The Peacekeeper Initiative meets officials on Tano only fourteen months after the former empire abandoned the world it had ruled through slavery. Negotiators from several species use the former conquerors' language because it remains their only shared diplomatic medium. Captain Wong attends as both a starship commander and military adviser even though the formal talks belong to the ambassador. Distant gunfire then exposes how quickly political reconstruction can become a security operation when the new state's institutions remain fragile.
Chapter · 2:21:18-2:23:18
Negotiating on a newly liberated slave world
Gunfire interrupts talks between outside peacekeepers and a newborn government still working inside the institutions and language of its former empire.