At Lands Command, Hrunkner Unnerby is summoned into General Victory Smith’s private office for the first time in years. Unnerby pitches a last-ditch plan to excavate nuclear-shielded refuges, but General Smith says there is no time; the crisis will resolve in under three days. Intelligence in the South is compromised, and Honored Pedure is personally at Southmost, proving the issue isn’t settled there.

Despite longstanding animosity, General Smith asks Hrunkner Unnerby to help with Southmost, noting that some Southland Parliament members have asked to meet her. Against Strut Greenval’s old rule to stay off the field, General Smith decides to go herself, leaving in three hours. Hrunkner Unnerby urges added security, but General Smith rejects it, saying the Lighthill team and Young Victory have other tasks in the next seventy-five hours. She frames the moment as the payoff for choices she and Sherkaner Underhill made over years.

Elsewhere, on Paradise Island, astronomer Obret Nethering prepares for a night’s work and notices a narrow auroral feather moving south, unusually cohesive and point-bright. He recalls Sherkaner Underhill’s influence on his career and weighs whether the sight is natural or a sign of war.

Nethering’s assistant, Shepry Tripper, arrives reporting bandwide radio static and loss of the North Point interferometer link. Fearing conflict is underway, Obret Nethering pivots to radar, wondering if the auroral spike hides a physical object. He readies logs and mainland computing, determined to capture evidence that could reveal whether Nature or War is speaking tonight.