Chapter 17: The Broadcast from Platform Nine

The case appeared in his queue at 0714.

Kael saw the assignment code before he saw anything else — PVB-5601-A — and then the originating source: Platform Nine Planetary Broadcast, Kerev Mining Colony, Outer Mid-Rim. He had not heard of Kerev. He opened the primary document.

The broadcast was dated eleven days prior. A planetary governor named Corrath — no first name in the header, which was unusual; most governors maintained full nomenclature in official communications, a vanity the Empire tolerated — had delivered a productivity address to the colony's labor administration board. The transcript was sixteen paragraphs. Kael read it once through without notation, the way Tael had taught him in the first week. Get the shape of it before you mark it.