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About an hour later in the bridge everyone is going about their duties as normal. Being the most important part of the station it is located in the core of the station itself, right along the very center of the station. It can span the entire length of the station as needed and as a form of redundancy there are actually several bridges, many of which take control of the part of the station they are around. And as per the standard agreement many of the bridges are run by one of the other member empires. But the bridge closest to the Gate is considered to be the Primary Bridge as that is also the one that Head Orenshi Riu is in charge of. It is the one responsible for handling communications to and from the station on important business. Currently Riu is not on the bridge, but that is not an absolute requirement that he is present at any time. One of the communications officers notes that the Gate near the station is starting to power up. But it isn't powering up all the way, nor is the gate's outer wall opening up. Meaning that there is a message being sent. And for a message to be sent via Gate must mean that it's high priority. As such he sends a message to Head Orenshi Riu about the incoming Gate message. Knowing that it is likely flagged as very important, he also makes a point of flagging Toreselia as well as Lady Cerise in case it is of a political meeting. If there is anyone else needed to be in the know he'll be able to tell them. If it's a public message it'll be easy for everyone to know all at the same time. But in the interest of security, if it has been encoded in any way, only this one bridge has access to all the decryption methods.

The Gate opens up just enough to let the signal through and that goes straight to the station. It'd be extremely difficult to aim for any particular ship, especially over a Gate, but on a target that's always going to be at the same relative position to the Gate it's relatively easy. The moment the signal starts coming in he relays it to Toreselia as well and as soon as he sees the message header he quickly puts in an input into the console to make the necessary alert. And it would definitely explain why the message through the Gate. They'll likely be sending signals out through their own Gate in a moment or two, depending on the exact letter of the message. One of the primary purposes of the station is to track Coreward movement. Getting a signal that a Coreward has suddenly changed directions is definitely something of utmost importance. He waits for the signal for the designation of the Coreward in question to make the changes on the map they have set aside in the system for all Coreward placement, a map that any ship is allowed to just grab without even asking. Though the Corewards aren't marked, they are regular in their behavior and so maps can track where one is and so long as they stay up to date on the location there is no confusion. Once he's certain that he knows which one the message is talking about he then puts in the coordinates the message indicates and then the map will automatically update.

That seems to be all the message was sending as it just repeats the message again a few more times just to be safe. But his console gives an alert, one saying that a Coreward is on a direct path to a known object, drawing his attention from the message. Knowing that it might be corresponding with the information he just changed he checks the map to see where it's intersecting with a path. If it's a major installation then they'll send a Gate message to them as well, assuming the original message didn't ping them as well. And when he sees the single object that the Coreward's path is in pace to intersect he at first is skeptical that he might have put in the information wrong. He checks it over again real quick and everything matches completely.

Knowing the emergency involved he sends a message to Riu's communicator directly.

"This is Head Orenshi Riu."

"Sir, it's about the Gate message. According to their data there's a Coreward heading our way."

"I'm on my way," he gets as a response then a notable chime telling him that the connection has been severed.

The communications officer looks again at the data, making sure that everything that he has done so far is as correct as he is able to make it. There is always the possibility that he put in any of the data wrong and that may skew the results. But after checking all of the information that was sent through the Gate, even going so far as to check each part of the message for anything wrong he still comes up with the exact same response. As far as he can tell the message is truly genuine. He turns and takes a good, long look at the map of the nearby systems, half wondering what's going on and if they'll be safe if a Coreward does end up showing up. But as it is still his job in this matter and not really requiring any permission to do so once the message is done and the Gate has shut down he begins firing up the Gate himself, with the intent on passing on the updated heading for that particular Coreward as well as asking any of the locations in its former path if the updated trajectory is legitimate or if it's still found carrying on as before.

About half an hour later Cerise sighs as she enters into the council chamber, their little room far away from anything that would be an obvious target. Of course, a Coreward would be making its way to the station. Her intuition regarding her magic acting up apparently was right on the money. She just hopes that it's either a misunderstanding or won't go nearly as badly as she fears it might. Not all of the council members will be here to this particular meeting. Some, like the heads of the Guardians and the Shadows have no place in this discussion. Neither party would be able to do anything in the event of a Coreward showing up. She's honestly surprised Magis is called in for the meeting when she enters. Carol and herself have people they need to inform depending on the course of action of a Coreward heading in their direction. Toreselia needs to manage the fleet to make sure there are no complications and Riu is in charge of the station itself. Why Magis is here, however.

"So the first order of business is how authentic do we hold this information?" Riu asks.

