93: Before the final vote on the new agreement in Chapter 93, the Queen of the Blazing Insects cast her vote in favor at the War Council.

On the day of the final vote on the new agreement, the briefing room conference table was packed with holographic projections from all parties. Marcus Aurelian sat at one end of the long table, the coffee cup in front of him already refilled three times. Bern sat on his right with the Holy Hammer, and Sebastian's power armor breastplate still bore the scratches of Zergling bone blades from the attack on the Griffin IV anchorage. Heinrich and Oldenburg attended remotely via the fleet channel, their two flagships still anchored on the periphery of the Gravity Reef Channel to maintain sector patrol. The Iyanden Farseer's Wraithbone Staff glowed with a faint blue light in the projection, Nephilak's quantum-state communication linked directly from the Solemmnace Dynasty's Core Matrix, and Canoptek-7's living metal regeneration chamber on the Metallis base ship monitored the status of the United Industrial Complex creep pipeline's data exchange interface in real time.

The Brood Queen squatted on the other side of the conference table, the replica of the Photonic Crown still resting on the table in front of her, and the newly grown Blackstone Resonance Chamber calibration interface on her adamantium-chitin carapace breathed steadily in cold green light patterns. The Overmind did not connect in person, but the Brood Queen's translator had preloaded all voting terms into the Hive Mind.

Marcus pushed the final draft of the new agreement into the holographic projection. Clause One: The right of interpretation belongs to the full vote of the Coalition War Council, and no single contracting party has the right to unilaterally interpret the agreement. Clause Two: Intelligence obtained through observer privileges shall not be used for military actions against other contracting parties. Clause Three: When a dispute cannot be resolved through voting, it will be automatically submitted to the Old Ones protocol compatibility layer quantum-state arbitration. Clause Four: The validity period of the agreement is a fixed cycle plus automatic assessment, renewal conditions are written into the main clauses, and upon expiration, it will be independently executed by the Void Throat auditing system. Clause Five: The United Industrial Complex creep pipeline data exchange interface will be reopened after filing with the mandatory arbitration mechanism, with all data flows monitored by quantum-state auditing throughout the process.

"Vote," Marcus raised his right hand. "The Imperium—in favor." Bern tapped the Holy Hammer lightly on the table, and Sebastian raised his hand in sync next to Heinrich's holographic image. Heinrich's bionic eye scanned the vote confirmation signals on the fleet channel, and he said hoarsely, "The Imperial Navy votes in favor." Oldenburg pressed the voting button at the Griffin IV anchorage, and the entire Third Assault Fleet voted in favor.

The Iyanden Farseer drew the ancient star map crest of Craftworld Iyanden in mid-air with the Wraithbone Staff. "Craftworld Iyanden votes in favor. The Web of Prophecy shows that the clause structure of this agreement is closer to the original contract format of the Old Ones than the previous one." Nephilak's quantum-state text flashed briefly in the voting column—Solemmnace Dynasty votes in favor.

The Brood Queen raised her forelimbs and attached the creep recorder to the edge of the conference table. The translator lit up, and cold green text spread across all holographic projections simultaneously: "The Zerg Swarm votes in favor. A side note—once the clause on the right of interpretation takes effect, all prior unilateral military actions of The Swarm will undergo mandatory auditing according to the new agreement's dispute arbitration mechanism. The audit results will be announced before the opening of the Void Throat's next evaluation window. The Overmind says that this time the Coalition has locked the right of interpretation into a cage, and The Swarm agrees to be locked up." Marcus signed the voting records page by page, and the War Council scribe entered the final voting results into the Coalition's shared database. The new agreement took effect immediately, and the observer privileges were restarted in sync according to the new clauses.

Heinrich sent a confirmation from the fleet channel—after the new agreement took effect, the local mode firmware of the United Fleet's Universal Void Shield Coordinator had been upgraded according to the audit patch provided by The Swarm, and the repair project for the Griffin IV orbital shipyard would be completed before the next rotation window. He said he was personally supervising the eighteen rectification items in the vulnerability scan report one by one, the first of which was to install three layers of adamantium isolation mesh at the inlet of the power bus exhaust pipe.

The Brood Queen did not go offline immediately after the vote ended. Her translator sent a point-to-point communication to Marcus alone: "After the new agreement takes effect, The Swarm will undergo auditing according to the mandatory arbitration mechanism. A side note—the Overmind says your clause on the right of interpretation is very well written. He has specially created a folder for your negotiation records in the Hive Mind, named 'How to Lock Up a Predator with Law'. Addendum: After you stop being an Inquisitor, you might want to consider writing amendments to the imperial codex." Marcus looked down at the still-warm draft in his hand, his lips twitching slightly. He then pressed the fleet channel button: the entire fleet was to maintain defensive patrol, and with the observer privileges restarted, everyone would have the right to supervise others, while also being supervised by others—the Coalition now had laws, and a cage to manage those laws.