"So the threat of an attack was from them," said Erse.
"However, we can't confirm any of the ships specifications. It's not from any known ship in our database."
"Considering we haven't seen them for 10 years, that's not surprising. If they were still using the same old attack ships, they'd be doomed to fail."
"So what shall we do?"
"Send the footage to the Arltian Alliance."
"They've never heeded our warning before. What makes you think they'll listen now?"
"They won't. They still think we're fooling around and faking a third enemy so we can attack them. We don't have the power to monitor their borders for them. We have enough trouble getting enough men to run all our ships."
"Even we are understaffed as it is. If they were to attack us now..."
"We'd lose because we'd only man half of the ship. The Arltian Alliance refuses to allow us to hire their people from the bordering planets. We may have the money, but it doesn't mean anything if we don't have enough men to use that money. I've got to go now. Time to report this to the rest of the fleet."
The story is being rewritten yet again at this point. Expect it to happen until kingdom come. I decided that this way of writing is awful - and it's most certainly headed in the wrong direction. I think that I've put in the sideplots too many too early, and I'm confusing readers more than I am attracting their interest to read more. Of course, arguably - this whole story is actually a sideplot to a much larger one.
Kanya might be looking at a rename, although Erse and Pandora will probably stick. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who the main characters are in the story now does it? :D
I think my methods of furthering the story are wrong. I think I've been trying too hard to further the story by summary, instead of writing in detail what I should be writing about. Expect the first chapter in a rewritten PDF form some time in the future.