Belga Underville arrives early to a high-stakes staff meeting at Lands Command, worried about protesting the Lighthill team’s raids on Domestic Intelligence. The session opens with Air Defense’s analysis of three high-altitude “bogies,” judged to be Kindred satellites or antigravity tests launched from unknown sites. Air Defense demands better ground intelligence, and Rachner Thract accepts new tasking without protest.

Public Relations reports a War Plebiscite is impossible given the compressed timelines and risks. Belga outlines domestic vulnerabilities: Unnerby’s modernization has delivered power and weatherized housing, but little is hardened; even light nuclear strikes would be devastating. Smith assigns Belga and Public Relations to explore partnerships with hardened enterprises.

Belga then objects to the Lighthill team’s unscheduled inspections and personnel removals. General Smith affirms the team acts directly for her and asks Belga to respect their delegated authority. Finance Minister Amberdon Nizhnimor declares the government on a wartime footing with suspended appeals, stating the King’s full confidence in Smith. Belga, effectively overruled, accepts the new regime of oversight.

Turning to Southland, Thract reports a temporary pause: only about a tenth of Southland’s liquid-fueled rockets are ready; full fueling needs three to four days. The decisive moment will be a Parliament session at Southmost in four days to consider the Accord’s response to the Southland Ultimatum. Suggestions to accede are rejected by Smith as militarily dangerous, while Rocket Offense calls Southland a Kindred pawn. Nizhnimor proposes a trust gambit: the King will attend and remain at Southmost through the session to calm fears.

Pressed on lost influence in Southland, Thract recounts a cascade of setbacks—bungled surveillance, accidents, assassinations, prosecutions—despite tight compartmentation and shifting cryptographic paths. He breaks down, claiming some adversarial force within their networks is outmaneuvering them, though he denies any crypto compromise. Smith neither condemns nor removes him, keeping him on duty. After his exit, she warns that the breadth of failures implies a systematic security flaw, underscoring why the Lighthill team exists.