Cerise can understand the skepticism. Corewards are most definitely a big deal. The very nature of needing to have this message means that they might not be substantiated. And to go into a full Coreward alert will cause a panic and cost quite a bit of money to everyone involved, let alone being an unnecessary disruption to the lives of so many. If it's genuine and they don't partly evacuate then many could lose their lives.

"Well," Magis says, "the signal was not a verified source. There was no indication as to why it's coming over. We've already done a sweep for Consortium Tech and couldn't see anything. The signal was sent by a ship through a Gate in the human sector, two light years away from where the Coreward was located. It's possible they could have sent it, but at the same time there's no reason why they would change direction."

"But at the same time it isn't something we can leave alone if it is legitimate." Toreselia says

"How long do we have?" Riu asks.

"Based on a Coreward's usual speed? About four days."

"Well not enough time to issue a full evacuation for the station. Guess we'll just have to go by the usual playbook when it comes to Corewards. Carol, I want you to go ahead and just tell them all the truth. That we have received an unsubstantiated report of a Coreward heading in our direction but we do not yet have any confirmation about the report."

"That should be fine enough," Carol responds. "Anyone who can leave early can make a rush for it, those that can't will just have to hope the Corewards have no interest in the station itself. Suppose we can probably start evacuating some to the planet?"

"Wouldn't really mean much to be honest," Cerise says in response, her mind flashing back to the people who had tried hiding from the Corewards back on Mars and that played out for them. "Not with a Coreward. If they wanted to get someone the planet is not going to stop them. And the facilities down there are not designed to really handle that many people for a prolonged period of time. If the everything but the planet was destroyed, station, Gate and all, then odds are quite good they'd all just die down there before anyone was able to give them any help anyway."

"Either way, we should go about restricting access to the station for now. That any ship that tries to dock with the station should first be scanned for Consortium tech. How many scanners do we have?" Toreselia asks.

"Two," Magis responds.

Cerise frowns slightly. Corewards hold the place holding Consortium tech as liable for having it even if they didn't endorse it. But they understand that it's impossible to keep Consortium tech out if they can't find it, so the Consortium will give major installations the means to detect them if they're actively searching. It's in some regards the only approved form of Consortium technology allowed. But two scanners would have no chance of finding anything on the station itself. Even on the ships coming into the station two scanners is extremely unfeasible. It'd be enough that they can still get some transit, but it would mean restricting access of the entire station to only two ports of entry so that they can properly scan anyone coming on board. Which would restrict the station down to only an emergency.

"Not enough to fully catch a potential problem," Riu says before sighing, rubbing his hands around his eyes. "Cerise, you should probably inform the politicians that they are not going to be evacuated right now. We do not have sufficient evidence to justify a full evacuation at this time, especially with another seven hours before it would show up. However, they should make sure that they are ready to be evacuated later on, especially when the deadline gets closer."

"Sure, I'm also going to go ahead and tell them that all meetings for the next few days are going to be cancelled. Last thing I really care for would be to deal with having to sit through every delegate coming up with these elaborate reasons why the Corewards are just happening to be coming for the politician they dislike and how we should censure them beforehand to appease the Consortium. Anything of significant need I can still bring up but since most will just talk through HAPIs I doubt there will be much issue in that. And considering their normal diplomatic immunity and whatnot I'll pass word along that any one that wants to take a brief hiatus from the station will be allowed to do so provided they allow for their shuttle to be properly scanned by one of our scanners first. They'll complain, but I'm not about to have this station destroyed just so someone could use their political station to smuggle Consortium Tech."

"Sounds like a plan," Riu says. "Magis, do what you can with the scanners, see if you can't figure out a way to have the station amplify their signal to make scanning ships all the faster. And I'll be sure to keep you all informed should any of what would have been the next stops for that Coreward makes any comment correcting our information. Dismissed," he says, and lets them all start to leave, Cerise being the only other one physically at the station while all the others are simply in a HAPI and can just turn theirs off. Riu certainly hopes that everything will simply turn out to have just been one big ruse but he's not holding out any hopes on that matter. In the mean time they have a few days to prepare for quite the event. It'll be the first time he's even seen a Coreward in a long time.

