Aresh couldn't help but bristle at the unexpected arrival of the Dominion vessels. Something nagged at him. Something was off about this meeting. Four-Zero, his first mate, sent him a private text message via the datalink.<br/><br/>'Scrub target locks?'<br/><br/>Aresh pondered it for a moment as Tagore mused about his latest conquest, something about the subjugation of yet another primitive and defenseless species. He pulsed a negative response along the link and sat back, still tense. He pulled up a 2-D vid link to the conference, just to make sure everything was going along smoothly. All of the delegates remained as they were, with two bodyguards for each delegation standing at attention in the rear. Negotiations continued as normal. Good. Perhaps he was simply getting paranoid.<br/><br/>The Urem continued to blather until Aresh interrupted. 'Tagore, is there a point to this conversation?'<br/><br/>'Ah, yes, yes, Khur-Commander. There is a point. I have fought a hundred battles with a hundred species, but there was always one that eluded me, one that, due to politics, never could enter my gunsights, Commander.'<br/><br/>Aresh felt he knew the answer to the question already. He gestured for Tagore to hold his thought and glanced at the screen. What was bothering him? Snap out of it, you old dog. You're just getting paranoid in your old a--<br/><br/>A third guard. There was a third guard behind the Terran speaker, designate Wordsmith.<br/><br/>'Get me a line to the summit<span style="font-style: italic">now</span>,' Aresh barked to his comm officer. His datalink pulsed in response as the officer opened a link to the space station. 'Wordsmith, you must evacuate the conference chamber immediately.'<br/><br/>'Commander Aresh,' the Terran said gently, bringing a finger to his commlink, 'is there a reason for your sudden interruption?'<br/><br/>'Consider it a hunch, Ambassador. You must evacuate this instant. I have reason to believe--'<br/><br/>'Hold your peace for a moment, Commander.' On the display, Aresh saw Wordsmith turn to face the third guard, who had produced a dataslate from an armored hip compartment.<br/><br/>'Wordsmith, whatever you do, do<span style="font-style: italic">not</span>--'<br/><br/>The Terran pressed a finger to the dataslate. A flash of light. A whitewash of the visual link, followed by a cut to a static-filled visual feed. Aresh heard dozens of voices call out.<br/><br/>'Nuclear detonation detected on Statio--'<br/><br/>'Status report! Ensign, damage reports n--'<br/><br/>'--ee what happened? Open a link to the station freq--'<br/><br/>Aresh shut the comm as Tagore roared in a mixture of surprise and panic.<br/><br/>'ARESH! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?'<br/><br/>The Khur gripped his command chair's armrests, tensing as he glanded combat stims into his system. 'Captain, I assure y--'<br/><br/>'THAT WAS A NUCLEAR DETONATION,<span style="font-style: italic">WHORESON</span>!' The Captain's gravelly voice deepened further to a deep, basso growl. 'The Dominion will hear of this, Aresh. I thought I could trust your people to speak peacefully, but you resort to base<span style="font-style: italic">terrorism</span>and<span style="font-style: italic">murder</span>? This is an act of war!'<br/><br/>'Tagore, you idiot, this is no time f--'<br/><br/>The Dominion officer cut his video feed. Aresh could do little but stare in slack-jawed horror at the implications of this event. Four-Zero's voice shook him out of his reverie quickly enough, as did the warning klaxons indicating an enemy target lock.<br/><br/>'Orders, sir? What do we do?' The Terran's voice wavered with fear. Even after having served alongside one for over a decade, Aresh still found the robotic species' emotive nature paradoxical and surprising. The old Khur soldier spoke with a heavy heart, reluctant to believe that it had happened at last.<br/><br/>'Launch our fighter screen and signal a weapons free order to the other frigates. The Cold War is over, Mister Four-Zero. Load the spinal lance with augur rounds and slave its fire control system to me. Gunnery, focus laser fire on the shield seam  on the grand cruiser at these coordinates.'<br/><br/>On the battlesphere display, dozens upon dozens of Dominion dots flashed into existence. Tagore had called in reinforcements. Had they been waiting outside of sensor range this whole time? Had the bombing been a false flag operation orchestrated by a Dominion agent? Aresh shook his head. No time to think about such things now. He uploaded a numerical sequence to his ship's gunnery decks and began sending targeting data to every other Confed vessel within range. The ships of the 108th Expeditionary Fleet would need every bit of help they could get.