We have a minor difficulty: Caliphate medals for the Daedalus matter did not take into consideration that several of the crew are nonsapient or indeed abominations by Caliphate standards. The Kuwaiti princeling expected to make the presentation is a reasonable person and can be expected to go along with a sufficiently good front. The best bet seems to put them into explicitly non-human shells.

Daedalus is to be used as a joint training base jointly owned by EU, PRA, and PLAN-SF, with agreements for use by by India, South Africa and the Caliphate.

A temporary joint alert force will be formed from EU, PRA and RSA forces, though other navies are unwilling to be under foreign command at the ship level. A new station at L4 will serve as Joint Alert Force HQ.

Meanwhile we are setting sail for Mercury to look into the ongoing espionage and sabotage situation (in part to distract attention from the team already inserted), and point ship’s sensors at the surface with a more formal thought towards dropping comets full of volatiles into useful places.

We rig some heat-shielding for the RATS (standoff-mounted foil, and in some cases parasols) and stock up on high-heat suits.

Shuttles for use on Mercury are somewhat specialised beasts, so we arrange to haul one down from Vosper-Babbage, to be handed over to its purchaser once our posting ends; we also train in simulation. An upgraded laser altimeter will lend plausibility to the survey mission.