A soft chime echoed through the chamber.
Not the usual tone of a door opening. This one was subtler, more refined. Something designed to be noticed without disrupting the air of quiet authority. A clearance request. In this wing of the Command Complex, nothing entered or left without deliberate approval. Not people. Not orders. Not even refreshments.
Governor Krell turned his head slightly toward the wall console, one brow lifting in acknowledgment, his demeanor unchanged.
"Ah," he murmured, half to himself. "Right on time."
He extended one hand to the embedded control panel at the edge of the holotable and tapped in a sequence with the practiced ease of someone who didn't need to look twice.
"Granted."
The door at the far end of the room hissed open with surgical precision, just enough to permit entry. Through the narrow frame glided a drone attendant, its movement smooth and quiet, each step cushioned by invisible grav pads. It was humanoid in design, but stylized—more sculpture than servant, its surface finished in a reflective obsidian-silver alloy that glimmered under the chamber's ambient lights.
Cradled in the grav-tray suspended between its arms were two matte-black ceramic cups, delicate in design but emanating warmth. Wisps of steam curled from their openings in thin, elegant spirals that dissipated as they rose.
The scent arrived before the drone reached the center of the room. Faint, but unmistakably organic. A soft, earthy aroma layered with floral notes that whispered of soil, wind, and sun. Not something brewed from nutrient packs or synthesized leaves. This was grown. Cultivated.
It was real.
Ethan's gaze flicked to the tray, his senses sharpening instinctively. The contrast with his past, desert-ration tea, bitter field blends, or the harsh utilitarian drinks common in outposts like Ridgefall or Arak's Hollow, was almost surreal.
Krell didn't rise. He simply lifted his hand with a dignified ease, gesturing for the drone to approach.
The machine obeyed, gliding across the room in a perfect arc, stopping just short of the holotable.
Krell reached forward, retrieving one of the cups. His fingers wrapped around it with practiced grace. Then he extended the other across the glowing table, offering it to Ethan with a courteous, wordless nod. not performative, but deeply cultured.
"Tea?" he said, finally. "Fresh from a planet called Camellia, in the Verdanis System, Ilyaris Sector. A small, lush world covered in slow-growing forest terraces and volcanic ridges. They produce microlots of the highest-grade tea in the Federation. They are harvested by hand, under silence, in early dawn light. The growers believe sound disturbs the leaves."
There was no bragging in his tone. Just reverence. Almost as if he were quoting something sacred.
Ethan accepted the cup with a murmur of thanks, the warmth of the ceramic settling into his palms with a soothing pressure. It was heavier than it looked. Solid. Grounding. The rim was slightly irregular, hand-fired, not mass-produced.
He lifted the cup slowly and took a careful sip.
The tea was clean, almost deceptively simple at first. It unfolded in stages, like watching a sunrise over clouds. The initial taste was mineral-rich and cool, then gave way to deeper notes. A warm, floral current with a faint citrus spine. Nothing artificial. No afterbite. No cloying sweetness. Just layers. And time.
For a brief moment, his mind drifted, unbidden, to a quiet spring morning in Kyoto, back on Earth. He'd been invited to a formal tea ceremony by a client during his consulting days. It had been serene, ceremonial, beautifully structured... but the taste? Bland. Underwhelming. Reverent in presentation, yes, but lacking that spark. That soul.
This, though... this tea had a pulse.
It was alive in a way no Earth blend he had tasted ever managed.
He took another sip before speaking.
"Excellent," he said, his voice low. "Subtle. Reminds me of the higher-end blends I came across in Valeris markets. Though… nothing as close to the taste of this one we're having here."
Krell allowed himself a faint smile. It didn't reach his eyes, but it was genuine enough.
"There's elegance in restraint," he replied. "Camellia's exports are mostly ceremonial. Only a few dozen kilos ever leave the planet each cycle. It's rarely served outside of council-level meetings or cultural rituals."
He paused.
"Or… private conversations."
Ethan's brow lifted slightly, but he said nothing. He swirled the cup gently in his hands, watching the liquid shift under the surface light. Even the way it moved was different. Not just a drink, but a statement.
The drone silently withdrew, exiting as smoothly as it had entered. The doors sealed behind it with barely a whisper.
For a moment, silence held the room again.
But now, it was no longer the patient silence of diplomacy. It was the silence before the drop.
Krell set his cup down first. His hands didn't move to the control panel immediately. Instead, he took a breath, just one, before slowly leaning forward and tapping a new series of commands.
Panels descended from the ceiling and walls. Thin, translucent sheets shimmered into place around the room's perimeter, creating a sterile, shielded cocoon. Small spherical nodes rose and hovered in the corners, humming faintly as their internal mechanisms synced. The air changed, denser, quieter, like someone had pulled a curtain across reality.
Ethan didn't need an explanation. He recognized it all, even if the configurations were more advanced than what he'd trained with in simulations or encountered during his time on Kynara.
Anti-espionage measures. Full spectrum. High-grade. Military-administrative class.
The kind of safeguards deployed only in rooms where galactic strategy or dangerous truths were shared.
First came the signal scrubbers, invisible to the eye, but active. Every wave, frequency, and pulse within a twenty-meter radius was scattered into white noise, preventing any external device from locking onto even the hint of a pattern.
Then the resonance baffles, they dampened ambient echoes, blocked psionic traces, and even filtered sub-vocal biometrics. No lip-reading, no microexpression recording, no sound memory embedded in the walls.
Every surface in the room became a blank canvas, scrubbed of record, identity, and presence.
Even the datapads they carried, standard-issue, Federation-compliant and secure, would now display only static and randomized background noise. Any attempt to record or transmit would result in null packets and frozen interfaces. Probably not even Iris would be able to receive or send pings until the field dropped, but he wasn't totally sure of that.
It was total. Surgical. Paranoid.
And absolutely necessary.
Krell sat straighter, the light in the room sharpening ever so slightly as the final lock engaged. A soft hum under the floor, like the room itself was drawing breath.
"Now that the introductions are done," he said, voice even but noticeably firmer at the edges, "we can move on to what truly matters."
His tone had changed. Not hostile. Not aggressive. Just… stripped of all ceremony.
The diplomat was gone.
What remained was the man behind the office.
And maybe, Ethan thought, the one behind the curtain too.
He didn't move. He didn't blink. He didn't lean in or shift his posture for dramatic effect.
He didn't need to.
He simply met Krell's eyes, steady and silent, letting the stillness stretch between them like a drawn wire.
"Finally," he said. And meant it.