2175 C.E.

IV: The Coming of the Black Ship

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Official Diplomatic Dispatch: From Grushan Senate: To Terran Global Hegemony President's Office: 07/06/2175 0230 EST

To Yan An-Sing, President of the Terran Hegemony, from Almarith, Praetor of the Grushan Federation, Chairman of the Grushan Senate, Commander of the Federal Grushan Star Fleet

Greetings. I contact you because the Terran Hegemony has recently withdrawn what appears to be the entire Terran Star Fleet to the Terran home world. We can surmise only one possible explanation; aggression against the Novan Alliance. While the Grushan Senate understands the delicate nature of your relationship with your former colony, we have become close trade partners with Nova and will not allow Terran aggression towards them. If this is indeed your intention, I would advise you to rethink it.

Personal Journal: William Aucaman

07/06/2175

Yesterday evening, HNN reported that a large number of Hegemony Star Fleet ships had been recalled to the Earth system. The private news networks corroborated the story, so my family and I are confident that the report is accurate. Then, my brother hacked into a Hegemony sensor satellite and looked for himself; we counted 73 ships in the system, including two carriers, six battle cruisers and two battleships. We didn't tell Mom and Dad that he'd done it, of course, but Adrian's been hacking into their systems for months. Sometimes, it pays to have a genius in the family. No troop ships had been mobilized, and neither has the military on Earth. None of us know the exact size of Earth's fleet, but I would guess that with ten shipyards, five systems and a hundred years, this might be all of it. If I were on Nova right now, I would look to my guns.

I believe I may have figured out why Cynthia dislikes me. We met again to plan and study today; I wanted to make sure her half was going all right. A lull in the conversation had hit as I was reading about the federal separation of powers in the Grushan Federation, and she stopped and stared at me. She must have been staring for some time, although I hadn't noticed, before she broke the silence.

"Why, on Earth, don't you have an Interlink?" she asked.

I asked her why I would want one.

"Because the Hegemony gives Sesame points for owning the latest model. Because you can access the internet from your head and do anything. Because you can drive and run your home with just thinking. And, I mean, you're a guy. The porn is supposed to be amazing."

These were her words. I told her that I wasn't interested in any of those things.

"Sesame points are just a way for the government make you happy to obey them. I have a handheld device that does the same thing just as well. Because I don't have a smart home and we do everything manually. And I don't do porn."

She was surprised. "I don't know where to begin. First, a handheld? What is this, the 2040's?"

I explained to her that my device was made by a private company in Michigan, and that it has top of the line wireless access and security.

"But it's a handheld!" she said.

"Yes it is, but it doesn't record everything I see and think and send it to the government or Ambience Corp." I explained.

"What's that got to do with anything?" she asked me. She seemed surprised. Do people not actually think these days?

I told her. "Imagine if someone was watching you all day every day with everything you do, from sleeping to school to thinking." She didn't seem convinced, so I pressed on. "Doesn't it bother you that there could be people could be watching you fantasize over a hot guy or showering or something through your own eyes? Because they can do that with neural Interlinks."