The meeting in the Triad's war-room stretched out into a span of hours. The focus turned onto the spring campaign, and it was here that Jonas suddenly seemed to come alive after a brief coma.
"Any news from Nodoria?" he asked.
"None" Tanya answered "The UED is not making any undue preparations"
One of the Triad's biggest problems was that Elysium had no startport capabilities. It had long ago been agreed that their first priority for the spring was to move quickly and take the Nodorian shipyards to the north. It would be an obvious move that anyone should deduce and Jonas was amazed that the UED were not reinforcing their stations there.
But Tanya's next words interrupted his thoughts.
"There has been some unusual traffic just to the north however. A trade carrier with one of our agent on board chanced on a large caravan fifty miles from Nodoria. They do not respond to radio transmissions in any way and there's no reason why they should risk traveling in winter. It doesn't add up"
"How big is this caravan?" Ados asked
"Two, maybe three hundred people and quite a load of supplies which we know nothing of"
"Are they UED?" Jonas asked
"No, they use encrypted transmissions and they are not communicating with the Nodorian stations at all. There's something sinister about all this"
"Who do they communicate with?" Ados asked.
"All of their transmissions are to and from Boralis"
"So that makes them UED" Jonas stated "They don't want us to know they're reinforcing Nodoria, so they sneak a caravan in there in the middle of winter. It's obvious"
Tanya shook her head
"The UED knows nothing about it. Otherwise they would be sending encrypted messages to Nodoria as well and nobody in Nodoria even knows they're there. The only transmissions we detected were the ones to and from Boralis"
But Jonas had made up his mind,
"Look, obviously they're going to extraordinary lengths to hide themselves from us. That's what I would expect from the UED. They know we're going to attack the shipyards, so they're preparing a convoluted little surprise for us. What makes you think otherwise?"
Tanya looked around the table. With a trace of timidness she spoke.
"I understand your viewpoint Jonas, but I just feel that's not how it is"
Jonas did not respond. Instead he looked at Ados who instantly registered the look in his comrade's stare
You're the one with faith in Ghosts, you deal with this
Tanya saw this but continued.
"They're not communicating with the UED. There's something happening in Boralis - its – just – it's moving in strange ways that I haven't quite figured out"
Ados was secretly forced to agree: his intelligence reports revealed that a nebulous tension was rising around the capital city: The UED was having some trouble with the populace. There was no open rebellion yet but large numbers of civil officers were being assassinated for unknown reasons and by unknown agencies. Nightime traffic was also increasing and underground activities seemed to be swelling up, moving with an unknown purpose. Jonas spoke out abruptly
"Well, whatever's going on there, there's nothing can do about. We can worry about Boralis when we get to it"
But Ados was not inclined to treat Tanya's observation as moot. He knew about the strange energies of ghosts. He also knew that Tanya would not have raised the issue if she didn't think it was worth their concern. Somehow the idea bothered Ados. It was as though he had forgotten something crucial.
Without further comment he closed the meeting and left the room, beckoning Tanya to walk with him.
As the rest of the group got up to leave, Jonas and Pery glanced at each other with a knowing look. Their comrade had obviously realized something that he would not reveal to them until he had paced around in his quarters for hours and arrived at an answer. That was Ados. They left the room together in search of a drink, and quickly forgot his abruptness. After all, it was one of Ados' traits that made them glad that he was on their side.
But in his quarters, Ados turned his mind to Boralis, unable to reason away his unease.