92: Chapter 92 Marcus placed a new draft on the negotiating table.

Four hours after the attack on the Griffin IV anchorage, Marcus Aurelian slapped a newly drafted agreement onto the War Council's holographic projection table. Aside from him, only Bern was present in the briefing room; Sebastian and Heinrich were still on the front lines of Griffin IV, while Oldenburg's Third Assault Fleet was shielding the damaged orbital shipyards on the inner side of the anchorage. The quantum-state communications of the Iyanden Farseer and Nephilak glowed silently in the holographic projection. At the other end of the conference table, the Brood Queen's quantum-state translator pulsed steadily with cold green light. The Overmind had not connected in person, but the replica of the Photonic Crown atop the Brood Queen's head remained in place.

Marcus skipped the pleasantries. Spreading his fingers, he pushed the new draft into the holographic projection, where the first clause, enlarged and bolded, occupied the entire screen: "The final right of interpretation for all terms of this agreement belongs to a plenary vote of the Coalition War Council. No single contracting party has the right to unilaterally interpret the text of the agreement. Any military action during the term of the agreement must be reviewed in advance by the War Council, and intelligence obtained through observer privileges shall not be used for military actions against other contracting parties."

After the Brood Queen finished reading the clause, the translator lit up: "The Overmind asks if this clause means that the plenary voting results of the Coalition War Council are legally binding on The Swarm, even if The Swarm votes against them." Marcus replied, "Yes. The Coalition War Council is not the Imperial Inquisition, nor is it The Swarm's Hive Mind. It is an institution where all contracting parties vote equally. If you vote against a motion in the council but it passes by a plenary vote, you must still execute it. This is a coalition—last time, you hardcoded automatic execution clauses into the authority return bylaw; this time, we are hardcoding collective voting into the interpretation clause. A fair trade."

Heinrich sent real-time battlefield data from the fleet channel—the Leviathan Battle Group at the Griffin IV anchorage had retreated to the outer edge of the defense line after the attack window closed, the Titan-Eater had returned to the edge of the Gravity Reef Channel, and the Zergling infiltration units had withdrawn immediately after their successful raid. He said hoarsely that The Swarm had strictly adhered to the window times, with the start and end of the attack precise to the second, completely overlapping with the United Fleet's shift handover window. They weren't venting anger; they were demonstrating the coalition's own vulnerabilities to them.

Sebastian withdrew from the forward outpost to the base ship, his power armor's breastplate bearing several new gashes from Zergling bone blades. Sitting down in the briefing room, he said that The Swarm had not pursued the transport ships evacuating civilians, and the Zerglings had spared the engineers after severing the power mains. "So what on earth was this?" he asked the Brood Queen, his tone not entirely angry, but more bewildered. "A warning, or a demonstration exercise?"

The Brood Queen forwarded the question exactly as asked. A moment later, the translator lit up: "The Overmind says this was a tactical audit. The United Fleet's actual combat performance in the battles of the Star of Judgment and the Lead-Gray Abyss has passed evaluation, but its logistical weak points and shift handover procedures have obvious defects. The Swarm completed all vulnerability scans during the observer privilege window and conducted real-world validation before the signing of the new agreement. As a side note—the vulnerability scan report has been uploaded to the coalition's shared database for the War Council's reference. The Swarm suggests that the coalition patch these vulnerabilities before signing the new agreement, because the next visitor might not be The Swarm."

Bern rested the Holy Hammer on the table and covered the Psychic Talisman with his palm. He said the Inquisition would classify this attack as a "non-hostile combat validation," but that didn't mean they were off the hook—The Swarm had proven with a beautiful raid that the coalition could not stand against them head-on after losing advanced fire-control coordination. The War Council had to make a choice: either accept the new agreement and use the interpretation clause to lock down The Swarm's unilateral actions, or refuse and take another "combat validation" during The Swarm's next window.

The Iyanden Farseer's Wraithbone Staff traced a faint blue arc in midair. The Web of Prophecy showed that The Swarm would not actively destroy the coalition fleet in the foreseeable future, but would continuously test the limits of the coalition's response in the loopholes of every clause. He said this was not betrayal, but nature—The Swarm had been a predator since day one, and a predator does not become a herbivore just because it signed an agreement. What the coalition could do was not to change The Swarm, but to bind it with sufficiently airtight clauses. Nephilak's quantum-state communication added: The Necron Dynasty codex allows for a "mandatory dispute arbitration clause" to be written into agreements—once a dispute over interpretation cannot be resolved through a plenary vote, the dispute will automatically be submitted to a quantum-state audit system with the old ones protocol compatibility layer acting as the arbitrator. This system was proposed by The Swarm itself during the last negotiations, and the coalition can incorporate it into the enforcement layer of the interpretation clause.

Marcus wrote Nephilak's suggestion directly into the draft amendment: if an interpretation dispute cannot be resolved through a plenary vote of the War Council, it will automatically be submitted to the quantum-state arbitration of the old ones protocol compatibility layer. The Brood Queen did not reply immediately. After forwarding the full text of the amendment to the Overmind, she whispered to Marcus that the Overmind was evaluating the impact of the mandatory arbitration clause on the Hive Mind's decision-making chain. Marcus looked at her, fell silent for a moment, and then said he had worked in the Imperial Inquisition for over twenty years and had never expected that one day he would be sitting in the same room with The Swarm discussing interpretation clauses. The Brood Queen replied—interpretation clauses are not for enemies; they are for teammates.

The Overmind's reply arrived three minutes later. Cold green text scrolled out line by line: "The Swarm accepts the new agreement's interpretation clause and mandatory arbitration mechanism. Conditional upon—in War Council plenary votes, The Swarm shall possess a veto weight proportional to the number of contracting parties. Military use restrictions on intelligence obtained via observer privileges shall be bounded by the signing and taking effect of the agreement; military actions executed prior to this shall not be subject to retroactive restrictions." Marcus forwarded the Overmind's complete response to the War Council, then announced the decision: "The War Council will hold a final vote on the new agreement tomorrow. If passed, all contracting parties' observer privileges will be immediately redefined according to the new terms, and the United Industrial Complex's creep pipeline data exchange interface will be reopened after being registered in the mandatory arbitration mechanism. Oldenburg, until the vote is complete, the United Fleet will maintain its local-mode defensive formation and is not permitted to enter the Blackstone Defense Line identification zone. Heinrich, repair work on the damaged orbital shipyards will continue, and the vulnerability scan report uploaded by The Swarm is to be added to the fleet's rectification agenda." Finally, he turned to the Brood Queen's translator: "Tell the Overmind that the coalition will never again let The Swarm stab us with our own privileges. The right of interpretation belongs to the council, and mandatory arbitration belongs to the old ones protocol. The Swarm is the predator, and the coalition is the legislator—this time, we write the laws, and you obey them."