See also: story lines summary page.

The covert ops line eventually allows you to either split apart the Antigone and the Argon, or unify them against the Terrans in direct war. You can also choose to leave all relations as-is, if neither of those options seems useful to you.

Amongst the Argon

Talk to Saman Red, discover that it’s a trap, counter-espionage. Escape and begin working on a new plan.

Aquire the materials needed, and proceed to the station. Hack the repair terminal, and then you’ll be waked through the process of creating a problem for maintenance to come fix by using an EMP bomb from your spacesuit.

Wait in your ship, near the station, for a repair ship to arrive.

Begin following the target ship once it arrives.

The ship will occasionally drop satellites, and if you fly into range of them the mission will be blown and you’ll have to start again. Activate mission guidance so you always know where the target ship is, and stay well behind it.

Unlike other “follow” missions, you don’t need or want to follow close here. You can stay more than 50-100 km back, and probably should to avoid being in range when a satellite drops.

When the ship goes through a gate, don’t be too fast to follow — you don’t want to come out on top of it. You can also use Travel drive to get ahead of it, since it’s traveling from gate-to-gate through sectors to reach the final destination. Dropping well below the ecliptic and paralleling their course is also a strategy that works.

If the maintenance ship you’re following gets destroyed, Covert Ops will comm you and tell you they picked up a transmission that tells you where it’s going (useful, since the general area might be swarmed with Xenon).

Dock with the indicated station.

This will end up a dead end until the Terran secret service can work out a plan to get you in.

In the mean time, you get two large tasks to take care of, which will show up under Covert Operations at the top of your mission briefings screen:

1. Operation Hyena
2. Operation Draco

For this. you need to be able to buy an M ship from ANT and need to be able to build a station in Terran space.

Operation Draco

You need to be able to buy a Minotaur Sentinel (not Vanguard) from the Antigone, so if their Wharf has been destroyed you will have a problem. [Editorial note: if this happens, hope the wharf is or will-be rebuilt somewhere, or there’s no way to complete the mission except by buying the appropriate blueprints and building the ship yourself at a wharf you own.]

Beyond that, this is just a matter of buying the ship with the necessary equipment and the necessary cargo (don’t forget the cargo!) and flying it to the delivery point. At that point the ship will be removed from your control, and you’ll get… nothing. You won’t even get paid for the ship.

Operation Hyena

You need to construct a station in argon space. You also need to use an argon storage module, though the rest of the components are generic. Note that when the mission is done the station will not be transferred to the Argon; you’ll retain ownership and responsibility for it. This isn’t “build a station for the Argon.” Instead it’s “build a station to compete with the argon, and take their sales.”

The station building itself is just like any other station. Just make sure that (a) you buy the plot in the exact position and the exact size specified, and (b) you build the appropriate modules exactly as specified (as noted, the storage module has to be an Argon L container, not any other variant).

Once the station is built, you’ll receive a message from Dal about it, but you aren’t done yet. The two additional requirements are:

• You have to set the sale price of Hull Parts exactly as specified using fixed-price
• You have to actually produce some hull parts (so you need the inputs to run the factory through at least one cycle)

It helps speed things up if you set the Storage module as the first item, and one of the Hull Parts modules as last. That way you can be delivering supplies quickly, and have the first Hull Parts module cranking while the second finishes building.

There will be a final message from Dal, then you’ll be contacted by Delilah Shiratori again.

After that, the mission is done and you can completely dismantle the station and remove the parts from Build Storage to use somewhere else if you don’t have the logistics (or interest) to run the station for the Argon.

As a reward for your time and trouble you get… Nothing.

Operation Smoke and Mirrors

Your Terran friend now requires you to fly to a random ship in Antigone space and join a meeting of the “team”. You’ll need an S-size ship to dock here, since the target ship is moving too fast to reach in your space suit.

Listen to the briefing, and you get a new assignment.

Fly back to the Antigone station, and wait.

Your choice now is between a fast ship that can get in and dock quickly, vs a ship that can take a few hits but is slower to dock. You may want to send two ships, in case you change your mind about which to use.

Save now.

When prompted, fly in and dock. Don’t get killed. There are a bunch of now hostile ships at the station. Avoid the destroyers, and take your time to get to the dock if you need to circle around for a safe approach. If you’re unlucky, the station will be a defense platform with an open dock where everyone can shoot at you as you try to land.

Also: once you land, act quickly. With game mods installed to increase difficulty, it’s very possible for the dock to be destroyed with your ship still in it it.

Once you’re done, get out alive. Get a safe distance from the station.

Final Debrief

Return to your HQ and talk to Dal. He’ll lay out three options:

1. Give the intelligence to the Terrans, getting paid and sowing distrust between ANT and ARG.
2. Inform the Antigone about the Terran interference, resulting in ANT-ARG going to war with the Terrans.
3. Destroy the evidence, leaving things as-is and not getting paid.

If you choose the option to side with ANT, you may want to have some firepower (a destroyer maybe, or a solid M-ship at the least) pre-positioned in Second Contact II in case things get ugly (they will). Save before heading to the meeting, in case you badly underestimate the firepower you need.

Make your choice, let things play out.

This is the end of the story line. Note that it may take a while for notice about the effects to come in.