The first test came disguised as routine logistics, which was exactly why Tobias took it personally. At midmorning, Kvasir presented a neatly packaged request with three redundant verifications and the kind of bureaucratic cleanliness that meant someone was trying to force a yes. A Merwyn relief convoy had reached the edge of the blockade lane, carrying pressure-seal composites, med-pods, and replacement filtration units for two reef districts that had been rebuilt faster than their infrastructure could comfortably sustain. The cargo was lawful, chartered, and sealed under alliance protocols Tobias himself had signed.
Freedom Military Contractor responded to the convoy request within two minutes, which was faster than caution and slower than courtesy. Their message was polite, dense with corporate language, and threaded with the passive authority of people who believed a contract could substitute for sovereignty. They insisted on inspection "for safety," demanded route alteration "to avoid navigational hazard," and attempted to insert an FMC boarding crew "to certify compliance." Tobias read the message once, then a second time, and the longer he stared at it the clearer it became that the blockade did not intend to be a fence. It intended to be a leash.
Trace did not bother hiding his contempt. "They're trying to normalize control," he said, voice low as he watched the convoy's icon hover at the boundary like a bird refusing to land. Cassian stood rigid behind Tobias, expression calm but eyes sharpened, and Kvasir's pleasant mask did not quite conceal the predatory interest in his gaze. The remaining SCORPIO squad remained unseen, but Tobias felt their quiet presence at the edge of the chamber like breath held behind a hand. Tobias let the silence stretch long enough to settle the room into readiness, because impatience was the easiest way to invite error.
"They don't get to 'certify' anything in Imperial space," Tobias said at last. "They are contractors, not stewards, and not judges." He turned to Kvasir. "Draft a reply citing Imperial charter authority and the Merwyn charter clauses, with explicit language declaring their inspection demand unlawful interference." Kvasir nodded once, already moving, while Tobias looked to Trace and Cassian. "Prepare an escort," he added. "Two destroyers, Hawthorne hulls, transponders clean, weapons cold but not asleep."
The escorts departed orbit within minutes, sliding toward the convoy corridor with crisp discipline. Tobias watched their icons shift along the hololith, two Victory-class destroyers moving like swift knives along a predetermined line. Above them, the FMC fleet remained in that calm corporate wall, twenty-two Lunar-class hulls positioned to be seen and to be obeyed. Tobias knew General Vane expected him to compromise, because compromise was how contractors won without firing.
The convoy entered the lane as soon as the escort arrived, and that was the moment the corporate smile cracked. FMC ships shifted formation just enough to narrow the corridor, and a boarding cutter detached from one of their hulls with the deliberateness of a hand reaching toward someone else's pocket. Its transponder identified it as a "safety inspection team," which was the kind of lie that insulted intelligence by pretending it was a courtesy. Tobias's jaw tightened, not with rage, but with decision.
He opened a hail to the FMC flagship again, and the response came quickly, as though Vane had been waiting for the sound of Tobias's voice. The general's face appeared on the screen with the same composed calm, the same tidy uniform, and the same practiced expression of reason. Tobias noted the faint tension around his eyes that had not been there the first time, and he took satisfaction in that detail without letting it soften his focus.
"General Vane," Tobias said evenly, "your boarding cutter is in motion toward a lawful Merwyn convoy under Hawthorne escort." He kept his voice calm enough to sound diplomatic and sharp enough to sound final. "If that cutter crosses the escort's warning line, I will treat it as hostile interference with alliance-protected traffic." Vane's smile tightened, and Tobias watched the corporate commander choose which mask to wear.
"My lord," Vane replied, "this is a safety verification, nothing more. Our contract obligates us to prevent contraband and destabilizing material from transiting during the Clansmoot petition." Tobias's gaze did not move. "My charter obligates me to prevent corporate overreach from becoming governance," Tobias said. "Withdraw the cutter. You will not touch Merwyn aid supplies, and you will not set precedent that you can."
For two seconds, the channel held only the soft static of restrained power. Then Vane exhaled, and Tobias saw the decision settle behind his eyes. "Very well," Vane said, voice still polite. "The cutter will hold." The boarding craft slowed and drifted, hovering like a dog that had been yanked back by its leash, and the convoy continued forward under Hawthorne escort with engines steady and seals intact.
The war chamber's tension eased by a fraction, but Tobias did not mistake that for victory. He watched the FMC fleet, watched their formation, watched the way they held position as if patience alone could win them the world. Trace leaned closer, speaking softly. "That was the first shove," he said. "They'll shove harder next time."
Before Tobias could answer, the Merwyn shoved back.
A liaison envoy arrived at the palace less than an hour later, escorted not by Hawthorne guards, but by Merwyn sentinels whose armor glimmered faintly with bioluminescent threads. They moved through the corridors with quiet anger, not loud or chaotic, but concentrated, like pressure building beneath an ocean shelf. At their center walked the High Chief's chosen emissary, a tall figure draped in deep blue ceremonial cloth, carrying a sealed cylinder of sea-glass that looked more like a relic than a message.
