The foreign ministries were faring even worse.
A classified briefing crossed a European foreign minister's desk, marked with the crimson flag reserved for matters of supreme state security. A non-state actor was now actively recruiting, vetting, transporting, and housing the minister's own nationals, physically removing them from the planet, under contracts governed by that actor alone.
Nova's background assessment, the briefing noted with deep concern, appeared to rival the analytical depth of a national intelligence service. The government would have no formal record of who among its citizens was on that station, what non-disclosure agreements they had signed, or what sovereign rights they had agreed to waive.
The minister read the line about jurisdiction twice—not subject to the laws of any jurisdiction—and looked up at his assembled aides, asking what leverage they held.
