Lyora, who was sitting at her desk, eyed "Charles" suspiciously. Her bodyguard, Kilik, straightened menacingly and kept his compound eyes fixed on the Coalition envoy. The tension in the room was almost palpable. This envoy could very well be an assassin sent to kill the Premier and destabilise the U.D.P.R.

"Greetings to you, comrade Charles", said Lyora coldly. "What brings you to the Union? I hope you are a bearer of good news, and not an assassin sent to harm the Union of Democratic Planetary Republics."

The Union and the Coalition's relations had been very cold at best since the Coalition War. Both sides had been engaged in a quieter, less visible kind of conflict, sending spies into each other's territory and trying to hunt down said spies. Before being voted out of office, Oleron had increased police patrols in public areas, and had installed important government buildings with brand new security systems designed to detect any Coalition spies or terrorists. "Charles" was the only Coalition citizen to have set foot in the Palace of the Union. Could this mean a détente between the small coalition of planets and the superpower?