Chapter 10: The Diplomat's Network Remembers Her Name Carefully

The assignment arrived without a cover note, which was how Kael had learned to identify the ones his father considered self-explanatory.

A single operational file. A routing authorization under his own cipher. Attached: a provisional diplomatic petition, seventeen signatories, all junior envoys posted across the Outer Reach systems, all cross-referenced in the Bureau's personnel registry under the same mentorship designation — Voss, S., Chief Envoy, Outer Reach Accords, years one through eleven of the current diplomatic cycle. The petition itself ran to four pages of careful, measured language calling for an independent commission to review the Bureau of Internal Security's intelligence-gathering practices in outer system jurisdictions, with specific reference to the notification protocols currently under renegotiation in the treaty annex where Kael had spent three cold days the previous month.

He read it on a Tuesday morning. He did not begin drafting his operational plan until Friday.