Tobias received them in the war chamber with Archimedes absent and SCORPIO mostly gone, which meant the burden of diplomacy sat entirely on his shoulders. Duchess Satine attended, poised and attentive, while Trace and Cassian stood behind Tobias in formal support. Kvasir positioned himself near the consoles as if ready to produce any document needed to make truth undeniable. The Merwyn envoy did not bow, but inclined their head in a restrained gesture that acknowledged alliance without pretending intimacy.
"Lord Hawthorne," the envoy said through a translator device, voice controlled, "our sanctuaries have been touched." Tobias felt the room tighten immediately. "Touched how?" he asked, keeping his tone steady. The envoy turned slightly, and one of the Merwyn sentinels extended a device that projected an underwater feed across the hololith.
FMC drones drifted through Merwyn exclusion depths like pale parasites.
They moved with silent thrusters and carried scanning arrays that pulsed with faint light, mapping reef geometries and seabed cavities that were protected by the charter Tobias had signed. The drones did not carry weapons, but they carried intent, and intent was enough to make Merwyn blood remember chains. Tobias watched the feed and felt his stomach tighten, because this was not a mistake. It was a deliberate boundary test, the corporate version of a boot stepping just far enough over a line to see if anyone protested.
"They violate our sacred zones," the envoy said, voice still controlled but sharpened by restrained fury. "We do not ask for your anger. We ask for your enforcement." The words were not a plea. They were a measure. Tobias understood immediately that if he hesitated, the alliance would remain ink and not reality.
Trace spoke first, voice low and lethal. "If they're mapping sanctuaries, they're looking for staging cavities and hidden routes." Cassian's eyes narrowed, and Tobias could see him building operational responses in his head. Kvasir's fingers moved across his slate, and he quietly began pulling charter clauses with the efficiency of a man who enjoyed proving others wrong. Tobias listened to them all, but the decision belonged to him, and he accepted that weight without flinching.
He opened a hail to General Vane again, and this time he did not give room for corporate politeness.
"General," Tobias said, voice calm and cold, "your drones are operating in Merwyn exclusion depths protected under a formal Imperial stewardship charter and a signed Hawthorne–Merwyn alliance." He gestured, and the drone feed appeared on Vane's screen. "Withdraw them immediately. If you require mapping, you request it through lawful channels. If you remain in those sanctuaries, I will treat it as an act of hostile reconnaissance against an allied population."
Vane's expression tightened, and for the first time the corporate calm looked strained. "Those drones are routine sensor platforms," he said. "They're ensuring the blockade isn't being bypassed through underwater routes." Tobias's gaze did not soften. "Then you should have asked," Tobias replied. "And because you did not, you have confirmed what I already suspected."
Vane leaned slightly forward, voice still polite, but now edged. "My lord, you are escalating administrative misunderstandings into military threats." Tobias kept his tone even. "No," he said. "You are turning 'protection' into control by inches. I'm simply refusing to be trained into accepting it."
He cut the channel and turned to the Merwyn envoy.
"I will enforce the charter," Tobias said, his voice deliberate. "You will not strike those drones yourselves, because I will not allow FMC to paint you as aggressors. We will handle this openly and lawfully, with force held in reserve." The envoy studied him for a long moment, then inclined their head more deeply. "Then the deep will remember you as ally," they replied, and the words carried weight like submerged stone.
Tobias issued the next order quietly, and only to those who needed it.
"Second Naval Squadron remains dark," he told Cassian and Trace, voice low enough that it would not travel beyond the room. "But I want them moved to a tighter posture behind the third moon. Task Groups One and Two adjust strike vectors to cover the FMC drone command relays." Cassian nodded once, understanding instantly. Kvasir's slate chimed as encrypted packets left the palace in tightbeam bursts, sliding through space like invisible needles.
An hour later, the FMC drones withdrew.
They did so slowly, as if reluctant, and Tobias watched their retreat with the satisfaction of a man who had prevented a boundary from becoming a precedent. Yet he did not feel peace, because this was only the opening chapter of a longer contest. Vane would report this resistance, House Mordred would exploit it at the Clansmoot, and the Lunan Corporate-State would adjust its posture in response. Tobias felt prescience stir faintly, showing him not a clear future, but the sense of a tide turning against him.
That night, the convoy reached the reef districts safely, and Merwyn lights glowed brighter along the shoreline.
From the palace balcony, Tobias watched those lights ripple beneath the water like living stars. Trace stood beside him, silent, while Cassian waited just behind with the discipline of a man who never fully left duty behind. Tobias felt the absence of Archimedes like an empty chair at a table, and he understood the shape of the trap forming around No'aar. The blockade was smiling again, but the smile had become thinner.
In the dark behind one of No'aar's moons, Hawthorne ships waited with silent engines and hungry angles.
And Tobias Hawthorne began planning how to force the next shove to become a mistake.