confusion for a moment. "Oh, right, we stopped having last names after we lost our old home-world. As for rank... Senior Engineer - Lupin Systems Specialization, I'm not exactly a soldier, they just brought me in here because I know these systems the best of any of us."

Ancestors, Stormworn groaned inwardly, trying very hard not to facepalm, this is violating at least 13 different regulations... I shall have to document my objections to this irregularity prominently.

"Uh, hello?" Tim tapped a hindpaw covered by a grease stained boot, "Commander? Are you gonna answer my question?"

Barely stifling a growl, she pressed the button for a ship-wide intercom. "Shipmaster Dirk, please report to the bridge at your earliest convenience." She then narrowed her eyes as she glared at Tim. "We shall consult with a qualified Lupin Shipmaster before you do anything, is that clear, Tim?"

"You mean the guy who only knows a little past the reference manual?" Tim shook his head and shrugged, "It's your command I guess. I'm not the one who'll have to explain to Pauls how much time was wasted with unnecessary procedures written by desk workers who've never set foot on a ship in their lives."

A silver furred Lupin with a stocky build climbed up the ladder to the bridge, turning to Tim with a frown. Oh good, Stormworn thought, Dirk can deal with this impudent pup.

"Captain," Dirk stated more than asked, "how can I assist?"

"Please ensure our guest does not break more than he fixes, I am going to discuss our... situation... with New Alliance Command."