The recording ended abruptly with the sound of a hull breach and the chilling screech of a Shadow vessel. Garibaldi realized that if this file went public, the fragile peace between Earth and the Interstellar Alliance would shatter before the day was out. The Choice

Aboard the Earth Alliance station , the air in the Zocalo was thick with the scent of Pak'ma'ra delicacies and the low hum of a hundred different languages. Somewhere in the deep archives of the station's security grid, a single file— b5_085.mp4 —sat waiting to be decrypted. The Discovery

Maintaining a lie to keep the peace while the conspirators remained in the shadows.

The footage showed a high-ranking EarthForce officer—someone long thought dead at the Battle of the Line—standing alongside a Shadow agent. They weren't captives; they were collaborating. The audio was distorted, but the words "Project Lazarus" and "Mars Colony" were unmistakable.