[Xiomera]

The menacing of Lauchenoirian ships by a Xiomeran fleet was just one way that the Xiomerans intended to ratchet up pressure on Lauchenoiria. Empress Calhualyana fully intended to keep the promise she had made to herself to gain a measure of revenge on Josephine Alvarez. And she had plans within plans to do so.

She also had a very useful person at her disposal to help her with that goal: Gabriel Fleming.

The former Lauchenoirian agent had since become a very eager and willing employee of Imperial Intelligence. And he had his own reasons for wanting revenge against Alvarez and Lauchenoiria. The two of them had sat down, over a pleasant lunch at the Palace of Flowers, and come up with a plan to try to sow additional trouble for Alvarez.

The recent split between the Green-Pacifist Alliance and the Liberal Party had provided an opportunity. The whole debacle was threatening to bring down Alvarez's government. Calhualyana had mused to Fleming that it was a peculiar and particular weakness of democratic governments that they had ever so many parties and coalitions to please in order to function, unlike the streamlined totalitarian efficiency that was Xiomera and the XCP. Fleming had agreed and posed his own observation to the Empress: this was something Xiomera could exploit.

Imperial Intelligence's cyberwarfare division was thus engaged in a disinformation campaign. They began flooding Lauchenoirian social media and print media with carefully organized and planted output meant to exacerbate the tensions between the Green-Pacifist Alliance and the Liberal Party. Posts in which "party loyalists" criticized each others' positions, mocked and insulted each other, questioned Alvarez's morals and intentions, and criticized the risks of openly confronting Xiomera would quickly become the highest-trending content in Lauchenoiria. Accusations of being "communist agents" would also be thrown in here and there, to capitalize on the country's ongoing trauma following its civil war.

The content was beautifully orchestrated to appear totally organic, and fully intended to raise the temperature between the two political movements so high that a collapse of Alvarez's government would be inevitable. Fleming's inside knowledge of Lauchenoirian politics and society would prove invaluable to making the campaign highly convincing (and much easier to hide its origins).

Even if the disinformation campaign failed to bring down the government of Lauchenoiria, it would inevitably create massive political fires that Alvarez and her team would have to spend plenty of time putting out, and make the unwieldy coalition governing the country even more difficult to keep together. The time and frustration that this would cause Alvarez alone was well worth the effort to Calhualyana. This was, after all, simply the first phase.

The time Alvarez would have to waste keeping her coalition government together - if she even could - would also distract Lauchenoiria from its efforts in Auria. That served Xiomera quite well. And if the operation achieved its wildest dream - the collapse of Alvarez's government - Lauchenoiria could well withdraw from Auria altogether if a more pacifist government took over. If that happened, Calhualyana could, someday, possibly gift her new son with an Auria that was essentially a Xiomeran colony. Quite the birthday present.

The fact that this operation represented massive interference with Lauchenoirian society, and could lead to disastrous consequences for the country, was of no consequence to Calhualyana. After all, by her reasoning, Alvarez had chosen to interfere with Xiomeran affairs that were none of her concern. The Empress was more than happy to return the favor.