The unauthorized clash near the Singapore perimeter turned out, mercifully, to end without a death. Volkov's unit had fired on a cooperative entity patrol before command even knew the confrontation was happening; the entity had absorbed the shots without retaliating, exactly the kind of restraint Lv428 had shown months earlier, and Rodriguez had the unit in custody within the hour. No casualties. But the message was unmistakable: the compromise from three nights ago was already fraying at the edges, and the Coalition needed a real, formal decision, not a patched-together deal reached in a late-night negotiation.
Three days after the Timeline Custodian completed its upgrade, the Coalition council convened in emergency session to settle the question for good.