The next day Kinou steps out of a restaurant and turns the corner to head towards his own apartment. If he took the public lifts it would be much faster. But it's simply a habit of his to take less travelled routes. This allows him to keep his senses sharp and not have to worry about any surprises. That and the fact that after their last mission there wasn't an immediate need for his services. The Consortium is way outside his group's jurisdiction. In fact, he'd have to check, but he wouldn't be surprised if there provisions in the charter that specifically prohibited his group from ever getting involved when the Consortium is concerned, on the off-chance of antagonizing them. Even still he's been keeping an ear out and has his group checking with their contacts discretely to see if they can find any indication as to who the Consortium is coming for. However, he knows that if they did find any credible lead at this time the most they could do is report it. The Consortium would notice if they took additional steps and may retaliate. So the lynx was going through the rounds of checking with all of his contacts and taking his time, not so much looking for information about the incoming Corewards but rather just anything they might know that would be an interest to his group. The Shadows are effectively on paid leave at the moment until the Coreward threat has passed. A few of his members has taken that to heart and taken a few days just to themselves and their friends, which Kinou can't really argue about. To him, the casual nature of not having any particular orders or any orders coming in the next few days is a nice change of pace if nothing else. And yet, despite all of his training and the fact he travelled more empty routes, he finds that a feral has managed to sneak up on him and is floating around on the same path. He never even saw the kitsune approach. He only notices that the feral has approached by feeling the sensation of the Language of Intent being used on him.

"You're Kinou, right?" The feral asks, causing Kinou to tense up in response. "The leader of the Shadows of this station?"

Kinou turns and faces this feral, his eyes narrowing a bit. He can't sense much of anything. Can't see anything different about them from anyone else other than that they are a feral. His mind goes through a long list of things as he tries to piece together what this oddity in front of him is. Ferals are supposed to be against technology as a principle, and yet there's one on a space station. And not only that he recognized Kinou as not only being a part of the Shadows but the leader of it, a detail that should have been considered the highest level of secret that only a few of the council members should have known. That's one of the reasons he's not allowed to even be seen by the Head Guardian. She cannot know who he is because she needs to have plausible deniability while maintaining full accountability.

The only person Kinou can think of that should potentially know who he is would be Ret. Ret's not technically supposed to know about him. He was never on the council, only the head of the politicians. But Ret's associates get into just about everywhere and is another reason to avoid the more public routes. But even then Ret knows that some things are best overlooked and Ret would never send anyone to actually speak to him, that would play his hand far too obviously. If Ret wanted to know about his activities, then the Jhereshii would go to Riu or any of the other council members that are supposed to know who he is and talk to them directly. He is not known for ever using an intermediary to talking with people. Meaning for this feral to have found out who he is there must be either a breach with either their network or with Ret's. Either one would be a big issue if a feral can get at them.

"Can I help you?" Kinou asks the other individual, careful to not actually admit to anything.

"I am Prince Mige se Yiena, a pleasure to meet you. It must have been so exhilarating for your group to do something so grand as going after an anti-matter bomb."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kinou deflects, noting the phrasing they used.

"Of course, of course. Anyway, wanted to come find you, introduce myself and see how you measure up. This wouldn't be nearly interesting enough if I only had your Chief of Security looking after me and I don't think you'd ever think to watch for me if I didn't introduce myself. And I have to say that though I am not disappointed in you, I am by no means at all impressed."

Kinou faces this other person and sizes them up more fully, trying to decide if they're trying to pick a fight. Though he's not explicitly forbidden from protecting himself, while on the station and not under the protections afforded by official Shadow business he should avoid any and all actions that may attract the attention of the Guardians. The numbers on their badge are fairly low, nor does he see anything on them that one would find with any of the dedicated mages. And no weapons whatsoever as far as he can tell. In fact, the lynx can't even tell any sign of how the kitsune seems to be floating at the moment. He's not wearing a battery and the air doesn't seem to be getting any colder so it can't be Sym magic. As he stares a small smile seems to grow on the kitsune's muzzle. Their motion is far too mechanical, too steady and becoming even more so every second, to the extent it almost looks like a poor rendering from one of the movies. Kinou closes his eyes for a second and listens to his other senses, they don't agree with what his eyes were seeing. He can't hear any footsteps but where they sound like they are and smell like they are do not match his eyes. That damn feral has him under an illusion and he didn't even notice.

"There we go," Mige says cheerily from right behind Kinou's head, causing him to open his eyes and spin around quickly, cursing himself for letting this feral get the better of him. But as he turns he can't see the feral anywhere. Nor can any of his other senses pick them up either anymore. Just in case he sends out a quick little pulse of his own Sym magic and even that can't feel anything. "This will be much more fun now," Mige adds in from seemingly nowhere.

Kinou can feel the Language of Intent being removed and stares around the area, trying to figure out what just happened and just who was he dealing with. At any rate, Kinou turns to go take the more public routes, feeling the need to get back home as quickly as he can so that he can report to Riu about the feral and a potential breach in security.