The Edenian-China oil transfer agreement was signed within a week, after all the kinks in the clauses had been ironed out. During that time, the Edenian Minister of the Exterior, Gabriel de los Estrada, had toured the country and presented his diplomatic credentials to Chinese President Zi Jinping, officially opening an Edenian embassy in Beijing. He had also opened new topics of discussion, setting a foundation for future cooperation between the two nations. The Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, had done the same, but his interests differed from Gabriel's.

Where Gabriel was interested in raw materials, especially wanting to tap into China's extensive deposits of minerals that, to his knowledge, were lacking in Eden and Esparia, Wang Yi was more interested in buying a batch of weapons and technology transfers. But Gabriel countered that by using ARES and GAIA as shields; he couldn't make the call on behalf of the government, since the things China wanted were property, intellectual and otherwise, of privately owned companies.

Thus, he merely promised that he would do his best in order to facilitate the Chinese requests. Both men knew it was an empty promise, because Gabriel had neither the authority nor the power to make the decisions on his own.

Immediately after the ink was dry on the agreement, a timer had started on Eden's first oil delivery. It was set to take place in three weeks, so the idling oil pumps were spun up to full capacity and Aron's behemoth industrial chain slowly began moving. It started by printing seven camouflaged ships, which looked like oil supertankers but were submersibleHephaestus class oil tankers. They had to be submersible, as they were printed at the bottom of the ocean and only surfaced when Nova ensured Aron that there were no satellites with viewing angles covering Eden, giving them a window to hide their activities.

He wasn't completely ready to step out of the shadows yet, after all; there was still groundwork to be laid.

Once the massive supertankers were ready, they moved to the offshore rigs and were filled by the high-capacity high-flow pipes, both from the storage tanks on the oil rigs and directly from the pumps that had been sunk into the seafloor when the platform was built.

Soon after that, Edenian Naval Command in Elysium received orders and went to work printing the Merchant Marine fleet. A Thor flagship class heavy cruiser, two Thor class cruisersone missile boat and one air defense boatfour Heimdall seek-and-destroy class destroyers, and a dozen Njord interdiction class frigates were soon printed, crewed, and sent to the offshore oil rigs to meet the supertankers they would be escorting. Neither Aron nor Nova would leave anything to chance with this first, and most important, oil transit.

Although three weeks was a very short time for pumping oil and delivering it, the Edenians had still agreed to China's demand. Gabriel had tried negotiating for a longer time frame for the first delivery, but Minister Wang had grown somewhat cold and took a hard line stance, leading the Edenian minister somewhat confused. They had started out getting along quite well, and he didn't understand what could have caused the sudden cooling of their working relationship.

He turned to one of his female staffers, who only he knew was actually a Nyx agent, and in a low voice, said, "Find out what happened. Someone's trying to ruin this deal for us, and I need to know who."

If Eden was delayed in their delivery, they would have to pay compensation in the amount that China would have paid for on-time delivery of the crude. The oil would also be given to China for free in that case; the terms of the agreement were clear on that clause.

The undercover Nyx agent nodded and her expression went blank for a moment as she tasked her assistant AI with the investigation. It would be best if she didn't have to make a move personally, but if it came to that, she would be ready.

After all, a deal worth 130 billion USD absolutely needed to go smoothly; she understood that fact very well.

...

"Are you going to do something about it?" Rina said as she read the email that Sarah had forwarded to Aron and her.

"No, I'm going to let them do it. I want to see exactly what they have up their sleeves," Aron said. His hand slipped into Rina's bra through the neck of her t-shirt and began massaging her generous chest.

"You really like to let people build up to their highest point before you throw them down, don't you?" Rina said as she tried to slap Aron's playful hand away and failed. She barely stopped herself from moaning.

"No, this time it isn't just due to that. It's more that they might be doing something that'll be beneficial to me in the future. As they say, 'You meet your fate on the way to avoid it'. So I hope their attempt to survive will lead to something beneficial for me. And who knows? It might even expedite some of my plans," he said as he pinched Rina's rapidly hardening nipple.

"Why not just send your agents to investigate what they're doing, or even have Nova hack them so she can listen to them. Ahh.." she moaned before she could finish her question.

"Nyx agents aren't infinite in number, and most are already tasked with other important tasks. So I don't have any to send right now. As for Nova hacking them, they're tech companies and very well know that anything they have that's important absolutely must be kept air gapped to avoid hackers. Nobody knows better than people in the tech sector that there is no such thing as a truly secure network." He smirked and slid his other hand under the hem of Rina's shirt, teasing her bellybutton. "Except for mine, that is," he finished.

"Besides, all we have to do is just wait for them to make their move and respond. If I can't win a fight with them with all of this at my fingertips, then I don't deserve what I already have."

He tilted his head and captured Rina's lips with his, kissing her hard and deep. She returned the kiss and her hands began wandering as well; his teasing had already riled her up and she was dripping and ready to go.