Another day passed, and the fleet returned to base. The damaged Valkyrie had undergone partial repairs en route by the embarked female CVs, and upon reaching the base, full repairs began immediately. Idle CVs at the base also rushed over to assist.

Yang Ying entered the command center, where Kalia was already waiting.

“Sir,” Kalia greeted him as she approached.

“You’re just in time. How is the investigation into Kussen proceeding?” Yang Ying moved directly to his desk chair. As soon as he had left Kussen, he had tasked Kalia with investigating the current status of the Kussen Corps, intending to consolidate her findings with the General Staff’s opinions before making an analysis.

Kalia pulled up a chair opposite the desk, placed a file down, and said, “According to intelligence, Kussen has been in frequent contact with the other two tourist cities these past few days. We monitored several of their video conferences and have largely confirmed Miss Batches’ claims. This file contains the intelligence summary; it’s all documented there.”

Yang Ying opened the file and scanned it rapidly. Utilizing his ability to absorb pages at a glance, he finished the mere handful of pages in moments.

The document detailed the schedules of the mayors and key power figures from the three tourist cities over the preceding week, noting the time and location of their meetings with specific individuals.

Travel plans unrelated to the current matter had been excised. The existing data showed extremely frequent contact between them and envoys sent from the other two cities. Furthermore, several video conferences had been detected over the network, attended by the central figures of the three cities, and the general content of these meetings was also recorded in the file.

At this point, Kalia’s intelligence department was still in its nascent stage. Local informants needed to be bought off, intelligence stations needed to be established, and many fields required learning from scratch. Thus, the vast majority of current intelligence had to be gathered through the network. However, thanks to the existence of the supercomputer Kevin, the base’s monitoring of computer networks was potent, already surpassing the bleak beginnings of many historically famous intelligence agencies.

After reading, Yang Ying set the file down and asked Kalia, “What is your assessment? Is this alliance beneficial to us?”

“My view is that while our military strength can inflict massive destruction, that power often serves merely as a deterrent. For construction and development, we must rely on the assistance of allies. Having one more friend is always better than having one more enemy.” Kalia had clearly prepared her talking points before meeting Yang Ying.

“What about the Pirate King? If we help Kussen, we gain a friend, but provoking the Pirate King is hardly a desirable outcome,” Yang Ying noted, though he didn't think he would draw the Pirate King's attention, the possibility remained.

“I don't know what the General Staff concluded, but the Pirate King is unlikely to focus his primary attention on newcomers like us. He has too many enemies, and he is old. Most old men are nostalgic and conservative, rather dull toward novel developments.”

Yang Ying shook his head. “He is the Pirate King; he cannot be measured by the mindset of ordinary people.”

“Even so, the probability remains low. If we can help Kussen weather this storm, the benefits we will reap in the foreseeable future will surely outweigh the risks involved. Our alliance is a lifeline to the Kussen Corps. If Kussen were declared a neutral city, they would not permit a large mercenary group with superior military strength to be stationed there. The Kussen Corps would be left with the choice of relocating elsewhere or disbanding most of their personnel and being downgraded to a medium-sized mercenary group. By allying with us, they can easily obtain a network of contacts that would otherwise take over five years to build. Beyond that, other concessions will need to be fought for at the negotiation table.”

Kalia produced another document. “This is the draft alliance treaty my team and I prepared. It lists several clauses favorable to us, such as intelligence resource sharing, recruitment of peripheral personnel, and tax incentives for invested industries.”

“You mentioned intelligence sharing? I assumed you would demand they provide intelligence resources unilaterally.” Yang Ying read the treaty from beginning to end, noting that, at least on the surface, all clauses appeared mutually beneficial.

Kalia smiled. “Demanding intelligence resources unilaterally is too overbearing. Even if they accepted, it would weaken our position on other demands, as everyone has a limit to their concessions. It is much better to have intelligence sharing. Firstly, we gain access to their intelligence; secondly, we can selectively release information to influence their actions; and thirdly, we can make more demands in other areas—it’s striking three birds with one stone.”

Yang Ying pondered for a moment then asked, “Are you certain you can control them? What if they employ the same tactics regarding intelligence?”

“Sir, please trust the capabilities of the Phantom Special Agents Unit. Leave the intelligence complexities for us to negotiate with them,” Kalia declared with robust confidence.

Yang Ying nodded and smiled. “In fact, the General Staff’s opinion aligns closely with yours. We can gain assets worth far more than two billion energy ingots through this alliance. The profit of this venture outweighs the potential loss.”

“Thank you for your trust, Sir.” Seeing that the major decision was settled, Kalia started to joke. “Speaking of those two billion energy ingots, Miss Batches is quite the wealthy individual.”

“How so? Weren’t those energy ingots purchased with the Kussen Corps’ public funds?” Yang Ying’s curiosity was piqued again.

Kalia chuckled lightly. “Where would the Kussen Corps get such an amount of public funds? Kevin checked their accounts; the Kussen Corps has only two to three hundred million in liquid assets on the books, and there haven’t been any large transactions recently. Given their financial situation, accumulating twenty billion for the purchase of energy ingots would be impossible.”

Yang Ying nodded. “So, this money for the ingots truly came from Christina’s personal funds. Still, they just received a ten-billion bounty; their situation should ease up a bit.”

“Hardly. I’d wager they’ll burn through that ten billion quickly. Consider bonuses for meritorious service, compensation for casualties, recruitment and training for new personnel, and battleship maintenance and resupply—if they manage to keep a hundred million, it will be a lot. If tourist casualties were covered by insurance companies, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Kussen Corps went bankrupt from compensation alone,” Kalia shrugged, appearing unconcerned.

The two chatted a while longer before Kalia returned to her work.

In the days Yang Ying was away, thanks to the diligent labor of numerous CVs, the second layer had also been excavated. It boasted a space even broader than the first layer. Yang Ying summoned over twenty more structures from his pocket dimension and settled them into the second level.

The reception hosted by the Terran Mercenary Group would take place the night after tomorrow at the Grey Port Crown Hotel.