Deciding Next Steps

"Did you enjoy yourself dear?" Elizabeth asked you the next day, she'd naturally stayed with Lexi for the evening. She'd of course been welcome to join in but she'd never really enjoyed group activities. She preferred to be one-on-one with either you or Stephanie when it came to carnal affairs.

"Yes but the doctor says I've extended her stay by a day or two." You said, not finding it in yourself ashamed despite the unflinchingly polite lecture you'd received from the royal physician.

"I'm sure you're heartbroken."

"I suppose that will depend more on what comes next. Selina is back from her operation and Maria should be as well soon with the miners. We'll start making our plans. Ethan has confirmed there's two more gates in that sector so its something to think about." You noted, "We're going to need to handle things carefully here. I was considering asking Vivian to bring a diplomatic team home with her."

"And what gives you hesitation?"

"Well the size of her ship for one. It can fit three but not comfortably. The other thing is I don't know who I would put in it. We don't have a formal diplomatic corps. Plus we don't actually know what we'd be sending them into. Vivian has been pretty cagey about details. Understandably but-"

"Then send Jessica." Elizabeth said, raising a hand to forestall complaints. "I'm not being petty. She is a logical choice for the role. Despite our differences I do respect her. She's a noblewoman from a distinguished house as well as a Marine. She can fake being civilized long enough to establish relations and should matters go awry she has the necessary training to make her way out if an opportunity presents itself."

"I wonder if she'd be saying the same thing about you." You joked, but she had raised some good points.

"If you ask me to go I will." Elizabeth said, "It would show an immense level of trust, perhaps exactly what we need to show them that we are open to diplomacy."

"It would give them a hostage if they didn't feel the same way." You said, shaking your head but not refusing it out of hand. "I was also considering asking Lady Olan for one of her operatives."

Prior to the re-opening of the gate your nation didn't have need of a formal international spying organization. The closest you had was the internal security services to deal with domestic threats. Even the most popular administration had enemies. Lady Olan was the woman in command of the organization.

"We could of course just wait for them to send diplomats but that might mean they send warships instead. From her sensors as far she's concerned our fleet is made up of a single Rapier. She'll probably suspect there's more but all her government will have to go on is her logs and given the state of her ship and the demonstration of just how well we fixed it she's going to be a walking advertisement of our capabilities. I'm thinking we could have Selina take the Falx or a Katana out while she's leaving to show we've got some big guns to protect it. Or try to schedule her leaving around when the miners would be in range with their escorts."

"Unless you wanted them to underestimate us in the hopes of making them show their true colors." Elizabeth pointed out.