the back of his head. Brad knew him through the
phys-psy profiles he had studied before the meeting.

##

"Captain Yargoul," Brad said, "sooner or later the
UIPS must accept that they no longer have mastery
of space beyond the Belt."

Altering his tone to include all, he continued, "I
needn't dwell on the obvious: our collective forces
and Slingshot's distance from the UIPS places
us in a far stronger position than we thought we
would be at this time. I emphasize collective. On
our own, any of us, individually as nations or in an
alliance of satellites, wouldn't stand long against
an organized assault by a UIPS battle fleet. But,
collectively, we will not only resist them, we will
win and take back full control of space throughout
the Outer Region."

Eyes cold, voice gritty as space-sand, Brad tapped
the tabletop.

"Having the power isn't enough. We've got to show
it, and make it credible. Planet Pluto demonstrated
what can be done with real power during Operation
Tornado Six. I'm sure you're all familiar with that
little exercise, and have studied the tactics."

Closed faces. The silence was broken with low but
audible, "So have their tac ops people."

"Right, and we think they've concluded that
INOR is in a strong position to run its territories
and voids without any more interference from
them. Also, that we can devise tactics and take
initiatives that put them off balance and upset
their Slingshot schedule. What we did in our
legally contiguous space can be repeated elsewhere.
The result is the end of UIPS dominance over its
former colonies and space lanes."

Brad paused to preface his next words.

"You can continue to accept invasive UIPS traffic
through your territorial and contiguous zones. You
can do the same for their uninvited presence in
your Exclusive Economic Zones even though the
Laws of the Seas Conventions over the past several
millennia expanded treaties to include or affirm
each independent nation's rights. Or you can align
with Planet Pluto, which is your right as a free
and independent nation. Together -- collectively --
we can demand that the UIPS acknowledge INOR's
jurisdiction in the Outer Region. INOR can back
their demands with military power that the UIPS
can no longer ignore."

There was a long silence, followed by, "What does
the Log Depot have to do with it?"

"First, it's the closest, most politically
vulnerable target within INOR's legitimate
boundaries and juri