"If you're right we're only wasting time here" said Yutan.

For some reason, we didn't go to a conference room to talk, we all stayed on the bridge. After coming back from the meeting with the Rafkins, Valtair claimed to be debriefed about it as I was just one of her soldiers.

"First" said the captain "I want to understand why you say they're lying"

To me, it was quite obvious, I don't know why. Probably the encounter with the heereen gave me a different perspective on the situation. "It's all wrong. They talked about three ships attacking, but I suspect we already saw all the marauders fleet and considering the two vessels taken down, I think there's only one of them out there. The strategy used, the ambush, is too rude when you can count on a device that makes you disappear. Finally, i think that if they had a weapon so powerful, they would use it in our first encounter, with the heereen ship on target, not in the middle of nowhere against a ship from a race they don't know"

Cassandra was the most puzzled about my theory despite she was with me at the meeting. I was sure about my deductions, but she said something right. "What if you... don't trust the Rafkin for what they did and you think they're lying just because of that?"

Valtair sided her "Good point for me"

"Are you saying we should trust them? After what happened?"

"You trusted Jeremhia, don't you?"

"Yes" I answered, too fast for a diplomat "but he's dead!"

"And this is the problem" Cassandra made her point nearly whispering, probably trying not to hurt me.

Yutan was a stone mask, not speaking, but I knew his strict Teculpa mind was already blaming me about losing focus just for a dead friend. I felt myself surrounded, still sure about my beliefs, but not strong enough to make others understand them. I tried to reach a truce. "Just keep in mind that what they said could be... manipulated"

"That's not the point at all" The Teculpa took back his primary target "Whatever happened we should leave this place and reach the planet! That's the mission!"

"We can't do that!" That was something I had a clearer vision about. "Something happened there, we need intel before drifting in. What if it's just a trap? Bigger and worse than this one?"

"There're no communications between here and the planet" said Cassandra "so we can't retrieve intel". I looked at her and she rapidly understand "unless... you think that's a lie too"

"The Queen Charlotte is catching signals that we can't decrypt" added Valtair "It could be a message or it could be just noise, we can't say"

"That seems like a dead end to me" said Yutan, still trying to push for a bold approach to the situation.

"Well, we could hack the Sot'Quan" Valtair said those words with a vicious light in her eyes.

"It sounds crazy"

Rafkins are the best engeneers of all the universe, but their computers are... well... clumsy. It's like they didn't started considering a big central unit for their massive spaceship... they just join little units hoping they can work together. At least the whole patchwork is able to manage the data, but working with it is like... roaming in a labyrinth. This makes the system impenetrable and vulnerable at the same time. 

"They'll never let us come so near to their systems to do something like that"

"They will"

Sot'quan was displayed on a big screen. Valtair raised from her chair and put an hand on the image, on the wound caused by the torpedo . "This area is full of loosy connectors that the Rafkins didn't block. And considering all the mess around here we can approach it just with an EVO suit, undetected. Finding something useful could be matter of minutes.

"This thing is sneaky and coward" said Yutan.

"That's a good way to do things" I stated.